leaves falling

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Happy Holidays!

I am well behind on the whole blog. I have basically dumped pictures in from the last 3 months (October- December 2012).  We have had so much fun at the end of the year with all the Holidays we love to celebrate! The kids are getting so big. Aubrey is 3 1/2 and Liam is 14months and Baby #3 is on the way and due the middle of May 3013! We are so excited about what the New Year has in store for us. Hopefully we can close on our first home. The home searching process has been a long and exhausting process so hopefully it will end soon. Anyways, I hope you enjoy all the pictures as I give you a little description of each.

 Aubrey Plays Soccer!
 Miss A enjoyed her first year playing soccer. In the beginning it was rough. She wouldn't even walk on the field. Eventually she would go out if she was hold either Wade or I's hand. However, in the end she was running up and down that field and even kicked the ball once or twice. Most of the time you would find her and Brenton holding hands. We counted the two of them as 1 player.

Happy Halloween!

 This is a picture of one of our many Halloween parties. We were scheduled to go to a party and we got the date mixed up so when we arrived with the kids in all their attire and no party, we decided to move it to our house. We had a parade around my house, a dance party, face painting, spooky stories, and yummy snacks and games. We ended up having a really great time. 

 Our tradition each year is to go to our favorite "Sweet Apple Farm" and pick pumpkins, see/feed the animals and go through the corn maze. We ditched our map and decided to go on our own because it would be "too easy." We ended up getting super lost and were excited when we saw the end (well actually we came out the entrance). 
 
 Liam and Aubrey milking the fake cow! 

 My proud babies and their adorable pumpkins they picked themselves. 

Liam turns 1!
 We had a Mustache themed birthday party for our Little Man. I made him a shirt that said, "If you MUSTACHE, it's my birthday" and everyone wore their customized mustache. We also had a mustache cake, and I even hand made mustache plates and cups. It was a fun party!
 All the party guests with their Mustache's on

 Mommy and Aubrey 


Christmas Celebrations!
 Another favorite tradition of ours is to go to a little colonial fort called "Fort New Salem"
Aubrey got to decorate her own gingerbread man in the tavern. 

 She made her own candle by dipping her wick again and again in wax. 

 Liam enjoyed eating the cookies and watching Aubrey work. 
They also had caroling around a tree as they lit it with real candles. It was so much fun to go to each workshop and learn about the culture of Christmas in that time period. 


 Poor Liam at least made it a whole year before he was forced to play princess' with his big sister. 

 Aubrey and Liam sitting on Santa's lap after one of our county parades. They got to sit on Santa's lap over 6 times this year. No wonder Santa new exactly what they wanted. 

 We went to a festival of trees that had numerous themed trees. However, Aubrey's favorite was the little "Hello Kitty" tree.

 One morning we got up early and went to the State Park to have breakfast with Santa. Aubrey and Liam got to sit on Santa's lap several time this day while we were there. 

 Liam was having a difficult morning so Mrs. Clause stood up and came over to cheer him up. He absolutely LOVED it and so did Aubrey!

Our First real Snowy Day!
 We were gone all day Christmas shopping, house hunting, and going to the baby doctor. We promised Aubrey no matter what time it was when we got home we could play in the snow. 

 Three little Eskimos 

We took Liam out one time last year but he was so little. This year was his first real play time in the snow. He Loved/ Hated it.  His gloves kept popping off and he would get a fist full of snow and it would make him so mad.  He and I quit a little early. 

 
 Aubrey and Daddy stayed out a little longer to add the finishing touches onto their adorable "Sammy the Snowman"

Christmas Eve!
 All the adorable kiddies dressed up and performed the First Christmas for the adults to watch. 

 Next, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and cousin Sarah found the nut. Afterwards we bundled up and went Christmas Caroling on Gma and Pops road. It was so much fun. 

After all the cousins went home and the house got quiet, we stayed the night and got settled in.
 Pop helped Aubrey hang her stocking from the chimney with care!

 Grandma helped her little buddy Liam hang his stocking too!

 My two little Christmas Angels. 

Christmas Morning Magic!
 Liam surprised to see all the presents wrapped under the tree. 

 Aubrey had such a hard time containing her excitement. She was so excited! She immediately started unwrapping the presents. We had to remind her several times that we had to read the label to see who it was for before we opened them all. I was so proud of how grateful she was. She would say things like, "Thanks Dad, You're the BEST!" or just randomly come up to me and hug me around the neck and say, "Thank you so much, this is the best Christmas EVER!" It made it all so worth it!
 
 All the stocking were full with Christmas Goodies!

 All the presents under the tree. 

 Even though our Little Man can't talk yet, he sure showed his appreciation as well. As soon as he was given his Elephant, he hugged it close to his face and laid down on the floor on top of it. Melted my heart!


Merry Christmas from our Family of 5 to yours!
A day or two after Christmas, we announced that baby #3 will be joining our family this coming May. We are so excited. I am actually 20 weeks already. We tried to keep it a secret until we had our first appointment but it was pretty difficult since I didn't go to the Dr. until I was already 19 weeks. We had an ultrasound and all looks good and healthy. We decided to NOT find out the gender. It was really hard especially when the technician kept asking, "Are you sure you don't want to know? I have it right here." She kept teasing us and would scroll around the legs and say, "I can show you right now." We held our ground though and will be surprised in May! Aubrey is hoping for a girl super bad.  Anyways, we hope you all had a Merry Christmas and we wish you a Happy New Year! We love and miss you all!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Recent Quotes by Little mess Aubrey:  

1: " Sometimes I think I'm genius!"

2:: While Wade was away for work, Aubrey was crying for him and missing him when it was time for bed. I tried consoling her and she responded in a pitiful reply, "But every time I think about him it hurts." This made my heart melt and made me cry too.



3: I painted Aubrey's face like a witches with some old Halloween face paint. Then she made some of her own adjustments and was loving her new look. However, the paint was getting all over everything because it was caked on her face very thick. I put her in the tub and she was refusing to wash her face. I tried persuading her by saying, "but I love your Aubrey face and I will miss it.", without any pause she replies, "Don't worry Mommy, even if I look like a witch, I will still be your sweet Aubrey." How do you respond to that one?







                                                                                                   Poor Liam got his face painted as well by his lovely big sister.                                                                                                            I love the look on his face in this picture. He looks like                                                                                               like he thinks this face painting stuff is completely ridiculous.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Summer kick off 2012

We have kicked off our summer by going camping & boating for 4 weeks in a row now. Soon, we will be headed to Utah and Idaho to visit our family and friends. Since Liam was born we have had a lot of stress in our lives but as of a few weeks ago, our stress has disappeared and so many blessings are headed our way. For instance, Wade just got a new job! I am so excited for him and proud of him. His teaching job was a good one and he loved the people he worked with, but when this new opportunity arose, he had to take it. He will now be working for UNOh as a recruiter for the automotive department. That along with many other little things are really making us feel blessed.
Our babies are growing up so fast and it's hard to believe Aubrey will be three next month and Liam is already over 1/2 a year old. They bring us so much joy every single day. Aubrey knows so much and baffles us every day at the silly and incredibly smart things she says. She uses the words like fragile and artificial often. When she learns a new word she is so proud of herself and has to practice it. She loves the movie Tangled and likes to watch it daily. She makes her mommy and daddy so proud of her with how crazy fun she is. She loves camping in the "temple". When setting up our tent last year, she heard us say "tent pole" and thought we said temple. Now whenever she sings "I Love to See the Temple." we know what she is really in visioning. In addition, she is an awesome boating girl! She is so relaxed while on the boat that often times, she falls asleep. But when she is not sleeping, she is tubing with "no hands" ( and daddy doesn't go that easy on her either). Last week she and I were both thrown from the tube and she just laughed and laughed about it. Swimming with her noodle is another favorite of hers. Last week the proudest moment for daddy was when she let him take her knee boarding and she loved it! She is such a fun little girl and we love having her spice up our life!
Liam too, is growing up so fast. That tiny little 6lb 14oz baby has turned into the cutest little butter ball you could imagine. He is such a happy little boy. If you even give him the slightest bit of attention, he will light up with the biggest smile imaginable. He has masters the army crawl about 3 weeks ago and is getting into everything. He loves eating dirt, grass, and sand which have all been in his access since we have been camping regularly. The other day I found sand in his dirty diaper-poor boy. He loves his big sister so much, if there is one thing that can guarantee a laugh from him it would be her. He is about ready to sprout his two bottom teeth and like to chew on anything hard and dangerous which keeps mommy on her toes. We love his little personality so much and love the awesomeness he adds to our family.
I feel like our family is like a yummy cookie recipe. When it was just Wade and I, we're were like the plain dough, sweet and yummy. When Aubrey came along it was liking adding the chocolate chips. Now that Liam is here we added the yummy walnuts. Now are cookies are really yummy! I love my little family and I am proud of each of them!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

December 2011 & Christmas

Imagination Library

We kicked off December by going to Imagination Library created by Dolly Parton. No, Dolly wasn't there. She organized this program for children 0-5 years old to receive free books in the mail every month. This was the kick off party. There were crafts, balloon animals, face paintings and snacks! It was so much fun. Liam even won a build-a-bear. What a lucky kid, only 4 weeks old and already winning drawings.

Can you tell what Aubrey was?

Fort New Salem Christmas Celebration
This man was the Belsnickle, very similar to Santa Claus in the colonial days. He'd walk around the fort and either give candy to the good children or switches to the bad children. Even as scary as the man looked, Aubrey and her cousins were eager to take candy from this stranger.... I guess it's time to talk about taking candy from strangers.

The kids posing in front of this modest Christmas tree in one of the shops.

In the center of the Fort, they have a large pine tree that they light with real candles as a choir and the crowd join together in singing Christmas Carols.

Aubrey got in trouble just before leaving and she had to stick her head and hands in the shackles.

Time to Decorate the Tree!
While Daddy was at a meeting, the kids and I worked on decorating the Christmas tree. We were too excited and couldn't wait.

Aubrey did an amazing job decorating the tree this year! She new that if she put all the ornaments at her level then it would be off balance so she had me lift her high to get the top too.

One Sunday evening, we walked around the park with Emily and Chris's family and got in the Christmas spirit with all the pretty lights. A few weeks later, we went Christmas caroling to the houses near the park and we really enjoyed ourselves as our audiences were kind, funny, excited and even a few scrooges. It was still very fun and entertaining.

With the rainy weather, we have spent a lot of time indoors creating and playing with these cute kiddos. In the above picture, they are pretending to be wonderpets in their newly constructed fly-boat. They even had a fain to propel their contraption.


This is one of our many crafts (a snow globe made with baby food jars and little figurines)

More time with Santa this was the 3rd out of 4 times of sitting on this guys lap.

More time playing indoors.... painting the bathtub with colored shave cream.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!
Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera out for the earlier part of the evening when we did the Nativity Pageant, Birthday cake for Jesus, or our Christmas Caroling. Aubrey was the Angel and Liam had the star roll as Baby Jesus. Their cousin Aleigha was Mary, Brenton was Joseph... and their older boy cousins and daddy were the wise men/Sheppards. They did amazing! Neither Aubrey or Liam got out of character the whole play.

Later that evening, we got to each open one gift... Aubrey got a book from grandma and pop. Liam got a new handsome looking polo shirt.

Next they hung the stocking from the chimney with care with a little help from Daddy of course.

We forgot our handmade stocking at our house so Grandma and Pop sacrificed theirs for the kiddos. Santa stuffed theirs and ours in Christmas hats and toy sleds instead.


Last but not least, Aubrey left milk and cookies and a special note for Santa.
Then off to bed it was for the kiddos and Mommy and Daddy of course!

The Christmas tree after Santa came! It was so beautiful and magical too.


Before even making it out of bed Christmas morning, Aubrey started vomiting.... It wouldn't be the holidays without a little sickness, right?
However, she mustered up the energy to be excited about her first few gifts. Especially the rocking horse!

This was probably the last smile we saw Christmas morning.... She started feeling sick again so this scene soon turned into.............

...... this sad, sad scene; but this scene soon ended too when all energy was lost and quickly turned into.........................................

..................... this scene, when finally she was able to get some rest from all her suffering..................but need not fear, because when Mommy and Liam came home from church this pitiful little girl turned right back into.......................................

............................ this beautiful, vivacious little princess (especially when she woke up to find more presents waiting to be opened that she didn't have the energy to open up earlier in the day.)

This picture shows how much better she was feeling by then end of the day. She was feeling so good she felt confident enough to catch Daddy in mid air!

Liam too, got many presents on Christmas, but he opened them so fast we didn't get any pictures of him. His favorite gift was a new set of hair. He's been complaining about how bald he is so Santa got him a little Rogain! The best part is that it is guaranteed to last even through his 20's which is amazing given the track record of his Daddy and his Uncles.

Mommy and Liam were the only ones who got to dress up in our Christmas clothes because Daddy and Aubrey got to stay home and missed out on church.

Liam has become quite the smiler and talker these days. If you give him even just a few minutes of attention, he will offer you smiles and goos and gaas. He is so fun, just like Aubrey!

Liam with his girlfriend Maddie.... She is obviously and Princess and he is to surprise a Car head!

We hope you all had a wonderful December and especially Christmas! Now I am only 8 days behind on blogging! I am getting so close to being caught up! Stay tuned in to see how we celebrated the New Year!