It's a Party!!

Nearly everyday the girls throw a party. This means that every blanket and pillow in the house is draped over one of the girls' beds. Then a variety of stuffed animals, dress-ups, and whatever else they are in the mood for ends up piled as high as they can get them. Then they sit on the bed and tell stories, play games, and giggle. Ashley always includes Justin in this. Now he asks, "upstairs, party?" to Ashley. He loves being involved in this kind of stuff. They are cute kids. They play so well together and have endured the endless hours of being home amazingly. I am grateful.

Mia just might be the happiest baby around. She loves to smile and has started cooing. She is getting big way too fast. I love babies. We're excited to drive to Utah tomorrow and show her off. It is 50 and sunny here today, but we hear a storm is coming. I'm not brave enough to cross Wyoming in a storm, but all of our presents went home with Melanie and Jeff so we need to make it there before Christmas. Hopefully we make it quickly and safely. I am busy packing today and getting everything taken care of. It's quite a bit of stuff for a family of 6.

Another shout out for the Odyssey to hold it all.

Santa Crafts

The girls are very into crafts. The joy of crafts never ends. I am amazed at Ashley's creative side and I admire Katelyn for her ability to concentrate on something for so long. She can outlast me, and she's 3. Ashley built an entire jungle gym out of paper for her little dog toy. It was so great. And she made a crab out of a pie tin, complete with bendy legs and eyes that stick up. Yesterday she made a ladybug that actually looked like a lady bug. It was the same size and quite the accomplishment. Today we did some more santa hat ornaments. The girls love these. They get to trace their hands, cut them out, and then glue all the peices on. They can do these without any direction. Ashley is upset that the cheeks on hers aren't under the moustache (my fault, since I told her to do the moustache (is that how you spell that?) first. I'm grateful that today's craft didn't cover the kitchen floor in glitter, but the glitter snowflake crafts are quite fun as well. If you look closely you can see that the girls did their own names, with the date. We have these from last year as well. Ashley is great, but I was impressed with Katelyn for writing her own name, even though it's backwards. They are in their leotards, since we had gymnastics today. It was quite exciting since Mia pooped through her outfit and Justin spilled the graham crackers and then make nice little crumbs out of them. I make quite the spectacle wherever I go. I get this, "Wow, you have your hands full" everytime I go anywhere, and I mean anywhere, even church. This is a personal favorite, "Wow, are all of those yours?" To which I nearly always reply, "Why in the world would I be in Walmart (or insert other store name) with this many small, crying children, if they weren't mine?" If I'm in a better mood, I smile and explain how lucky I am. Which I am. Just not when I am in walmart. That place makes me irritable.

Justin

Justin is too young to be talking like he does. For example, this morning our conversation is as follows:

Justin: "The fish died."
Me: "The fish died? Really? Are you sure?"
Justin: "I don't know." Which I love to hear him say. He says it like this, "I nun know."

Later in this morning to Hans:

Justin: "Knock. Knock" (And this is annunciated perfectly)
Hans: "Who's there?"
Justin: "Orange."
Hans: "Orange who?"
Justin: "Banana." This followed by lots of laughter.

What 20 month old does this? I love that he can talk. It's quite funny.

Katelyn is also quite advanced for her age. (It's my blog, so I'm allowed to brag) Her pre-school teacher says she hasn't seen a child quite so ahead of her age. She can write her name, speak perfectly, and carry on complete conversations. She's been doing this since she was barely 2. Lots of the kids her age still don't do this. I guess that is more normal. She started going to Ashley's CTR-5 class with her since nursery is filled with babies. (Says Katelyn) Nevermind that 4-5 of the kid are her same age minus a few months at the most.

I can always brag about Ashley. She's great. She had two parties yesterday. She can't wait to go to Utah.

The kids had such a great time with Melanie and Jeff. They are so great at loving our children. We are really hoping they move here.

Beautiful Mia

Mia has such big beautiful blue eyes. How's that for alliteration. Is that the right word? She's such a great sport with all the car trips and my "hold on, just a minute Mia" that happan all day long for her. She is learning to self-soothe, as a result. Which really is a great skill. I wish I could learn to self-soothe sometimes. I just end up eating half a pan of pudding brownies or running myself to death on the treadmill. Luckily they end up counteracting each other, but I'll try and take a lesson from Mia. Why don't we all?!

December 11, 2007

It's been an eventful week and a half. Ashley was able to perform in her Nutcracker and did a great job. She concentrates really hard while she's dancing. She was able to be the leader and show the rest of the girls how to do the dance moves, so she felt proud, as she should. It was fun to watch her dance. I think the most fun part of the recital is the make-up and costumes. Following are some pictures of the girls in all their make-up. Pretty cute. Katelyn is with her friend Claire, who she plays with often, as she is in her pre-school, playgroup, and gymnastics classes. Ashley is with Kaylee, her very best friend, who she plays with often, as she is in her ballet and kindergarten class. The girls are lucky to have nice girls to play with here.

Justin amazes me with his language skills. He says things like, "ice cube, please" when he gets any food item, since he knows the girls ask for one when their food is too hot. He always says thank you when you give him something and lately he is really into whole wheat banana muffins. He at 6 in about 5 minutes. I was very impressed. He still is into telling me, "Don't want it" when it refers to any clothing item, but we are improving. He loves playing with his bikes and trains and loves to read books. He can identify the most random animals thanks to Ashley teaching him and he loves to count. He says, "one, two, one two" in a very pretty southern drawl. He still wanders the pews in church asking everyone and anyone for candy, and you'd be surprised at how much candy he can collect. He loves nursery. He is a very cute boy. I love the way he says towel, shower, all done, all gone, monkey, show (he asks me - "watch a show, please", which he doesn't actually watch), shoes, snow, and boots. He loves to wear his sister's snow boots and especially Katelyn's new silver sparkly shoes. He cries when she puts them on. I'm tempted to buy him his own pair. I get lots of laughs over his hot pink snow suit. He still attracts attention whereever we are, as he loves to drag behind the grocery cart. It makes maneuvering the cart pretty tricky. I've entered the world of needing two carts when I shop as I need one cart to hold all my kids. I can fit a gallon of milk and some bananas in the cart with the kids, but that's about it.

Mia is officially two months old and such a cute baby. We went today to the Doctor. She is 9 lbs 2 ounces and 21 inches long, putting her at the 10th percentile for both. She is a perfect baby in everyway. She smiles all the time now and showed off her new talent by smiling first at the doctor and then for the medical assistant about to poke her with 4 needles. She handled it all very well and is sleeping peacefully. She is starting to fill out her newborn diapers and clothes. She has outgrown almost all of her preemie stuff. I love having a small baby. I can't believe she has grown 3 1/2 pounds in two months. She's about doubled in weight. She is a great eater and sleeper. The kids still love to hold her. Justin especially. If he's not following me around saying, "hold you" he's sitting by Mia yelling "hold her" repeatedly. She is a well loved baby.

We miss all of you!

Mia's Blessing

Mia was blessed today. She slept soundly through the whole thing. Hans did a great job blessing her and it gave us a chance to talk about what we want for her in this life. And mainly all we want for her is to have a testimony of the Gospel. Hopefully she does! She is such a sweet girl. She has brought a lot of Joy to our home already. A lot of panic too, in taking care of 4 small ones, but mostly joy! It was nice to have Grandpa Egbert to stand in the circle, along with some good friends - Damon Pullman, Mike Duncan, and Dave Losser. We've been blessed with such wonderful friends. It's so nice to have a ward where everyone is so incredibly nice.

We've loved our ward here. Hans blessed her that she would have a love for the Gospel, that she would have a positive attitude and a joy for life, that she would know that we love her and that she has a Father in Heaven who loves her. I can't remember too much beyond that since Justin was crying for Daddy the whole time. I still haven't figured out what to do with him during church. But it was a great blessing and nice to share the day with the Pullmans, who blessed their son Liam. I'm grateful for Mia. I was able to play Mary in the nativity scene at our Relief Society party and hold Mia while Hans stood next to me as Joseph. It was such a great reminder of the true purpose of this life and a chance to just hold Mia and to look at her. I love her a lot. It takes more effort to just sit and hold her, so when I get to, I'm filled with love for her. She's a great addition to the family!!

Following are pictures of my cute kids.

Gingerbread Houses

We had another successful year making gingerbread houses. It's a fun project. Justin thought the whole thing was too good to be true. I didn't make him a house, so I used the leftover peices and made him a small one so he could frost it and decorate it with candy. They all did a great job and were proud of their work. Candy torments Justin and now I get to endure the month of asking for candy at the gingerbread houses. There is so much candy from Halloween until after Christmas. I think you can learn a lot about someone's personality by the way they pile on candy for this kind of project. Ashley is very methodical. She takes her time and makes sure the house looks just perfect. Katelyn, on the other hand, hoards as much candy as possible and piles it all on at once. She wants to make sure everything is fair, meaning she has more candy then anyone else. She stuffed a good amount of candy inside her house. Justin just eats it. He ate cinnamon bears for breakfast. Grandpa and Grandma Egbert have been here for the weekend. We decorated houses, bought our Christmas tree and decorated it, and played a lot. Grandma brought beads and the girls spent hours making necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. They have incredible stamina for that kind of thing. We're looking forward to Christmas and spending some time in Utah. It's been two years since we've spent Christmas with extended family and the girls' are are really excited. Ashley wants to do ski school and Katelyn wants to play with her cousins. It'll be so nice to have that time with Hans as a family. He's been SO busy. I've seen him more this weekend then I have the whole past month. I like having him around!!