Christmas Party

We had our annual Beer Financial Group Christmas party on Saturday.  It was ok... neither of us felt very well and it was a late night, but always good to see everyone and catch up.  I think this may be the first pregnant picture of me (with this baby anyway) so here it is: 27 weeks.  12 more to go!  *do not convert that into months please*

Happy Birthday!!!

Well, we finally celebrated Brenna and Olivia turning one!  :)  Mark my words, these two are going to have the 2nd birthday to end all birthdays... I feel so guilty about how this one played out.  Still, I know that they are only one and have no idea.  They had a great time, and that is all that matters.  With Tony having pneumonia, we postponed their party until the week after their birthday, and even at that, the whole thing was thrown together in a matter of hours... maybe not even plural.  The candle on the cake, so to speak, was both of them getting runny noses the day before... they were like little faucets the entire time.  :(  Brenna especially, doesn't seem like she can breathe at all through her nose and seems miserable, although she is still happy.  They are such good girls.

Grandma got them this adorable dragon walker thing, which I'm sure will be the new hit around here... the big kids are already breaking it in.  :)

They both love to sit on it, Brenna tried to walk a little, but was more interested in sitting and playing the music.

Tony picked up their cake about an hour before, instead of having them write on it, he opted for a #1 candle as the sole decoration.  He is so funny, I asked him if he only got one #1, and he said, "Well, they aren't turning 11!"  This is true, I guess they really do need to get used to sharing things.... but I had to give them each a stick candle, even though Jaden was the one to blow them both out.

He did do a great job getting them balloons, and they loved them!   They each got their own, slightly different bouquet.  :)   Which of course, were dismantled and passed out to the other kids shortly after arriving home, but they did get to play a little with them.

Brenna figured out quickly how to get a hold of her bouquet... Livie just yelled at hers, I assume, willing it to come to her.  (Note the clenched fists in their regular position proclaiming that no effort will be made on her part.)

Poor baby, you can tell she feels pretty horrible.  She went after her candle and so Jaden quickly swooped in and blew it out for her.

Initial reaction to the cake:  not so yummy.

But then, a change of heart.

Olivia also tried very hard to grab the candle, so again, it was quickly removed and she got to dig in to her cake too.

No hesitation on her part...

She enjoyed every last bite!  (this is one thing she is willing to put forth some effort to enjoy)

By the end, this was what it looked like, and it was even worse in their laps when I took their trays away.  I decided that whomever was responsible for this tradition did not have twins.  It was quite a disaster... in fact I am still washing cake saturated clothes and seat covers, and plan to remove their braids tonight to get all of the little crumbs completely out.   (Although, thankfully, their hair did fare pretty well overall)

Sweet little Chase-man.  He had a good time seeing his cousins and showing us how he can walk almost totally by himself.  I love his hair, it is getting so thick and is the cutest color.

After a lengthy clean-up, it was time to open up their gifts.  They both got some pretty adorable little outfits.  They are in 9 months now, whoo hoo!!

Brenna liked to grab all of her stuff and put it in her mouth.  She had fun slobbering and sliming everything in sight.

This one was full of spunk, maybe all of that cake?  Or, maybe just because she is princess lulu... she was NOT happy about bedtime.

Brenna cried for a minute at bedtime, but she seemed much more willing to rest.   I rescheduled their picture people appointment to avoid the snotty pictures, hopefully soon I will have some sweet 1st bday pics to share.   Now you know why you never received a birthday invitation to a big 1st birthday bast... but save the date for next year!  :)

One Year

Is it just me, or is it incredibly hard to believe that this was a whole year ago? (olivia)

The girls were so tiny, (brenna)

It was such an incredible whirlwind, (brenna)

It was hard to believe they were really real,

and really there,

after all the months of waiting, (olivia, brenna)

finally getting to see their little faces, (brenna)

and hold them (very carefully!) (brenna)

It was an absolutely magical time, and we are so thankful that we got to be there for it, even though we missed the next few weeks... (brenna) now, a year later, it is hard to remember ever being without these faces:

And, as tiny as they still are, when I look back, I can see that we have come a long way!  What an amazing miracle Brenna and Olivia are, our family would definitely not be the same without them.  :)  This is their birthday breakfast with real milk (PTL, the bottles and formula are FINISHED!!!) and of course, some toast with coconut oil, their favorite.  :)

Here are my big one year olds with their first "real" hairdos... well, at least Brenna.  Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your point of view) Baylee hid all the rest of the little colorful clips (and couldn't remember where they were despite being bribed by m&ms) and I didn't have enough to do Olivia's hair too... so she got some sweet little pigtails in the mean time.  :)  And, yes, I am very proud of this, it took forever, including a ridiculous amount of research into techniques and products.  But more on this later, for now, happy birthday to my girls!!!

 

What's new?

This is kind of a miscellaneous post, an attempt to catch up...

No Rhyme or reason for this picture, just thought she looked like a cute little baby seal or something and I had to put it up.  :)

Livie didn't like hers as much because she couldn't get her hands out.  Baylee rescued her though.

We are kind of going backwards because I wasn't paying attention to the picture order.  :/  Here are my big three right before the Christmas program at church.  You can expect a couple of cute videos of that to pop up soon.  :)

Tony and Aubrey on Thanksgiving playing some sort of video game at my parent's house.

Grandma and the girls.

Jaden demonstrating why we will never own one of these at our house.  Obsessed.

Baylee in her new "robe of many colors".

The boys, up to no good as usual.

A picture of a lunch scene at our house the week we kept the Karrer boys.  :)  It was a riot.  Please note the look on Baylee's face.  I think that old saying came true and her face is actually stuck that way, at least that is how it seems these days.   Ahh... the terrible 2s, 3s and 4s!  :)

Here she is in a much better mood... she loves her sisters, Aubrey is enjoying being the middle child for a little while longer.

This is an absolutely rare occurrence at our house... the kids all fell asleep on the couch at the same time.  I shouldn't even say rare, because I can assure you this has never happened before and will most likely never happen again unless there is a gas leak of some sort.  I actually had Tony check to make sure there wasn't a gas leak when I saw this... just completely random.

I just liked this one because Brenna is cracking me up.  She was so into the movie, it was really the first time she has seen a movie and paid attention to it.  The kids are VERY into Robin Hood right now, and she loved being right in there with the big siblings, at least for a few minutes.

That is about all I've got.  We have just been keeping busy doing life.  Tony has pneumonia which is a bummer, he has been quite under the weather lately but is doing much better the past few days.  That is about all of the excitement around here!

Park

We have a great little park by our house which I have not utilized nearly enough.  Mostly because it does not have a bathroom and it is inevitable that we will walk all the way there and someone will need to go.  It is just too close to justify driving there, and even then, we probably would not make it home in time.  However, feeling brave lately (and big) I decided that we would be walking to the park every afternoon, weather permitting, to get a little exercise (me) and run the winter wiggles out of the kids.  Sorry for the picture quality, I was using my cell phone.  :)  There is not a great reason for this post other than I have not posted anything lately, and I need some accountability... so if anyone wants to hang out this is where we will be from 1:00 to 2:00 *most* every week day.  Oh, and the other reason for this post:

I am sad that this is a cell phone picture, because it is hysterical.  This is their first time on a swing and they loved it.  Even Livie, despite the "what you talkin' bout Willis?" look (as Tony has dubbed it.) Yes, he gets that look from her a lot.  :)