Wednesday, April 18, 2012

March

Here is stuff from March around our house. It flew by with the girls birthday, a trip to Puerto Rico for Eric and I, and then my birthday! Here a just a few pictures from in between all of that!
Ellie is so fun and adorable and everyone loves playing with her. She is crawling all over trying to keep up with the big kids and now standing for a while without holding onto stuff. She has four teeth now and loves to eat anything. She smacks her lips at you when you have something she wants.



She loves bath time and the hot tub. She is usually always happy. She is really active and all over the place all the time, and she adds to the mess around here constantly by emptying drawers out onto the floor. She loves her walker and cruises around the house in it and hits all of our ankles. Colt stands on a chair when she is in it because she hurts him to much he says!
She claps and waves good bye and has a big smile! She changes her favorite "move" every few weeks. She does the one thing for a while and then stops it and picks up something else.  For a while she did the backwards mouth wave, she put the back of her hand over mouth and waves with it still touching her mouth and making a sound. I loved that one. So cute. Then she moved to this coughing clearing your throat sound that her and Colt would do back and forth to each other like a conversation. Pretty funny to watch them keep going back and forth. Now she is onto the scrunch face/nose move. I love this one too! All the time with the scrunch look! Rachel used to make the same face but not as often. I hope it sticks around!

The weather turned warm enough to swim for the kids, but the water is still really cold. My 5 year olds in their new swimsuits. They are such fun girls. I don't know that I am ready for them to be so old though! They have great imaginations and you can have real conversations with them. They are sweet and like to take care of Ellie a lot, and sometimes Colt!
They are doing good swimming and getting very brave. Livy swam across the whole pool the other day all by herself! And Rachel is not afraid to jump off the high rocks this year!
Colt is looking so old and big these days. He talks non stop. He cracks me up still. He says "excuse" all the time when he needs someone or something to move, excuse couch! It's so cute. He wants to go everywhere with everyone, to school with the girls or scouts with Eric, etc. He has a hard time not being able to go but is easily distracted with a piece of candy. He is scared of the dark now and when it is time to take a nap or go to bed he always says he wants to go home, aka the living room. It took me a while of telling him that we are home to figure that one out. Still loving lizards, squirrels and dogs. The neighbors have two dogs now that he watches from out of his bedroom window all the time.
Stuffed animals are still the favorite toy around our house!

Cutie pie! I love having a baby around the house.
More posts on March to follow!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The Birthday Party

The girls had a great combine birthday party with their cousins Savannah and Kylie, whose birthday is just two weeks after theirs! Although a bit unconvetional, we went with the mermaid/puppy theme! Rachel and Livy chose puppies and Savannah and Kylie chose mermaids! It was quite the combination! Daddy surprised them with pony for rides and they had a great time with everyone!


After a few rides each they were off to eat pizza and jump in the bouncy house!



Even Ellie got a little turn!



After pizza and pinatas we had cake! The girls wanted me to make them a pupy cake so that's what we did! They enjoyed it!


I missed the picture of JJ just digging into the dogs feet with his hands as it sat un attended on the table! It was so funny!
The birthday girls! 6 year olds and 5 year olds! I can't believe how old all of you girls are. I can still remember when Aunt Jamie and I were hoping and praying to have you guys. It seems like yesterday!


Best Friends. I love these two pictures of them. Always looking out for one another .
Puppy baloons that lasted like a month blown up! We just got rid of those things!
The girls brought brownies to school for their birthday and here are their birthday hats! So old and so awesome! I love you Rachel and Olivia! Happy Birthday!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

A Whole Hand Old

Birthday morning! They were so excited for their birthday this year and it was a long countdown to the big day. They of course got up early so they did their presents with out Colt and Ellie around.
This was a big birthday, they are now officially a whole hand old! They have been excited about that since Hannah told them about it!

We're 5!! Mom can't believe it!
I had to make sure I had more streamers up this year because last year I only had them in one spot and they said "where's all the decorations?" 5 years, I finally got it right this time. Rachel told me "this was a lot of work you did last night!"



Traditional birthday windows, thanks for the great tradition Grammy!
Exploring some of their new gifts! Make up was the favorite gift of the day and they did their makeup 5 times that day. We were going to head to the zoo for the day but as I was packing up Colt threw up. So we cancelled the trip and much to the girls dismay, spent the day at home. He was fine right after and didn't do it again, oh well.
Rachel's all time favorites, Polly Pockets. They got some barbies, and Livy got a dinosaur matchbox racetrack and Rachel got a Justin Bieber barbie sized doll. And we heard 'baby, baby, baby, oh, baby, baby, baby, oooh" sung all day long!
First makeup job! I love how they put the eyeshadow right on their eye brows!
Very serious.

Colt wanted in on the makeup too so he got a chap stick he rubbed all over the bottom of his face.....
as he checked out a lizard.
We made cupcakes and decorated them and than sang and lit candles over and over again.
They even let little buddy have a candle!
We went to their favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner and had a fun family night. Happy 5th birthday Livy and Rachel! We love you guys so much and are so proud of you. You are both wonderful big sisters and I am so grateful for you! I love both of you!

Monday, March 26, 2012

Visitors from both Coasts!

Just before Valentine's Day Mom, Dad, Hannah, Rich, Erin, and Zeke came out to visit us. Each time I wish more and more that we could all live near each other and have our kids grow up pretty much as siblings like we got to with the Rathgebers. It is just beginning but it is still great to see them all together.
I don't generally think these two look too much alike but in this picture they have pretty similar features.
Pebbles on spit up patrol. Lucky for me she loves spit up.
Zekey enjoying the life of a dog.
Wrestling match. Eric vs. all the kids. They always love that.

The girls loved playing with Zeke and following him around. This was the first time we saw him walking and it was just too cute! I can't believe he is so old already!



Bath time for the three youngest. Zeke is a ham for the camera.




And Ellie is just trying to survive.
Nerf gun fights!! We all had so much fun and laughed a lot. The kids were moving targets who would tell us how many points they were worth. Colt was the bullets collector and he would yell "Give me more bullets!" And Hannah became target practice on the window.










Another fun time at bouncin' bears!



Grammy taking on the slide.

Poppy giving the kids a good bounce!

Dad getting some air with Han.
Story time with Grammy. So spoiled by all the attention. They love doing just about anything with Gram and Pop.
The two boys sticking together and entertaining each other.
The gang!

The Psillos Cousins so far.....
Thanks for coming and for another great time. Building memories, but thank goodness for pictures!


We lost a friend that weekend while everyone was visiting.
It was a tragic and unexpected loss and we will truly miss you Chelsea.