Christmas Season

I can't believe it is almost Christmas! This month has gone by so fast, I am afraid I won't be getting Christmas cards out this year, but I am going to try and do this for Valentine's. A bit of a catch up on what we have done (if I can remember).

Kevin took Roc and Ella up to get the tree this year, Callie and I stayed home. I like going but thought it would be better if Callie stayed in a warm house. Our pastor and his son (roc's best bud) joined Kevin. They went one Saturday on a bit of a time crunch and came back empty handed, but then went the next weekend and got us one.

When they got home Kevin and Ella headed to the nutcracker. Since Ella loves ballet we thought it would be fun for her to see one, so I figured it would be a good daddy-daughter date. Josh and Sadie joined them and the girls had a great time. They got to see real reindeer before and that was fun for Ella. I mentioned make sure you get your coat but somehow she left without it, so she does look a bit cold in these pictures, but had fun nonetheless. The girls had fun dancing in the aisle during some of the show. Kevin called early enough and got the front row in the first balcony So not super expensive tickets, but not so far away that they wouldn't be able to see.

Since Kevin works for the city he had the opportunity to ride in the City Bus light parade. So Roc, Ella and Kevin headed down to do this only to discover they were an hour late, They still got to check out the bus at the end but missed the parade. So Kevin drove then around to look at lights and discovered a live nativity at the Adventist church, It had actually camels and everything and Ella told me she saw the real baby Jesus. She also mentioned that it was a bit scary! I did not know about this particular live nativity, so plan to check it out next year. So since they missed out on the city light parade, they got to ride in the city but that was in Union Gap's light parade. I think they had fun. Next year Callie and I will be joining them.

Ella had a mini class recital for her dance class. It was not like the Spring recital with all the classes, but just her class with a few dances and showing what they were learning in class, then a gift exchange. She had a great time and did a great job!

Today our church had their Christmas program. Roc got to be in it and they learned the motions to Away in the Manger. Unfortunately my pictures did not turn out that great. Ella had fun,but spent most her time on stage looking around at the other kids and the people in the nativity scene. Roc did not do the motions but he still looked cute up on stage.

Ella has really been wanting to make a snow angel, so the morning after a big snowfall she and Roc headed out, they only lasted a few minutes but they did have fun making the angles.

Tomorrow I am having a small cookie decorating party for Ella, I thought it would be fun to do this but wasn't sure if I could handle it with tons of kiddos so she is only having her pre-school buddy and sister and Sadie come. Should be fun.

I definitely think Christmas is more fun when you have kiddos. Roc is old enough this year to understand ti more and it should be a good year for him, I am hoping he will not be sick, since this poor kiddo has been sick for his first two Christmas's. Ella is getting excited for Santa to come. She has seen a few Santa's but has declared to me that they were not the real Santa. just the pretend ones. Ahh too cute! She wants to leave him cookies this year so we will be doing this.

ok this is getting a bit long so I will just close with some pictures from the aforementioned events. I haven't uploaded my pictures from today, so I will get those posted here later.

Catch up

Once again I am having a hard time keeping this updated. My kiddos are keeping me very busy. As I said to Stella the other day, I was NEVER late until I had kids! I also always had a clean house! It bugs me that I can't keep my house clean like I like, but I know that the day where I am not tripping over toys will come all too soon and I will miss it! I basically keep up on the maintenance (dishes, laundry, quick pick up of clutter, etc.), but have a hard time getting the deeper cleaning done. Stella keeps promising to come and be my personal assistance, but I just can't seem to get her over here and to commit to this! Anyway enough of that.... Roc has now had enough of naps. I was hoping this would mean he would finally sleep in past 6:30 but so far not luck with that! He seems to make it fine through the day-not anymore grumpy than usual so, so far it has been ok. Callie has also decided that she wants to be in on the action all day too so she does not nap for me either, but she is such a sweet, happy, content little girl I am not really pushing it either, but by 6 she is ready for bed, we hold out till 7 and she is such a great little sleeper-usually sleeping till 9ish in the am-no waking up for a feeding either(she has actually done this for quite a while now)! (however this am it was 6:30-so I hope this was a one-time deal) I love it though-as I woke up with both Ella andRoc till they were a year. Callie and Ella are sharing a room and so far so good on that too.
Ella is having fun with pre-school and I am impressed on how she is doing. She has a great teacher and it is fun to see her learn to write her letters and numbers. She is also still enjoying dance class and having lots of fun going to Cubbies with Sadie!
Roc is really into trucks of all kinds still and puzzles. He does a great job of putting these 25 piece puzzles together, something I know Ella was not doing at this age. I got two of Drew's old truck books from my Dad and he has a great time looking at theses and learning the names of all the different kinds there all. Diggers are an all time favorite. Ella and Roc also have fun looking for American Flags when we are driving. This started because on Veteran's Day I was taking them to get their H1N1 vaccines and Ella kept asking where we were going, so to avoid answering her (till we got there) I said let's see how many American Flags we can find. So know when we are driving they search for these.
Callie had her four month appointment last week-I will do a separate post for this as I want to post some pictures and videos of her, but they are on my other computer.... but it is so cute because she has discovered her thumb and has been sucking in this lately. She really goes to town. I got some cute videos of this. Also Kevin was watching some other videos of her with her and she started to laugh at it-It was so cute. She is really such a happy laid back baby-she really is fun. She wakes up happy every morning. When I go into get her (usually Roc comes with me) She just smiles and smiles at us.
Well enough rambling-hopefully tomorrow I will post some pictures of Callie at four months!

Halloween

Callie and I stayed home and watched scary movies and Kevin, Ella and Roc went to a carnival at West Valley Church. I am not too into Halloween and buying costumes, but since Ella recently acquired a Snow White outfit (a nice gift for her for all the pain she endured at the dentist) she wore that and I dressed Roc up as a husky fan. Of course Callie was Eeyore, a costume I actually did buy when Ella was a baby, so I had to dress Callie in it since both Ella and Roc wore had worn it. I kinda like the idea of the carnival, the kiddos had a great time and you don't have to worry about what might be in the candy they are getting or walk around in the cold. I think this may become a nice tradition We did not get one trick or treater, which does not really surprise me, beings that we don't really live in a neighborhood. I did not get any pictures of Ella as she was hanging out with Sadie and did some trick or treating earlier with her, but here are some cute shots of Roc and Ella.

Well I know that I have been a major slacker here on the blog but don't really have much to say really. Pretty much just usual life around here these days. So I will just give an update on my kiddos.

Callie continues to be a very easy going baby. For the most part she is sleeping a good 12-13 hours at night and only waking up once, sometimes twice, to eat. She is pretty good about going back to bed after eating too. It is nice. I do hold her a bit after I feed her at night just to make sure she is good and asleep though. She loves to smile and coo a lot. It is so cute. I attempt to get this on video, but she tends to stop as soon as I get the camera going. I realized that when I am recording there is a red flashing light so I think she notices that and focus on that instead of her smiling and cooing! She really is a great baby and I am enjoying her. I remember stressing about how I would be able to handle three little ones before she was born, but so far so good. I think since I know she is my last baby I am just enjoying it more knowing I will not be doing this again. Also I am pretty sure God knew I needed this or I would go insane!! ha ha.

These days Roc still loves to help me in the kitchen and loves to play with cars, balls, puzzles, etc. He also loves trucks, tractors, diggers, cop cars, motorcycles, etc and we find as many as we can while driving or looking at the road below us. He also has decided that it is fun to tease Ella and gets her going every time...But he does love his sisters and loves to kiss Callie. This morning he was rubbing Ella's arm (which she did not like) but then declared I love you Ella. He can be such a sweet boy. He is also a pretty good helper at cleaning up toys and he loves to help me unload the dishwasher and vacuum. He went fishing with Kev the other day. I was a bit nervous about this so Kevin had him wear a life jacket and also tied a rope around him and himself so he was safe. He did have a great time doing this. He is totally talking now, and has been, but now it is really clear and he speaks in sentences. He also can count to 100 and recite the alphabet backwards. I am amazed at his abilities.

Ella is still in dance but she is also doing AWANA cubbies with her cousin Sadie, and is loving it. I also take her to my friend Katie's house one day a week for pre-school. Ella and her daughter are friends and will hopefully be going to the same school next year. Ella loves doing this and I am so glad Katie is willing! I am wondering is she will be ambidextrous (sp?), as she tends to use both hands when writing. Katie told me last week that she wrote with one had on one side of the page and then switched to the other as she moved across. So we will see where this goes...Ella recently got to go on a trip with my mom to visit the Hoefers in ID. They flew there, so I was a bit nervous about that-but the plane did not crash and Ella had a great time. She did not want to talk to me on the phone while she was there, but told me when she got home that she was having too much fun to stop and talk on the phone. For more details of this trip check out this.

Well that is the news for now. I do have a few cute pics of Callie so once I get those uploaded I will post them for you viewing enjoyment.

My littlest jewel.

Newborn Photos of Callie Jade

ok I think most of my blog readers have facebook, but just in case you don't I want to show off the beautiful pictures Hannah took of Callie. She was just about a week old (and due to technical difficulities I just got them :)) Anyway go here to view them. Hannah did a great job and I know I am not biased when I say this but Callies is the most beautifly baby I know!!!! Now I just need to pick my favorites to put in my collage frame.

Oregon Coast Vacation 2009

Last Wednesday we headed out for a few days down on the Oregon Coast. I was not sure how travelling with three little ones would go (especially a newborn) but it actually went pretty well. The kiddos did fairly ok in the car on the way there-however by the time we got there I was relieved to get out of the car! Callie actually did really well on the way there-coming home-a different story!
We stayed down in the Depot Bay area for the first three nights and had a great view from our room-we actually even saw lots of whales in the water-this is something I have really always wanted to see and finally got to! We pretty much just spent time at the beach, letting the kiddos dig in the sand and playing at the resort pools. We had really good weather too, which was great. Friday night Rachael met us and spent the rest of the weekend with us. She is always fun to hang out with and the kiddos enjoy playing and being with her. Saturday we headed up to Seaside and on the way stopped at the famous Tillamook Cheese Factory. The highlight of that of course was the ice cream. My favorite is Black Licorice-Yum Yum. It is white in color and has a fairly mild flavor, but is delicious. So good in fact Roc traded me his bubble gum cone for mine. Being the loving mother that I am I let him do this-but he did not finish it so I did get some! I wish they sold this flavor in the stores!
Saturday night we spent at Seaside, while the beach was really nice, it was just too busy for me. I like the Depot Bay/Lincoln City area much more. Sunday the kiddos played on the beach a bit more then we headed to Washington Square for a little bit and then headed home.
I have posted my pictures here on facebook if you want to take a look. All in all we had a good time and it was really nice to get away for a while.