This is another one of those blogs that we are trying to catch up...all the way back to Halloween. This first picture about sums up the recent excitement in our house. Joni took a picture every time Ellie and I sat down for our Sunday night ritual...America's Funniest Home Videos and popcorn. Makes me feel kind of lazy, but this is a happy little tradition Ellie and I love to do together (yes I am wearing the same sweats, they were washed in between these pictures). We also have a tradition now of doing 3 pushups for every point the Broncos score on Sunday, lately it's been a lot :)
Reese is 5 months old, and Ellie is now a 3 year old. Reese still has no hair, but she loves smiling anytime anyone gives her the slightest little bit of attention. I love it when Joni sends me pictures of all the girls while I am at work, it helps me to remember what's most important and also remember how lucky I am to have all these girls in my life.
In case you didn't know, Joni is the world's best babysitter. Some of the kids we watch while friends are out have even said Joni is better than Disneyland. Who wouldn't love a babysitter that brings a bunch of candy and helps you to make your very first gingerbread...car?
Life with a three year old involves a lot of carpet cleaner and stresses us out sometimes. Ellie has recently liked drawing on our kitchen stools with a pen, I guess it could be worse. I have had to literally tell myself so many times to "not cry over spilt milk". It seems to help while I am scrubbing and breaking a sweat while doing it. Every night is a workout to cleanup the aftermath of what looks like a toy bomb going off in our house, I regret having ever judged the cleanliness of someone's house that has lots of kids. I just wish the carpet in our rental home was a little darker...
We got a visit from Grandma. She helped Ellie make a beautiful gingerbread house. Ellie just ate the candy while Grandma made it, but I think she had fun.
Grandma Berger (Maude) always had the touch on these things.
Ellie has been such a great big sister. We used to have problems with her being too rough, now she is starting to understand, I also think that she is truly starting to love Reese and accept her as part of the family. Ellie has really developed quickly in a lot of ways, but really slow socially. She can be so sweet and loving with us, we just haven't figured out how to help her not scream and hit, and how to share and not feel threatened by anyone that looks at her. I look at other kids and wonder how they can seem so "normal", but then again I wouldn't trade this special little girl for anything.
Ellie loves to sing and dance and act out her favorite shows, Reese just stares at her every move and smiles between her toots and burps.
What three year old doesn't like to eat a cookie while sitting on Gramaude's lap?
Oh...hey there...it's Paul and Joni. Lately we seem to literally switch places constantly. I get home, Joni goes out, Joni gets home and I have to leave so that one of us is watching the kids and still be able to get some things done. November and December have been so so busy for us. We try to savor every free moment we have, maybe that's why we haven't been blogging in a while?
In early December we hosted a pie party at our house. This is becoming a yearly thing with some friends. It's so wierd sometimes comparing our lives without kids to where we are now. Priorities are so different, and even what we do is different. The Wii always helps keep all the kids entertained, and eventually is taken over by the dad's while the women chat about...whatever they like to talk about.
We've made some great friends here, we don't really want to leave so we just don't even think about it, hopefully that time won't come for a while. We are coming up on 2 years in Nevada which seems like a record for us.
Joni loved her spinning wheel of pie samples...
Me trying to understand the "girl talk" while distracted by so many pies, I'm actually better at girls talk than the conversation about guns that was happening at the other table.
For Ellie's 3rd birthday we had a Toy Story themed party complete with alien cake pops. She has been spoiled with all of the Toy Story toys. Just when we made that investment she moved onto Nemo, then Despicable Me, and now Wall E so you can guess what is coming for Christmas. We are going to have a Disney store in our house soon.
Once again, Joni is cool...wooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.
How does anyone get any normal shots where everyone is looking at the camera? We haven't figured that one out yet.
Reese is still in the 95th+ percentile in height, and only 20th in weight, she is a long and skinny one who can't even fit into Ellie's 9 month old clothes.
This was our first year trying the trick or treating thing, we went out with some friends from work and just went down one street. It was pretty cute seeing Ellie trying to comprehend that random people would open up their doors and give her candy. She just wanted to go in everyone's house and explore. We had a couple of pretty cute little dinosaurs.
It seems like a million things have happened in the last couple of months, serves us right for being so blog lazy and forgetting about so many things. We wish we could be spending some time this Christmas with all of those we love but realize how near impossible it can be. We will be thinking of all of you and wishing you were here with us. We can only hope all of you are in good hands and remember that the true spirit of Christmas is the spirit of Christ. Blog you later.
