our tree

We decided to set up our Christmas tree and get out all the decorations on sunday. We've never done it so early in the past, but I'm glad we got everything out. usually by the time I find the advent calendar, several days of december have already passed, and the girls get a bit disappointed to see those doors with nothing in them.

Evie only got to put one decoration on the tree before she went down for her nap. Later, she took and ornament off the tree and broke it. She cut her hand on it, and has left the tree alone ever since.

Kara was so proud to be able to reach high up on the tree. She kept telling Kiersten to decorate the lower brances, and she'd take care of the higher ones.

Of course Kiersten still tried to reach as high as possible.

Now the livingroom feels nice and festive. If only I can get up the desire to finish decorating the rest of the house. I can't wait til Kara's older and can do more of the decorating for me, since she loves doing it, and I'm not too keen. you may notice there is no tree topper. Ben decided he hates the one we have, and tasked me with buying a new one. I found one at fred meyer, and hopefully he'll install it tonight to finish things off. It's a little insane to me that it's not even December yet, and we already have everything purchased and wrapped for Christmas. I'm sure I'll still end up busy the rest of the month, though.

The girls are eating so many apples lately. I feel like I'm buying 8 -10 apples every few days. Once in a while I find a half eaten one in their rooms, but they usually eat the whole thing.

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving day 2011. The girls love any reason to get dressed up. As soon as I put Evie's hairbow on, she went straight to the fireplace to get her picture taken. So I decided we could do a few pictures. She didn't want the other girls in the picture, and kept shoving them out of the way. Ben went to play football early n the morning, and the girls were excited for him to get home and see they were dressed up and ready for the day. When Ben's brother Jason, and his wife Lisa arrived, the girls were going crazy. Kara came upstairs and shouted, "I'm... so... EXCITED!". It was pretty funny. Evie took a few minutes to warm up to them.The big girls didn't get to stand on the fireplace to get their pictures taken, because Evie was going crazy if they were there without her, and I was seriously afraid someone would get hurt.

I tried to talk Kiersten into a dress, but she really wanted to wear her fuzzy vest with a skirt.

Evie Pie. She is so funny about getting her picture taken in that spot. Last night Kara came upstairs and saw me on the couch holding the 2 other girls, and said, "what a cute picture." Evie immediately got up and went over to her picture spot to start cheesing it up. Kara wore this same dress for thanksgiving in 2006. It was too big on her though. This year it was the perfect size for Evie.

I made the girls these fruit turkeys while we were waiting for dinner to cook. They thought it was so funny. I liked it because, other than a slice of pie after dinner, they didn't have any sweet snacks the rest of the day, since they had these sitting around to snack on instead. nobody ate the limes, though.

Sitting down to our thanksgiving ham dinner.

just a cute picture of our rootbeer floats last night after dinner. I love the look on Evie's face. I hadn't made her one, and she was upset, so I made her a very small one, and we let her sit at the table, so she loved that. We decided to get rid of the highchair. Ben got her a booster seat, so she will be happier during meal time. She is always upset not to be at the table with the rest of us.

30 years

I turned 30 years old on the 17th. It was a good day. Evie and I went to breakfast after dropping the girls at school. We just played around all day, and I did as little housework as I was comfortable with. When the girls got home, they wanted to play games all afternoon for a birthday party. It was pretty fun and funny.When Ben got home, we went down to a private sale at morgan jewelers in Tacoma. I got a pretty new ring, but don't have a picture, as it was sent out for sizing. I also got some fun free stuff too. then we all went to dinner, and the girls were really well behaved. We didn't have room for dessert, which upset Kara because I had told her instead of a birthday cake i was going to have dessert at the restaurant. (she had wanted me to help her bake a cake earlier). So she was unhappy that I didn't have dessert, so Ben stopped at dairy queen and got an Ice cream cake, and we went home. I had a few gifts to open, and Kiersten was glad we woke her back up to see me open them all.
Posing with the jewelry bag. you can see my new feetie pajamas on the couch that Kiersten gave me. I wanted them so much to stay warm in our drafty house. the part I didn't think about was what a pain it is to go to the bathroom when wearing them. you can kind of also see the chore board I got from my mother in law, and my new purse. I should have gotten a better picture, but I was so ready for bed!Once Evie saw Ben taking my picture, she got right up on the fireplace to get her picture taken too. Her personality is getting so fun lately!More than half of the cake is still sitting in the freezer. I'm sure we'll finish it soon enough, though, if the girls would just finish their dinner so they can have dessert.I absolutely LOVE my card from Kara.

I guess I thought turning 30 would be upsetting, or hard, but it was actually great, and I don't feel the least bit sad about it. I think maybe if life wasn't turning out well, or if I were unhappy it might be upsetting. But my life is everything I could want it to be. I have an amazing husband that I adore and admire, 3 gorgeous, healthy girls who love me, and great family and friends. So I'm pretty happy to be where I am at 30 years.

11/15/11

I just really liked this picture of my 3 girls the other day. and I also wanted to share it to get a picture of K &K in there, since most of the pictures I took this week were Evie solo.
She's starting to take after kiersten, falling asleep everywhere except for her bed. on this day, I had tried to put her down for a nap twice, and she just wouldn't go to sleep. Then as soon as I let her stay up, she was crashed out on the floor.

Another day last week, she fell asleep while I was vacuuming.

She has taken a real interest in the girls' sunggies the past few weeks. She has definitely noticed she didn't have one, and would stop at nothing to get wrapped up in Kara's or Kiersten's.

My sister Jackie's husband, Josh was in Tacoma for business last week. So we had him over for dinner one night. It was really fun. It had been a while since we'd seen him, so it was nice to catch up. Of course the girls loved having him around too.

Since i didn't get any good pictures of Evie in her cave baby costume, I put her back in it the other day before packing it away. She was happy, and felt special to be the only one playing dress up.

After searching for a baby-sized snuggie unseccesfully, I decided to make one for her. I know there are blanket sleepers, and jammies that would keep her just as warm, but she really was getting obsessed with the snuggies, and getting pretty jealous when the big girls wanted to wear them. So I found this cute fabric, and it was actually way easy to make. I thought the sleeves would be tricky without a pattern, but I had no problem at all.

She watched me like a hawk the whole time I was sewing. i tried it on her a few times to get the right fit, and she knew I was making it for her. She had to wear it as soon as it was finished. She was so cute parading around in it, and waiting for her sisters to see.

Then I used some scraps to make sleeping bags for the girls' barbies. Now they can all go camping together.

Toy Story on Ice

The girls have been really excited about Disney on Ice. When we got home from school they were super happy to get changed into their dressy clothes, and we didn't have any problem getting them to eat their dinner.
Ben got them each a souvenir. Kiersten picked out this hat. The back has a yarn braid attatched. She didn't end up wearing it too much, because she was proud to show off her hairbow. When we were in line for the bathroom, the lady in front of me gasped, and said, "I didn't see those! where'd you get that bow?". She was visibly disappointed when I said I had made it. I took that as a compliment. I had made a bunch of extra ones, and Ben was saying I should bring them to sell or hand out. I guess I should have listened.

Kara's sno-cone came in a Jesse mug, and she also got cotton candy that came with an alien hat.

candy face Evie pie! She was pretty excited to be there, and was way cute when she saw the characters. She was getting antsy by intermission, and then she slept through most of the second half. When she saw the pictures as I was loading them on the computer, she started giggling and clapping her hands.

The toy stroy theme was pretty cute, though there weren't as many different characters to see as there have been in the past years.



Kara didn't like the part with Zurg. She told me she hates bad guys.

Luckily Buzz Lightyear came to save the day. This has to be the part of the show that got the MOST applause.



Dancing Barbies. I thought thier role in the show was too long (and the green army men too) But the girls seemed to really like it.



Kara and Keirsten both said their favorite part was when Ken and Barbie met and fell in love.

By the end, the girls were up and dancing to every song. A lot of people were watching them and laughing. I don't think it was bothering anyone. (I hope not, anyway).

trick-or-treating

Kara and Kiersten were super excited to wear their halloween costumes to school on monday.
Evie wasn't too thrilled to get dressed up for trick-or-treating, but once she saw herself in the mirror with her hat on, she loved it.

We didn't think she'd wear the moustache, so Ben had the idea to stick it to her binky. That worked out great. I know I told Ben to get a picture with Tommy and
Whitney too, but there wasn't one on the camera. Grrr...

We were the first ones out on our street. You can see Tommy dressed as a cute little monkey behind Ben.

Evie was prety proud to walk along with the bigger kids.


As Ben was helping Evie down the stairs at one of the houses, I guess he pulled her arm a little too hard, and her elbow got pulled out of place. She started screaming, but quickly calmed down. She seemed to be okay unless someone tried to move her arm, and then she'd scream. She also was refusing to use her left arm or hand at all. So after dinner the others went trick-or-treating again, and I took her to the urgent care to get it set back in. The doctor tried 3 times, and said he just couldn't get it to pop back in place. Finally they took some x-rays to make sure nothing else was wrong, and sent us home, saying he thought it was back in place, but really wasn't sure. He told me to see how it was in the morning, and gave me a referral to an orthopedist just in case. The next day she still wouldn't use her left arm, and was crying when we moved it, so Ben made her an appointment. The dr. couldn't get it back in at first, but was able to on the second attempt. He also showed me how to set it back in if it pops out again. He said she is a high risk to slip back out for the next week or two. But I was amazed that by the time we got home, she was using her arm, and just back to normal as if nothing was ever wrong with it.