Happy FIRST birthday, Evangeline!

My littlest girl turned one year old yesterday. Doesn't she look so cute napping quietly in her bed? While she was napping, this is what the girls and I were doing. With moving on friday, I had planned to just blow up a few balloons, but Kara wouldn't let up about decorating. I had some pink streamers, but that wasn't good enough, so we ended up cutting some pictures out of a my little pony calendar which Kara had 2 of. They were so proud, and excited for Evie to wake up from her nap.

We emptied the livingroom for carpet cleaning. Then we decided to just leave the couches in the dining room, and we brought down the beds so the bedrooms can be cleaned. We found a renter for our house, and she is moving in the day after we move out. (she'd move in sooner if she could get us out any faster). So I am doing as much of the cleaning this week as I can. The girls thought it was fun to have a family sleep over in the livingroom.

When Ben got home from work, we played some party games, and then Evie opened a few gifts from us. She is also getting her own chair, but we didn't want to buy it to move it, so it will be arriving at our new place after we move. Kara took all the gift opening pictures. I think she did a pretty good job!

She liked the 2 toys she opened, but the clothes barely got glanced at and then thrown as far away as she could get them. this puzzle was her favorite thing. she played with it all night.

I didn't want to bake another cake, for many reasons, so we found this little fudge cake at wal-mart. Kara didn't think it was birthday enough, so I let the girls put sprinkles on, and I wrote Evie's name on it.

I made tacos for dinner. Something that Evie can eat, right along with the rest of us. I told her to smile, and this is what I got. she was pretty tired, and fell asleep in her highchair soon after this.

I had to hold the cake just out of her reach while we sang "happy birthday". she kept trying to grab that flame.

her first task was to pick off, and eat as many sprinkles as possible.

once she got a taste of the chocolate fudge icing, she dug in. I cut some cake off for the rest of us, so that is the part that's missing. Evie mostly stuck with the icing. she did eat some cake, and she did rub some into her hair.

she kept showing me her hands, and waiting for me to clean them off. I'm usually pretty on top of that. But I was letting her get good and messy. Before too long, she started trying to wipe the chocolate off herself, and then started getting a little upset.

I love this chocolately little girl. Here's a picture of her showing us how old she is now!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVIE PIE!

planting

Evie is not happy to see the baby gate set up, but she just wont stop climbing up the stairs. my cute little nappers.

Evie loves when Kiersten doesn't finish her snack, especially when she leaves it within reach for her to snag it.

she has started smiling differently than she used to. We rarely see her huge open-mouthed smile. now we see this cheesy little grin. It does show off her cute little tooth.

Kara's homework assignment on friday was about gardening and growing food. The extra assignment at the bottom is always optional. This one asked the kids to plant something to grow in a windowsil garden. I found this little flower kit at wal-mart. She had a lot of fun planting the seeds and getting it all set up.

Here it is in the window getting ready to grow. Also pictured is the plant she gave me for mother's day. The teacher helped them make flower pots and plant the flowers at school. It says, "you're the best mom a kid could ever have". I think it's pretty cute.

I also got them some radish seeds to plant in this big pot. Kiersten loved getting to help and get her hands dirty.

After everyone was cleaned up, I surprised them with a third project. Kiersten smashed up some oreos with the ice cream scoop.

Then we made worms in dirt with ice cream, oreos and gummy worrms.

It was a fun morning.

busy baby

Evie is getting to be such a fast crawler! I have to really be on top of her to make sure she doesn't get into trouble. I'd like to let her just roam and crawl around, but she is always on the hunt for things to put in her mouth, and things to get into. On friday, the girls played dress up, and they cleaned up well, but one of them left out a small ring on the floor. I heard Evie make a noise, and looked at her. I could see the ring in her mouth. As I moved to pick her up, she quickly tried to swallow it. Luckily, I was able to reach in her mouth and hook it with my fingernail and pull it out. Ben came home from work to find me still teary eyed about it. She could have choked to death! so now, she has to sit in her high chair, walker, or the excersaucer if I'm doing housework or anything else that takes my full attention away from the little stinker. She also found a hairball Daisy hacked up a few days ago. Ben almost lost it that time. She is such a good crawler, that she has decided to try to learn to walk too! She can take up to 3 steps without falling, and the falling is usually voluntary and controlled, because she gets nervous. She also does a crouch down thing, and then stands back up without holding on to anything. She must have strong thighs, because that kills my legs when I try it. I took a video of her taking steps this morning, so I'll try to post that later.

another new trick is opening drawers. Sometimes she gets the knob in her mouth and then backs up to open them, but usually she just pulls them open with her hands. She loves getting into things that she isn't supposed to get into. The playroom, for example, has lots of small toys, choking hazzards, chalk, and other off limit things, so I don't let her in there. But if she ever sees the door open, she makes a beeline straight in there to play with her sisters.

I thought we were going to dinner for our anniversary on wednesday, but Ben called on tuesday afternoon, and was expecting to go that night. I was gonna try to get a babysitter, but since it was short notice, I just got the girls ready, and took them up with me to meet Ben. We had a nice dinner with them there, anyway. They are starting to be pretty well behaved at restaurants. Kiersten still has a few issues, but she's not too bad. Ben gave me a new sansa clip mp3 player to use at the gym. I really love it, and especially loved that he spent all day transferring all of our cds onto it. I know that makes us seem old, but we have hundreds of cds, so I don't want to pay to download anything, if we already have it on a cd. I was so glad he did it for me, because with the 3 kids, I would never be able to devote that much time to it, and it would only get a few cds on it.

This picture is of the girls ready to go up to meet daddy for dinner. They insisted on wearing dresses, even though it was a cold day.

Ben let Evie have her first taste of lime.

she didn't seem to like it at first, but after a few tastes, she kept going back for more, and even tried to get Ben's water glass to get at the lime.

I just like this picture. It's a good illustration of how Kara is always hovering around Evie and trying to help me monitor her. Evie was wearing one of Ben's favorite baby outfits that day. He bought that for Kara 5 years ago, and they've all worn it now. unfortunately Evie's feet are too big for the little cowgirl boots the other 2 wore with it. She is my littlest baby, but has the biggest feet!

Here is the latest Kiersten-sleeping-in-an-uncomfortable-spot picture. This was friday.

We had a friend over to watch the superbowl, and he brought stuff for nachos. One of the items was a can of black beans. Kiersten LOVED them. I gave her several spoonfuls throughout the day, and when I was cleaning up the kitchen she grabbed the can off the counter and just started stuffing her face. It ended up getting even messier than this picture.

here comes trouble...

for anyone who wonders what TROUBLE looks like... here ya go a week of crawling, followed by a week of pulling up/cruising, and now she wants to tackle the stairs, yikes

december jam

this past week has been jam-packed with things going on. On top of everything, Kiersten has had croup and Evie has an upper respiratory infection. So that has not been the greatest, but they both have managed to stay mostly happy through the sick times. I think Kiersten is starting to be better. Today there was no vomiting or fever. Kara has been fine so far, and hopefully wont get sick at all.

Kara made Christmas suckers to share with her classmates. Kiersten got to help for the first time ever. She did better than I expected. Here they are enjoying some of them.
Evie is such a big girl. I have started her on fruits and veggies now. Here she is trying to use the spoon on her own, unsuccesfully. She has really started loving food, and tries to eat anything we eat while holding her. If we aren't holding her, and she sees us eating, she just lunges forward with her mouth open and a frantic look in her eyes.
this is how she looks when the food is gone and she's upset that I've stopped shoveling it in.

now that she's such a good sitter-upper, she doesn't have to take lay down baths anymore. She loves looking at herself in the mirror, and also splashing with her hands.

I like this one of her looking in the mirror.

she is getting around so well. I'd call it more of a wriggle than a crawl, though.

sometimes she likes sitting in the splits. She is so proud to be able to get into a sitting position all by herself. She beams with pride every time she does it. (which is like, 30 times a day)

you'd hardly know she was sick, if not for the running nose, horrible coughing and raspy breathing. she is still so happy.

Kiersten was no longer contagious as of friday, so she is happy to play with Evie again. I was trying to keep them away from each other as much as possible so Evie wouldn't get croup and end up even sicker than she is.

Kara's class Christmas party was friday. They did a singing and dancing performance for us. Kara is in the pink dress if you can't spot her.

They held up their books in front of their faces the whole time they were singing, but the words weren't even in the books. it was just pictures to remind them which song came next. I wish Kara hadn't held hers up the whole time. I took video, but only got a few glimpses of her face.

Mrs. Wright is always dressing up for holidays and the kids love it. She's a fun teacher.

Kiersten refused to wear her shoes because it was raining, so she insisted on her rain boots.

After the party, we drove up to meet Ben at Black Angus for his birthday dinner. We had several people come over to tell us they thought Evie was cute, and a few to tell us all the girls were cute.

When we got home, we let Ben open his birthday gift early. He went right upstairs to start playing it.

Today is Ben's 29th birthday. Every year after my birthday, I have a month of teasing to endure. He calls me an old lady and teases me about having robbed the cradle. Now he is 29 too, and the teasing will stop for another 11 months, until I turn 30. I'm sure that one will be extra fun for him. He dislikes cake, so I made him a birthday rice krispie treat. I could only find those 2 candles, so we decided each candle represents 14.5 years.

blowing out the candles. I hope his wish comes true!

It was taking too long to load the videos from Kara's christmas recital on here, but I did post them to facebook if you want to see.