merry christmas 2014!

For those of you who we missed sending a Christmas card to this year (sorry), it looked a lot like this:

2014 Highlights:

 * The best thing that happened this year was Everly Kate joining our family on September 8th.  We can't believe we were blessed with another healthy baby, who is a GIRL, who sleeps though the night already (!!!), smiles all day, and is gorgeous!  We are all smitten with her.

* Bart took Ashli to San Francisco to celebrate their eleventh wedding anniversary, was asked to serve on a clinical redesign committee, and is so busy at work, he's considering closing part of his practice to new patients.  (It's because he's the best P.A. in town!!)

*Ashli hiked to Timp Cave while 7 months pregnant during our family trip to Utah this summer.  She spent all her free time this year decorating the nursery pink, and making hair pretties in anticipation of Everly's arrival!

*The twins played flag football this year, and their team finished the season undefeated.  They also played baseball this summer, which meant that the whole family spent a lot of time at the ball field. 

*Kade's favorite highlight of the year was our trip to Utah in June.  While he was there, he loved playing "Skittles," a wooden top game his grandparents made, that Ashli remembers playing when she was young.

*Ky spends his free time creating stories and comics on the computer, creating PowerPoint presentations, and playing with Photoshop.  He wanted to say his favorite thing he did this year was play video games, but Ashli said that couldn't be what makes the Christmas card.

*Although Krew just turned 3, he seems to think he is 8 like his older brothers.  He has spent the past three months doting on his baby sister, making lots of noise, and pretending he is the Incredible Hulk.

Merry Christmas!

three months!

On December 8th, this little cutie turned three months old!  I love doing these monthly baby pictures because it not only forces me to pull out my nice camera at least once a month, but it's easy to know how old she was when the photo was taken, and I can't wait until I have a whole year's worth of coordinating pictures to frame!

 A few days before she turned three months old, she rolled over from her back to her belly.  Twice on the same day.  She had never even shown an interest in rolling until the day before that.  Then she just rolled.  She had only rolled from her belly to her back a few times, accidentally while squirming during tummy time.  But once she decided she wanted to do it, she did, and she hasn't stopped since.  She is by far my earliest roller.

 She is still sleeping amazingly at night.  7-8 hours the first stretch, and going right back to sleep after eating.  I love it!

 Everly is seriously the most smiley baby I have ever met.  She smiles as soon as she sees me in the morning, she smiles whenever I smile at her, she smiles when she gets her diaper changed, and she smiles so big for her brothers.  But if I get the camera out, she stops smiling and just stares at the thing.

 She just found her hands, and they find their way inside her mouth a lot.

 I know I've said it before, but watching these two together is magical.

I also love that while I take these pictures of Everly, Krew always wants pictures taken with her, so over the next year, I'm going to have some unofficial monthly pictures to watch how he grows and changes right alongside (literally) his baby sister.

november picture dump

Here are some of my favorite random pictures from November:

Everly looking as sweet as can be

Mommy likes to dress Everly up and take her to girls only parties!

First snowfall of the year, and when you are three, you don't hardly even remember last winter, so the excitement level was through the roof!

Everly and my friend's sweet baby girl who is only about six weeks younger.  Hopefully they grow up to be besties!

I know someone who doesn't like post-nap selfies.

I call this one, "Black and White Beauty"

Love my Christmas shopping buddy!

this little guy

 This little guy makes me happy every day!  I mean, just look at that cute face and you'll understand what I mean.

 

two months!

 Everly is 2 months old!! I can't believe how fast those two months flew by.  She has changed a lot in the past month, and it's been fun to watch her grow.

 As you can see, she learned how to stick out her tongue.  She has been smiling a lot since she turned one month old.  My favorite is her big, open mouth smile, dimples and all!

 She is such a great sleeper!  Most nights she sleeps 7-8 hours, eats and goes back to sleep for a few more hours.  She hardly ever cries in the night, just wimpers enough for me to know she's awake and hungry.

 Just before she turned 2 months old, she started trying to "talk" to us.  She makes a few cute "coo" and "goo"  sounds, but often, she will look right at us, and make all sorts of breathy sounds while moving her mouth, trying to figure out how to make talking sounds.  It's my favorite!

 At her 2 month check-up, she weighed 10 lbs. 14 oz.  For comparisons sake, I looked up my other kids' 2 month stats.  Kade weighed 10 lbs. 1 oz, and Ky weighed 10 lbs. 14 oz., so she is in between where the twins were at at the same age, but very close to their size.  Krew on the other hand, weighed 14 lbs. 9 oz. at two months!  Four pounds more than Everly at only two months.  That's crazy!  Here's his 2 month post if you care to see the difference.

 Krew is still so in love with his baby sister.  Watching these two together is what being a mom is all about!  He constantly wants to know where she is.  He helps burp her, sings to her when she's fussy, and loves to rub his cheek on her head!

 Last week, Krew had a sore throat for a few days.  We told him not to get to close to the baby so she wouldn't get sick.  The morning he finally woke up feeling better, the first thing he said was, "I'm all better.  Now I can get close to Everly!!!!"  So sweet, right?

 I have a feeling these two are going to be best buddies!

bits of october

Besides birthdays, and baby blessings, and Halloween, we filled October with lots of the following:

These two cuties playing together.  I love watching the way Krew adores his baby sister!

Bart and I went to a Packers game!  We had the best seats.  We were kinda outside (so we could hear the crowd noise) and kinda inside (so we were out of the rain) and we had all the free food we could eat.  It was great to get out just the two of us after the crazy September we had.

I let Krew play at the play area at the mall one day, and clearly he loved it!

The little kids and I joined the twins for "Take Your Parents to Lunch Day" at school.  It was so fun to see them in that environment, and interacting with their school friends.  Krew liked being one of the big kids, with his own lunchbox and everything.

We even got to stay and play kickball for recess.  I was so impressed with how all the kids let Krew play with them.  Both teams cheered for him and pretended to try to get him out, but letting him score anyway.  It was cute to watch.

We took lots of pictures of this adorable baby, because she's adorable and growing up too fast!

See?  I told you she was adorable!!