Cell Phone Picture Randomness...

In the fall was the big Presidential Election, where Barak Obama was reelected for his second term. We did a co-op mock election and used stuffed animals as the candidates and the kids got into groups and came up with platforms, etc. I think this stuffed elephant would make a great president!

Alice just being goofy...

Huh. Exciting...Betsey befriending a bug. Yuck.

Carson was so cute about Santa this year, he wanted lots of people to write to Santa for him so he could make sure Santa knew what a good boy he was. He asked me and I happily complied.

We went to see Santa Claus, and Hailey and Emma were with us. Everyone got to sit on his lap and ask for what they wanted.

Daddy has such fun games he plays with the kiddos. Here he has them curl up into a ball in the center of a blanket. Then, he twists the blanket up and lets them spin and spin out of the twist. They emerge quite dizzy!

Betsey is Miss Independent. She really likes washing her own hands, and this sink at IKEA rocked her world. A lot.

Cuddling on a stuffed animal we weren't going to buy while I shopped at IKEA.

This is a typical hold for Betsey. She throws her head down on your shoulder and just melt into you. I love it.

Betsey made this picture for me. One of the girls taught her how to make circles and she is good at them!!

We had major roof issues at our house and here are some of the workers doing the repairs which took roughly three weeks in several stages.

Leaving Oma and Opa's house, where Hailey and Emma and fam temporarily live...they chase us down the driveway.

Ruby told Oma she liked breakfast in bed, and Oma was all over it. What lucky kids I have...for that matter, I was a lucky kid too with a great mom like that!

Nerdy, I know. Sometimes when I am in the neighborhood, I check on Mimi's house...this time I took a picture and texted her.

Rarely, but usually when my mom visits, my laundry room is actually clean! Here are the counters free of clothing! I think this was over a week after my mom visited and I wanted to show her how I had tried to keep it up.

Betsey got $5 for her birthday from Great Grandma and Grandpa Hamm. She spent it all on the rides at the mall...she loved it! Thank you!!

Every so often, Ruby will do her own hair and ask me to take a picture so she can see what it looks like. The old days of two mirrors are no more. Just snap a picture!

While participating in a public school water days thing put on by the local fisheries, water districts, etc...Ruby got filmed on some district video talking about the fun activity. She was a pro.

We had the house painted. It used to be Khaki and now it is dark grey with blue undertones. I like it so much better! The roof doesn't stand out as bad now.

 

It's a BOY!!!

It isn't okay that I am 38 weeks pregnant and just realizing that I never blogged about the baby boy we have on the way! This isn't because we aren't excited, I guess it just got missed with the holidays and such...I don't know! We are so excited! Two days after Christmas, we had our ultrasound. We didn't want to find out at the ultrasound, that is just a little anticlimactic, so we had the tech text my mom from Chris' phone telling her the gender. My mom was at our house with Alice and Betsey who didn't want to wake up for a super early ultrasound, and she took them to the dollar store to get balloons the right color, they put them in a bag and we all opened the bag together! Even Bets and Alice were in the dark, my mom did a great job keeping it all a secret.

I had given it a pretty good guess that we had a boy on our hands based on his heart rate being significantly slower than all the other three and that it took like one second for the tech to determine his gender...so that was my guess on our drive home. Regardless, it was such a shock to have gender confirmed and know that we were going to have a boy! It is still surreal!

2012 Christmas...

Unfortunately, I am writing this post in December of 2013...so the deets aren't going to be that reliable. Shoot!

I always take the girls to see Santa at the mall. We go before Thanksgiving so that we don't have to wait in lines. This year, there was a cute spot in Macy's to write letters to Santa...kind of unnecessary since they were going to tell him themselves, but it is always best to cover your bases, I guess!

Ruby and Alice both wanted American Girl dolls for Christmas...again!

I love getting Christmas cards in the mail during the month of December. I showcase them on our front door the whole month...and most of January. It's always hard to throw them away.

This isn't in order, but here is Chris with his ipad on facetime talking to Mike's family. 

 

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents' house. Here are the cousins at dinner...

Then we got dressed for our traditional reenactment of the first Christmas. It was a lively version! Addy and Betsey were the angels and at one point, a naked (she took off her costume) angel went and robbed the baby from Mary (Hailey)! Then I think the angels fought over the baby and it wound up being best if the two angels each had a baby. 

Betsey, the little anti-angel.

Nathan.

Hailey

Alice

Betsey going for the baby. 

Addy also needed some time with the baby.

Opa reading the story to the kids.

A very serious Mary.

We came home on Christmas Eve and Bets was pooped so she went right to bed. Ruby and Alice opened their jammies and we got a picture of them at least. 

Santa brought his toys...looks like the girls got what they want...

Opa photobomb...my parents and Jordan came down to spend the evening with us and be with us on Christmas morning.

I love the look of Christmas!

Here are the happy and excited girlies on Christmas morning!

Betsey loved her new jammies!

Alice was thrilled to get an Angry Birds shirt.

Hanging out with the Grinch on the TV.

That night, we went for our second annual Christmas dinner with the Reynolds family. They hosted this year and it was really great!

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