Thomas the Train!

It was starting to feel like things were settling down and I could once again think of fun things to do instead of just worrying about making it through the week! I noticed that Thomas the train was coming to the Grapevine Railroad and knew the boys would absolutely love to go! And since I’ve been trying to psych myself up for road trips, I bought tickets and forced myself to make it happen.

I mentioned to Theresa that I was nervous about traveling with all three of the kids (alone!) and she gave the very great advice of just planning to make a stop halfway. That way you get everyone out of the car for a break and hopefully it is before anyone starts melting down. And since West, home of the world’s best Kolaches, is about halfway to my parent’s house - that’s where we stopped!

There is a playground right down the street from Kolaches, so we wandered over there to play for a little while. I also just bought a new phone that has a fun “portrait” mode setting, so I made the boys pose for me to try it out.

It looks really neat! You can adjust how much it blurs the background of the image, but the AI for knowing what is face and what is background does an impressive job.

We made it up to my parent’s house without too much stress and then the next morning we headed off to see Thomas the train! There was a bunch of other activities there for the kids, though I am still very unclear on how a tortoise relates to a train…

When I realized it was a pretty gloomy forecast, I made a quick stop at Target to get Natalie a raincoat. I was hoping to not need it, but better to be prepared! On the bright side, she looks so adorable in it!

Grandpa and Nonni also joined in the train fun. It’s pretty easy to convince my dad to come along to anything involving trains. And Nonni is usually up for anything! :)

Natalie seemed pretty excited about being able to stare out the window and check out the scenery during the ride. Clearly she has the train genetics in her DNA.

Obviously the boys were having a blast as usual!

Look at these two happy little guys! Well worth all of the anxiety to get up there! :)

At some point during the trip I made a comment about sundaes and neither of the boys knew what I was talking about. How have I never given my kids a sundae?!?!

Well that was promptly rectified with a trip to Braums! And I bought them the most classic of sundaes - a banana split!

Pretty sure they approved…!

Natalie got a few bites of ice cream as well. She obviously approves as well. She was trying to steal more bites from Nonni & Grandpa!

We planned a different stop on the way back in Waco. I was looking around on google for a park to stop at and this one by the river did not disappoint. Everyone had a blast running around - even the littlest one! She’s clearly figured out this walking business and has quickly moved to running. :)

We had to make a second stop on the way back to feed the little one, so the boys got lucky and got another sundae at McDonald’s. Their dad insisted they needed to try them as well and I was in a great mood since no one was throwing a fit in my car. Win-win! :)

Ok, March Was a Blur Too...

I mean, I didn’t really expect otherwise given everything that was going on. Matt finally made it down here after the long drive back from Alaska with his buddy Sam and the stinky Eliza to keep him company. Or maybe it was his buddy Eliza and stinky Sam? Unclear…

Our stuff finally arrived!!! And all I could think was “How do we have this much stuff???” Matt keep texting me a similar sentiment when they were packing everything up in Alaska, so no surprise I had the same reaction on the other end. Even the mountain of packing paper was a sight to behold at the end of the day…

Struggling to get her to eat food some days and she goes after the dog’s food - which she clearly couldn’t eat anyhow. She was quite mad I stopped her in case you can’t quite see the tears she tried to use to sway me…

Got the oven fixed and Dada is now here, so I made Henry a second cake! But to make it even more exciting - we ate it for breakfast!! No wonder he looks so excited! ;)

~

This morning started out so promising! We had breakfast, then walked over to the Starbucks to get coffees and then over to the neighborhood park to let the kids play. I took this photo to send to a friend about the awesome morning we were having!

Which was when I noticed Natalie’s hearing aid was gone. Cue the panic…

We searched all over the bench, then the stroller, then retraced our steps in the park. Retraced our steps back to Starbucks, looked all over Starbucks and then scoured the path back home. It was nowhere to be found. I was completely kicking myself for never attaching the safety line to it. It was just a hassle and had never been an issue - until now.

Once we got back home, I tried to use the software to find the BAHA using bluetooth, but it was out of date and wouldn’t work without first linking the BAHA back up to it. Matt went back out to look for it and long, long story short - he finally found it! We walked right over it on the sidewalk and never saw it because the gray back on it blends right in when you are in panic mode.

Thank goodness, because that would have been a ~$6000 mistake.

The safety line is now firmly attached!

We have soooooo many boxes! But we no longer have the awesome costume rack for the boys, so I improvised with one of the garment boxes and I am quite proud of it!

Baby steps - literally! She is soooooo close to getting it!

Usually I just let the boys wear whatever they want, but I kinda had to veto the sweater vest… Nonni bought both of the boys these nice vests for Christmas, but so far they have not worn them with a shirt under them. Silly boys!

I decided to order them tank tops to fulfill the same free shoulder feeling, but without the slight ridiculousness. ;)

This girl seems a little tooooooo excited about the dark side…

We decided to treat Eliza and take her to the dog park that we used to visit all the time. She wasn’t as interested in running around as she used to be, but she had fun!

Though she lost sight of us at one point and she’s so deaf that Matt had to chase her down when she went the opposite way from where we were. Poor girl!

I was so excited I had found all of my Vitamix pieces until I went to put the lid on and realized it was the smaller lid. I looked in the same box and the bigger lid was nowhere to be found. So I improvised!

It worked really well, but was a bit noisier…

We originally had planned on going on a trip for spring break, but with the new jobs and a house to keep unpacking, we decided to just stick around and not take the days off. I found a camp nearby that sounded super fun to me - it was a mixture of science, engineering and art. I was worried the art would be the least exciting to him, but he was even excited about the cat painting he did. :)

We had a swallow study this month with the Aerodigestive Clinic down here and she did awesome! She got cleared down to half-nectar thickness, which is pretty much the thinnest you can go before you are back to normal liquids. But the best part was she didn’t aspirate (food going into her lungs) any of it, she just needed another swallow to clear everything after she took a sip. (That’s referred to as a residual with no penetration. Such terminology!)

Either way, she has been eating a little better - while she definitely doesn’t eat anywhere near enough to survive without her tube, she’s showing an interest in food!

Henry’s daycare celebrated Einstein’s birthday with style! It took me until I was helping Henry get in the car that I noticed the glasses drawn on his face. He was so proud of the whole get-up!

The kids and I walked over to check out Thomas’ playground one weekend. He had a blast showing his brother all around the park and I had fun taking photos of Natalie on the giant map. :)

The boys and I (mostly me) just cannot get over the fruit down here and how cheap it is. Thomas was so excited by this giant mango and insisted I take a picture so he could see if it was bigger than his face or not!

Thomas proudly came home with a list of things to do on Spring Break and I was worried he was going to be upset if they didn’t happen. Then I read the list and realized we could totally accomplish everything. I imagined myself as the mom who would encourage her kids to always dream big, but I appreciate this dreaming realistically right now. ;)

For those who need translation, here is the list:
Sleep in
Waffle House for dinner
Donuts for breakfast
Get frozen yogurt
Get hot chocolate
Brunch for lunch
Go to the park
Watch TV
Chick-fil-A for breakfast

We got everything checked off and he was so happy!

Someone is very much in a “I do it myself!” mood lately! Usually she is happy enough to try to brush her teeth and then let me finish. How could I say no to that adorable face anyhow?

Trying to work on her cup drinking skills by starting off small. She did pretty good! Though, of course, she wanted to do it herself and ended up dumping it on her plate. Good thing it’s a tiny cup…!

I should probably say that some days she is more interested in food than others. Some days she will dump the cheese on her plate, throw the rest of the food on the floor, then yell at me. At least she usually eats her cheese…?

February Blur

Unsurprisingly, February was an absolute blur of activity with the big move, so here is the usual slew of random photos for when things get crazy!

I told you this girl loves eating cheese, but also she likes wearing it! ;)

Clearly our daughter was named after our first furry baby, so it’s not really surprising that baby Natalie loves tormenting Eliza. I gave her some toys to play with and she turned around and chunked them at Eliza. Good to know she will carry on the sisterly tradition!

At this point, I think the costs for shipping the CRV are more than the actual value of the CRV…

But we can’t just leave her behind!!

Kathryn made me a good-bye cake. It’s like she is just trying to make me cry! She did a great job on my new group’s logo and then added some subtle details because she knows way too much…

Like the RV we bought a few months ago with the grand intention of RVing this summer. And then we had to sell it without ever using it. :(

But she also gave chocolate Natalie a tiny pink BAHA and that is just pretty much awesome!

Thomas’ last day in school was on the 100th day, which explains the awesome crowns they were wearing when they took a good-bye photo with him. He was such a champ about leaving - I think I was more bummed for him than he was.

Turns out, he was 100% cool with leaving everything behind once he confirmed there were no earthquakes in Houston. (Told you it shook the boys up… Pun kinda intended?)

I didn’t have hardly any photos of Natalie and her nanny, Susan! I managed to get one good one on her last day. Though she pulled a granny on me and looked at Natalie instead of the camera. But I think it just shows how much she cared for Natalie!

She’s going to miss you, Susan!!

First leg of the flight to Texas and feeling optimistic for a good flight!!

Everyone did great on the first leg and then we started losing kids on the second flight. Man I get jealous of how they can fall asleep anywhere!

First morning in Texas and celebrating the best way we know how!! Natalie’s face seems to say “Why am I eating baby food when I could be having Chick-fil-A?!?”

And back in the land of Blue Bell!!! One of my former coworkers raves about the Mardi Gras ice cream, so we snatched it up when we saw it in stock. She was not wrong at all - it is so tasty!

We couldn’t just say “We’re here!” without accompanying it with a Texas flag! I don’t know why our friend John had this flag when I randomly mentioned it, but he graciously gave it to us for a more exciting photo. The boys were super excited about being Texans again once there was a flag involved! ;)

Our friend Allie was, of course, worried about the boys not having enough toys and bought them several! Thomas was super excited about being able to go in the back yard and kick the soccer ball whenever he wanted! No more bears or moose for me to worry about.

I can just send him out and he can have a blast!

Wait, what???

This gem of a headline was on a magazine in my friend Brittney’s, bathroom. Well played, universe…

Aaaaaand traffic. I forgot what real traffic was like… We would bemoan the traffic from all of the tourists when we had to sit through a stop light more than one cycle. Ha!

Oh and don’t think I have forgotten another one of our Texas classics - the WH! Since Matt was still on the way for Valentine’s day, the kids treated me to a Valentine’s dinner. :)

Natalie was stealing my hash browns and loving them - definitely my kid!

Look at this girl! Soooooo close to walking, but not doing it. I think she just likes to stand up and taunt me! ;)

It was definitely impossible to pack the IV pole for the flight down, so we improvised! I’m actually quite in love with this set-up! It works great and I am not constantly banging my toe on the wheels of the pole.

I don’t know that I have ever gone into how the pump has to be set up, but as long as the bag is hanging a few inches above the pump - it works great. The volume count on it is absolutely never right, but I just measure out one meal’s worth and let it go until it is empty. Thankfully she is not on continuous feeds, so it’s manageable that way!

Pizza Hut had heart shaped pizzas for the whole month of February and how on earth could we resist getting one?!?!

Brittney was nice enough to loan the boys their magnet toys and the boys had a blast with them. They are probably going to throw a fit when we have to give them back - she has more than we do!

You can also see the house is pretty much empty apart from a few toys and a fold up table. Clean living for a few weeks! ;)

We went to a friend’s daughter’s birthday party and Henry was so excited that he ran, tripped and tore half of his nose off! What a start to a party! Thankfully I could hand Natalie off to a very trusted friend to go try and clean him up.

Too bad he’s going to have quite the beat-up nose for his birthday…

Speaking of which - Happy 5th Birthday, Henry!!! I am sorry your birthday is so tame this year. I couldn’t even bake him a cake because the oven in the rental house is broken - the horror! Luckily he was happy with the Cars cake, Nonni’s awesome sign and hanging out with his family. I’m so glad I raised such an easy-go-lucky little guy.

Someone has been on a “Why would I sleep in kick??” lately. She gets herself worked up enough that I give up on letting her go back to sleep and let her hang out with me while I get dressed. She is quite happy with being able to rummage through all of my make-up!

When we landed, we brought a cold front with us, so the boys were super excited when it warmed up enough to play with the water guns Allie bought them! Such a beautiful day for February - it’s the time of year that Texas really excels in the weather department!

So nice that we decided to take a walk over to the neighborhood park! The month is crazy, but the fun time with the kids on the weekend has been awesome enough to make up for the madness!

Bye, Bye Alaska...

So we’re moving back to Texas.

I mentioned it in passing in the previous post like it’s no big deal, but it’s totally a big deal!

When we moved up here in 2013, we were so done with Houston and basically blew air kisses to Texas as we happily left it behind. Of course we were terribly sad about leaving behind friends and family, but we were off to this new adventure of life in Alaska. We had been there in 2008 on a weeklong backpacking trip and completely fell in love. When the opportunity to move up there came about, we grabbed it and ran. (Or flew/drove, really)

I was pregnant with Henry when we moved up, so he was our first Alaska baby! But also sorta a Texas baby! He spans the gap quite well.

Moving up with a toddler and a baby on the way felt so stressful at the time. That seems incredibly comical now given we are moving with three kids - one of which is partway through the school year!

So why are we moving back?

Honestly, we thought we were moving back the moment Natalie arrived.

Everything was just so much the day she was born. No one could tell us she was going to be a normal kid. It was a really tough time and we talked at length about moving home, how Matt would quit his job and take care of our special little one full time.

But this little one surprised us. She was tougher than she looked! And by the time they let her come home from the NICU, we thought we had this!

Then back to the hospital and the uncertainty returned. This repeated itself several times. I strongly recall many conversations with her pediatrician at the side of her hospital bed. “Is this our life now? How do I keep a job?” He was very reassuring that I would learn to compartmentalize, I would trust the hospital staff to watch over her while I was at work and then she would come home.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Riiiiiiiiight…

But again, she was stronger than we gave her credit for. She kept having shorter hospital stays. She got a cold and didn’t end up in the hospital. She started being able to swallow!

Things were looking up!

But then that earthquake hit. We were physically fine, but emotionally - it took it’s toll. We had to leave the boys behind to take Natalie to Seattle and they were panicking over Facetime when it would start shaking. They slept in a closet under the stairs for the next 2 weeks. I finally convinced them to go back upstairs to sleep, but they wouldn’t sleep without their dad on the floor in their room.

Matt was sleeping in there with one phone showing the app if Natalie was breathing ok and the other one with the earthquake app pulled up. And we had who knows how many upcoming trips to Seattle.

It was in the midst of all of this we said “What are we doing? We have family & friends in Texas. There is an amazing medical center there and most importantly - we have an office that we can try to get a transfer down.”

So we put in for a transfer thinking it would come within the next year. Instead, we are headed back to Texas weeks later. I guess when things are meant to be, the stars align for it.

We will miss this state and the friends we have made here terribly. I will miss my new job, but I am leaving it in very capable hands (take care of my work baby, Kathryn!). I am nervous about starting over with all new people in the Houston office working something completely different, but I am excited about all the support we will have down there.

Miss you forever, Alaska!

(Except the earthquakes - you can keep them!)

What’s with all the fancy photos and then this disaster photo? Our realtor was wanting to come take photos and there was no way I could get the house in photo shape with everything going on. So I decided to take the photos myself. I could move junk out of the frame of the photo, take it and repeat for the next room. It took a bit longer, but was way less work in the long run.

But this pantry photo was my “oh good lord!” moment. You can’t take it with you when you die or when you move across the the continent... So this was the photo I sent to multiple people to offer up whatever they wanted to take. Thankfully, it looks like most of it will find a new home and not end up wasted. :)

January Random

It was definitely a crazy month and we didn’t do many well photographed activities, but we still did have fun!

Someone has reached the peak danger of crawling - she found the stairs! Gone are the days of letting her play in the living room while I make dinner in the kitchen…

Natalie wasn’t the only birthday this month! I have zero photos of my day, but I did manage to get proof that we celebrated Matt’s big day!

And look! I even have all of the right candles this time (no using an “I” for a 1 this year)!! Of course, I keep forgetting that the “4” doesn’t have a useable wick, but I managed to hide another candle right behind it so it looks legit. ;)

Mom has been helping brainstorm a list of essentials she is going to loan us for the rental house in the upcoming move. I thought it was hysterical that she thinks a Fondue Pot is an essential!

Natalie finally seems interesting in checking out the wildlife - she was pretty interested in the giant moose hanging out in the yard!

The boys got new spin brushes for Christmas and they thought they were hysterical. I think Thomas might be a little ticklish, but he powered through it!

Usually it’s just Thomas who gets a kick out of warm blankets, back rubs and foot soaks, but today Henry wanted to join in the foot soaking fun.

You can also see our countdown on the mirror of days left until we move to Texas - Henry is blocking the number pretty well, but I think it was 8 based on the date of the photo. Eeeek!

We’re slowly building up a list of foods that Natalie will eat (clearly not pudding) and her current favorite is shredded cheese. She loves it, but it apparently has to be Tillamook and it can’t be pre-shredded… I guess she might be a little foodie after all!

Happy First Birthday!

It’s unbelievably impossibly that we have a one year old in the house! I mean, it flew by with the first two kids and despite the craziness of this past year, it still seems like she was born yesterday. *Cue my eyes welling up with tears*

Well if it is really happening, I guess we should celebrate with style!! We missed the boat completely on a birthday cake smash for Thomas, did it a bit later for Henry, but this time we were prepared for a fun photo shoot! And look at this beautiful dress I found hiding in the giant stash of clothes we got from our friend!

My three crazies! Apparently Henry’s mind is also blown that his baby sister is a year old! ;)

As usual when doing photo shoots, I need some help to make sure everything is all set up before taking the action shots. Thomas was more than happy to help out, though you can see he was still in his awesome dinosaur pajamas at this point.

Side note - how is this kid 6?!? They are growing much too fast. Send help! ;)

Henry also wanted to help out with the set-up, but it’s Henry, so he can’t just make a normal smiling face for the camera…

Go time with the beautiful birthday baby!! You can just see the strand of backdrop she had in her hand - she clearly went straight for the shiny stuff! I managed to get it away from her before she ripped the whole thing down - whew!

Also, you can see that I used the same cloud backdrop that we had for Henry. The options are limited here when you wait until the last minute to buy supplies… ;)

She seemed pretty happy posing for the camera. Like me, she is unsure of what to do with her hands when being photographed! The boys decided she was clearly trying to do the baby shark song - they might not be wrong, she does love that tune!

Smashing time! Since she just got cleared to start trying foods, we didn’t think cake was a good idea. But pudding seemed like the perfect consistency for her to eat & play with! She certainly seemed intrigued with the brightly colored pots of pudding!

She’s so proud of herself for touching the unknown food! Claps all around!

“Oh, you want me to try eating the thing in the cups?? I suppose I could…”

Apparently she was not impressed with the pudding and decided to run (crawl) away…

I put her back in the center and tried sticking the pink pudding in front of her. Who doesn’t love strawberry??

She wouldn’t try it, so her dad helpfully smushed her whole hand in the pudding. “Uncool, dad!”

But when both of her hands got covered in pudding, she really let her true feelings be known about the situation!

After smearing it all over her face while crying, I showed her how to knock the pudding over! Mean pudding deserves it! ;)

Once she realized that she could destroy the pudding without getting in trouble, she was happy again! Plus, her momma got the silly pudding off her face!

She seems a little unsure why she isn’t in trouble for making such a mess, but wants to applaud her pudding destruction!

I thought she would like to knock over a tower of pudding cups given her usual block tower destruction, but she just smushed her hand in the pudding and then yelled about having pudding on her hand.

In the end, she wasn’t really the least bit interested in eating any of the pudding, but Henry didn’t really eat the cake during his cake smash and we all know that boys loves cake! She does seem to be giving the whole area some serious side eye after I got her all cleaned up. I guess my kids just aren’t into messy eating on demand - oh well!

And even though she didn’t eat the pudding, I am so excited that we had the option of giving her pudding! I wasn’t even sure there would be anything to give her for a “cake smash” a few months ago, so the amount of progress she has had lately is just awesome! If she never loves pudding, I am sure we can find something else she will love to eat! :)

Luckily there was enough pudding that didn’t end up on the floor that my very best helper could get some for a snack! Henry didn’t want any, so maybe I just managed to raise two crazy kids…? ;)

Bye Bye, 2018!

A fitting wrap-up for the year is the random photos from this month that I don’t want you all to miss out on. These kids are just so adorable on a day-to-day basis that the sporadic posts can’t capture it all!

One of their Advent calendar days was to go pick out toys to donate to Toys for Tots and the boys had a blast picking out things to give away. They didn’t ask for anything for themselves because they were so focused on other kids - it made me so proud of them!

This kid loves hot chocolate so much! Also eggnog! And I literally cannot tell what it is that cup…!

He’s happy either way!

Holiday party at work! Natalie is glad to see it from the outside this year. ;)

Nonni and Henry were all smiles with their coloring and cookie time!

I swear these two are giving me the exact same “cheese” smile. Guess we know they are related… ;)

Well, they were at least all kinda looking at the camera and not crying? I’ll take it!

Another winter - another ridiculous play for the kids! This one was the Diary of Worm, Ant & Fly and the boys really liked it. Matt tolerated it and Natalie fell asleep. So about like usual! :)

I googled some easy Pinterest crafts for the Advent calendar this year to have on the days without big activities or little gifts. These marshmallow snowman might be the cutest one for the little amount of effort! :)

Thomas’ class had an ugly sweater day and he had zero Christmas sweaters!! Luckily Nonni had just bought him this dark green polo and I just attached all these old felt tree ornaments on it with safety pins. He loved it and I think it certainly counts as ugly… Ha!

I may have gone a little overboard with food offerings after the Seattle trip and gave her part of my waffle this morning. She didn’t actually eat any of it, but she was excited about being such a big girl and getting real food! :)

I put these boots on her before leaving the house and she loooooved them! She just stared at them while moving her feet around. They didn’t stay on long once we got to the store, but that’s pretty normal for baby shoes. ;)

Trying to ramp up her normal food that we give her at meal time and cut back on the milk. I usually syringe feed it in while the pump runs her milk, but today I thought I would mix them - thus the “green milk”! It kinda worked, but seemed to slow the pump down quite a bit. Guess we’ll have to figure out a better method at some point…

She was helping me pick out what clothes to wear for our fancy photo shoot! I’m terrible at this, so I was asking Theresa how we looked. She approved! :)

Ohmigosh, these photos! Apparently we don’t do any better at all smiling when a professional is taking our photos. But the outtakes were again my favorite. Henry looks ridiculously adorable, while Thomas is trying to smile even though his sister is straight up attacking him! And you can’t tell if I am blinking or not since I am not looking at the camera.

Love it!

Can’t not include the classic “My first Christmas” outfit!!! :)

Santa brought the boys spy pens that show up with a UV light. Thomas came running in all excited that he had turned himself into Harry Potter. Love his lightning bolt! :)

Henry, as usual, was obsessed with the new cans of bath foam he got from Santa. Isn’t his hair fantastic?? ;)

As I was erasing the calendar to put up January, I once again saw the reminder of the November 30th earthquake, so I thought I would post one more reminder for that event:

Just how many aftershocks were there? Well they haven’t actually stopped yet, but here is the magnitude of all of the recorded ones since that day. Thouuuuuuusands! And anything over 3.0 we are guaranteed to feel or be woken up by. Anything over 4.0 starts to be concerning and the >4.5’s make the kids run for the closet again. “/

So yeah, it’s been a stressful month despite all the fun…

If it’s not too much to ask, 2019, please - no more earthquakes!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone! You know what that means to us - a pajama photo shoot!

The boys are accepting of their role sitting there while I get the camera all set up.

No idea what Henry is doing (as usual), but the photo is looking good. Time to go get Dada up!

Almost perfect on the first family picture! Good thing too, since it pretty much went downhill from there for serious photos…

We do much better at silly photos anyhow! And look - even Eliza joined in! Though that’s pretty much her normal expression… ;)

Oh no - we lost one! I think he had to go to the bathroom and was yelling at us while he was running away not to take any without him. Yeah right!

This one was by far my favorite. The boys and I were doing silly faces, but Natalie had nothing but loving eyes for her dad. Those two are just the cutest!

Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family, we hope you had a great Christmas as well!!

Christmas Eve

As you may have noticed by now, Christmas Eve is really the big day in our family. I was feeling extra giving this morning and let the boys open one present in the morning!

Clearly, I picked out the same one for each of them, but they were both super excited to be ninjas. I am guessing most people don’t have blue ninjas with their Christmas tree, but maybe we are trend setters!

I absolutely cannot explain the crown…

This photo is even more concerning when you know how much of a wide lens I was using! Especially given Henry’s need for stitches last month… ;)

Even Natalie’s expression shows she is concerned for my safety. ;)

Look who is standing up with the walker and taking a few tentative steps!! She needs help getting with it, but she likes holding on to it and dancing! (Reminds me of just after Christmas a few years ago with Henry!)

She tolerated the hat long enough for a photo, but that’s about it… So adorable though!

Never a dull moment with Dada! He got a foot tambourine and just had to jump up on the table to play it for the kids. They loved it!

As a side note - they aren’t drinking giant energy drinks, I promise! They are giant fake soda cans they like to use for drinking water. I bought them for sparkling water and they don’t hold the carbonation in, so the boys inherited them!

My shaggy baby really needs a haircut, but you can see even Eliza is excited for Christmas! :)

Fondue time! The boys decided to actually dip things into the cheese this year, so I let the try using the fondue forks… It was a little concerning, but they did fine. And no one got stabbed!

My mom had a patient in the ER decades ago with a fondue fork through their hand, so we always got to hear that story prior to fondue night growing up. I am carrying on that tradition!

Heather and Michael joined us for the evening! They look so cute in this photo, but I can’t get over the giant cheese bridge Matt made with his bread. What timing!! ;)

We never go overboard with presents in this household. ;)

Natalie kinda helped with opening presents, but I think it was still a little lost on her.

The boy’s big present this year was a new keyboard! They’ve been playing around on Matt’s old one and he thought they might like a new fancy one - that has all of its keys. Natalie was pretty excited about jamming her own tunes!

The aftermath of present opening! Costumes scattered everywhere, Michael juggling, Heather showing the boys Nintendo and Matt reading about the headphones I bought for the piano (to save my own sanity!). At least my littlest one still has eyes for momma. :)

11 Months!

12-23-18

Almost a year old!!! I can’t believe we are almost to having a year old baby! Time is straight up flying at this point… :(

Nonni bought her the cutest winter themed dresses that I had to use the penguin one for this photo shoot. First chance to use one of the blue bows! Looks so nice with her beautiful blue eyes, huh??

My absolute favorite photo that she will probably kill me for in about 15 years, but I love the tongue, the hands, just everything. You are the goofiest little baby and I love you, Natalie! :)

Thomas was insistent that he needed his new Christmas socks before joining the photos! They were part of the Advent Calendar that we actually picked up in Seattle while we were killing time. He loves them!

“Ok you three - everybody smile!”

Haha - yeah right…

I have no idea how Henry and Natalie have such perfectly matching expressions, but she straight up blocked Thomas from the photo!

And now Henry….

“Wait a minute, where did my card go??”

This is the closest to three smiling faces that I got. :)

Clearly I had angered the girl by taking her card, so I gave it back. She’s not sure she is ready to forgive me. Lol.

Are you guys even trying?!?!

(I do love these out-takes so much though.)

Natalie must have noticed the look on my face when her brother’s were making these ridiculous faces behind her, so she had to check it out.

Thomas smiles, Henry refuses to give up his stretch smile and Natalie throws me some Blue Steel. These goobers…

Oh no, she’s going for the camera again. I almost can’t say no to those blue eyes, but when my camera is involved I can! ;)

And she’s done… all I get now is her back. Thomas may not have been helping by trying to play peek-a-boo with her. ;)

I found the boy’s old aquarium crib toy the other day and was pleasantly surprised to see that it (mostly) worked once we replaced the batteries in it. She seems to like it as much as they used to!

She was entertained for a few minutes with the fish, but then started demanding to be released from this jail cell! ;)

Happy 11 months to my absolutely amazing and crazy little baby girl!