Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful holiday spending time with family. We actually had three days of Christmas this year. Sunday we spent time with my side and had our gift exchange and meal and then on Christmas eve we had dinner and a gift exchange with Steve's family and then on Christmas morning we had our own gift exchange with the children and then spent the rest of the day at my parents house. The kids got so many nice gifts and they are having a lot of fun playing with all of them. Yesterday we "placed the icing on the cake" by taking the kids to the mall and going through Build A Bear with them. They loved it so much that it was worth navigating the crowds. I have never seen the mall so crowded. Steve thought the floors were shaking because of so many people moving around! (i didn't feel it but okay) :o) We also got to spend a couple of gift cards and that is always fun! Here are a few pictures from the holiday:

Dylan with Steve watching the gift exchange, i think it was a bit overwhelming for him at times:

Candace in her cute new dress opening her present:


Alexcis and Brittney opening gifts, they actually opened a lot of Dylan and Candace's
gifts this year too so they really enjoyed the gift opening!



Dylan sitting among the wrapping paper. He liked the toys that he got but he didn't
really like to open them. Next year I know he will enjoy it a lot more.



Brittney opening her Dora bowling game, this thing takes to many batteries which we still need to get but it looks really cool!


I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. Happy New Year!

Home Five Months

Candace has been home for five months today. We arrived home in the early morning hours of July 18th. She fell asleep on the way home from the airport and went right into her bed and slept until late into the morning. Alexcis and Brittney wanted us to wake her up because they were so excited to meet her. Candace adjusted to our family as if she had been with us since birth. She is doing great. She is generally a happy baby. Walking, laughing and we are just waiting to hear those first words. Here she is watching it start to snow:And all dressed up so pretty for church and our Christmas dinner!
She is a precious little girl and we are so thankful that the Lord designed for her to a part of our family! Happy five months home Candace!

Christmas is almost here!

The official countdown has begun here in our home! Alexcis and Brittney have marked the calendar with stickers and they check it everyday so that they can remind me many times throughout the day just how many days are left until Christmas! It is really neat to see them so excited. I think we are all ready for Christmas here at our house. Christmas cards sent out: check. Decorations up: check. Lights hung: check. Gifts bought: check (well almost done) Gifts wrapped: check, check. Cookies made: oops missed that one, thanks for the cookies you gave us Tawana!: check! Now we can enjoy the season!

This past weekend we had two Christmas dinners to attend. one on Saturday evening and one on Sunday afternoon. It was nice to see everyone and we had a good time. Candace was sick and i took her to the doctor on Monday morning and she has a sinus infection and an upper respiratory infection. This is the first time she has been really sick since she is home! She does not like to be sick and she lets us know that by crying non-stop. I'm hoping she doesn't get sick very often!
Alexcis also had a dentist appointment yesterday and for the first time she was a "member of the no cavity club"! She has had nine or ten cavities already and it was so nice to finally hear 'no cavities!' She was very proud of herself and promptly asked for a cookie when we got home. Wonder where she is getting all these cavities from???
Well off to get dinner started! have a great week!

Cousins!

Well it's hunting season and for three days all of the men disappear. This year both of my sisters along with their kids spent the time at my house. The kids had so much fun and we made a true attempt to work on our creative memories albums. (not sure how that worked out) The kids played games, sang in rock bands and watched the Shrek movies until late at night. They can't wait until the daddy's go hunting again. Here are some pictures:

Nathaniel and Brittney wanted to sleep in Brittney's bed. They said it was a sleep over after all! They actually did fall asleep this way, not real surprising because they played hard all day and it was really late at night. But we carried him to his own bed because both of these little guys move all over the place in their sleep and they would've been beating each other up all night.

Another rock band with Alexcis and Logan!! It was hard to catch these two in action, every time i would come in with the camera they would get quiet and tell me to go away!
Playing the game of Life!

We also put up our Christmas tree and other decorations this week. Alexcis said we 'decked the hall'! Dylan and Candace were asleep while we put the tree up and when they woke up we were anxious to see what they would do. Dylan said "what's that" and crawled up to it and pulled ornaments off immediately, and Candace seemed a bit afraid of it. I mean why is there a tree in her play area?? So far they seem to be doing really great letting it alone. I had all these horrible visions of them falling into it or pulling the whole thing down on them! But so far, so good.



The completed tree. I didn't move a thing from where the girls put them. they did a great job this year!!! (well daddy put some of the really breakable things up high so good job daddy too)

Point of View

Alexcis has her own digital camera. she got it for Christmas last year and she has gotten pretty good at taking pictures. she loves to take pictures of her toys but she also takes some good ones that i actually keep! the other night she went around and took over a hundred pictures and I just had to share a couple of the funny ones (also a picture of her camera). Yes, she did her own hair for the picture of herself! ~~



























In other news: I am feeling much better, but it seems that i just couldn't keep my germs to myself and poor little Dylan seems to be sick again. It just seems like he is fighting a bad cold but with his reflux issues added in he has seemed like he has a stomach bug too; however I believe it is just mucus getting into his stomach and making him throw up! To much information I know!

Also, I pulled Candace's hair up in two piggy tails! yeah, I love playing with her hair.














Oh I have to add: Dylan has added another word to his vocab. He now says bottle too! I'm just really excited about this because Alexcis and Brittney didn't say a word until they were a bit older and Candace isn't saying anything yet either so it's so exciting to hear something coming out of the mouth of such a little one! He now says "mama, dada, ball ball, night night, and bottle!" I get so excited everytime i hear him say something I think i actually frighten him with my excitement sometimes! Well, that's all for now, have a great weekend!

A Big First

Alexcis lost her first tooth! She was so excited about it, she was running up and down the hallway yelling 'i lost a tooth, i lost a tooth!' Her tooth has been loose for a long time now but she wouldn't let anyone even think about pulling it. We told her that when the tooth came out she could put it under her pillow and she would get money so she wanted the tooth to come out but she was afraid it would hurt. So the other night she was brushing her teeth and it finally fell out. We told her that she would be getting money under her pillow during the night and she said 'uh, how about $10 ?'!! Wow, this girl knows how to shot for the moon!!! i told Steve that I was thinking more like 50 cents but of course he put a dollar under there! We asked Alexcis if she had a visit from the tooth fairy but of she didn't believe that for a second she said it was daddy!

She didn't have school on friday so she is very excited to be able to show her friends at school on monday! Such a big girl now! Have a good weekend!

Another busy week!

Last week was a very full week with appointments and such all week and this week seems like it is going to be the same way! I am slowly getting used to the craziness of having four small kids! One year ago there were two little ones running this house and now there are four! It still blows my mind at times! We feel truly blessed! Well, on top of it all I am sick right now! My head feels like it might blow my sinuses hurt so bad and now it has started in my ear too. I have been taking a combo of Tylenol and different sinus meds around the clock. I do not have time to find a sitter and go to the doctor so i'm hoping i can just get through this one. So far the kids are all well, that's a huge praise.
Anyway, the other night the girls were watching this show on TV. We have Comcast on demand so we can pull up any kids show they want whenever they want to watch it. Since we leave the house at 8am to take Alexcis to school each day the girls always miss this new show on PBS, SuperWhy. It is a cute show that is supposed to help them learn their letters, etc. So we let them watch it in the evening after their baths some times. Well the other night i walked into the bedroom (they lay on our bed to watch it) and this is what i found:It seems the babies like SuperWhy too! I thought this was so cute.
Also Candace has finally started walking. Not just from one person to another but really walking around the room. She can even pull herself up to a standing position in the middle of the room if she falls down. She is so proud of herself and she squeals with joy when she goes walking. She still crawls around too but i think very soon she will be walking all the time! Yeah, one down, one to go!

Look at her tongue in this second one, it is so cute how kids do that when they are concentrating. Well, I hope everyone is feeling a lot better than I am! Have a good week!

Fall Is Here!

The weather finally feels like fall! I actually like fall so i am happy that it didn't go straight from spring like weather to winter weather. We are so blessed to live in a part of the world that gets to experience four different seasons! I believe it would have to get so boring to have the same temps all year round! I love summer but by September i am ready for some cooler weather, and i enjoy the snow and winter season but i am always happy to see spring!!
Well since it felt like fall it was time for some fall like activities. The girls and i carved pumpkins this past week. Yes, i actually used a knife!! The girls had so much fun and they were so excited about it that i just had to do my best! Brittney's pumpkin has a scary face, but she stated that it does not scare her!
Brittney wasn't so sure about that slimy stuff inside her pumpkin which mommy told her to reach in and clean out!
But Alexcis was an old pro: she has done two pumpkins before this one. She helped carve and clean one in preschool and one at kindergarten.... this is what she had to keep telling me and Brittney as we worked!

The finished product! The girls really wanted them in the house but i went to market on saturday and when i came home in the evening they were outside because Steve said they were stinking up the house! Such fun!

Well, this week we can finally get Halloween over with. Hopefully all the decorations will come down quickly afterwards! i have been flipping out over how many people put up lights for halloween! Are they crazy?! Uuggg!
Well, Have a great week!

More professional pictures: The kids all look so big to me in these pictures: We struggled to get Candace to smile she just wanted to go to her daddy!



Well, another weekend has gone by too quickly and it is back to school, appointments, etc. On Saturday we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheeses. The place was packed! now i know for some people that would be a bad thing but for us it was nice to actually go somewhere for dinner where we are not the main source of entertainment! Most times we go into a restaurant and it feels like 'all eyes on us'. I hear lots of 'look at the babies' and and 'aww so cute'. We get lots of questions due to Candace and Dylan being so close in age. Amazingly we actually get asked if they are twins but i really feel people know they are not and they are just curious about the situation. At any rate, we always feel on display and watched when we eat out. We have to be on our best behaviors as parents and we hope the kids can come through the meal without to much craziness because at all times someone is watching us. When one of the babies does something cute or silly we hear 'awwws' or laughter so we know we are being watched! So Chuck E. Cheeses was a nice change! The girls ran around and the babies loved watching all the children!
Sunday we went to the park with with my sisters and all the kids after church. it was amazing how hot it actually was at the end of October.
I'm trying to get a 'passport type' photo of Candace for her citizenship application. After 50+ tries i think we got a couple that might be usable (thank goodness for digital cameras)......
My little cute man:
Brittney got a bug cage from aunt Tawana for her birthday and the girls caught 5 butterflies:


Rocking out on her new guitar:
Have a great week!

Well I'm doing it!

Okay! I have been wanting to set up a site for months now but i just never actually took the leap. I enjoy reading about others, it makes me feel more connected when life just seems to busy to stay connected! I'm just getting all this figured out so we will see how it goes! I just took the kids to Penny's to attempt a group shot of all four of them but as anyone with several kids knows: it was difficult to say the least. I'll post pictures as soon as i figure out how! That's all for now!