~~2009~~

Wow, this year was pretty full of excitement for us!

JANUARY --

Elijah had his 3rd birthday in January, and of course, it was an all CARS party!



We made the decision in January that we would start trying for another baby later in the year, and so I started trying to lose weight, to counter the effects that yet another pregnancy would have on my body. I lost about 15 pounds...that was, until February.

FEBRUARY --

We celebrated Valentine's day, with the kids receiving V-day boxes from Ma-Maw and Pa-Pa. They were a big hit!
Friday, February 20th was a day I won't soon forget. The kids had been sick all week, and I started to feel it hitting me, so I decided to head to Walmart, to get out of the house for a while and to pick up a few things we needed, along with a pregnancy test. You never know.
Well...
We got the biggest shock of the year that night, when we found out that we were expecting baby #5. Wow, that was quick! We were a little bit shocked, but totally excited!



MARCH --

Chloe had her very first school program, and she did awesome!



I was battling morning sickness every morning, noon and night, along with horrific migraines, so I was a bit out of commission for a while.

APRIL --


We celebrated Easter...

We also had a little bit of a scare with Elijah. We had to call the ambulance on him for the 2nd time in his life. He was coughing and not breathing very well, so they gave him a breathing treatment and some steroid medicine at the hospital. Thank God it wasn't anything worse.

MAY --

May started out with yet another trip to the ER. This time, it was for Laney. She had an extremely high fever, and a horrible stomach ache, so I took her in. They ended up diagnosing her with a kidney infection, which led to a 2 day stay at Children's Mercy Hospital. I hated seeing my baby hooked up to an IV and laying in a hospital bed. We're also praising God for bringing her through that, as it could have been something much worse.

May was an exciting month as well. We had our ultrasound on the 22nd, and asked the u/s tech to put the results into an envelope. We had a dinner planned at our home with family that night. We were blessed that Mike's younger sister, Sheri was able to be here for it!! When the rest of my family arrived at our house, we opened up the envelope to find that we were having another BOY!!!

We were thrilled!!! I was a little scared of having 3 boys under the age of 4....

JUNE --

In June, we celebrated Father's Day, along with Mike's 30th birthday! He's an old man!!! :P

His parents were able to come into town for his birthday, and we all had a wonderful time together! The kids love spending time with their Ma-Maw and Pa-Pa, and we all had so much fun at Science City!

JULY --

I LOVE July! I love everything about July-the sun, the warmth, the food, the fireworks...everything! We spent the day of the 4th at the Village Fest in Prairie Village, and did a few fireworks at home afterwards. Later that evening, we went to my aunt and uncle's house to eat and let the kids play, and to watch the guys shoot off the big ones!



We also celebrated Chloe's 6th birthday in July! She's getting so big, and she's such a sweet, beautiful little girl. I'm so proud of her!

We also moved the girls into their room downstairs. They love it! They have so much room, and practically all of the toys are down there, along with a TV and their Wii...who wouldn't love it?

AUGUST --

We celebrated Laney's 8th birthday in August. Wow, I can't believe she's already 8 years old! She's such a sweetie and has such an amazing personality. I'm so happy she's mine! :)

We also got to work on the baby's room. We wanted to do something special, since this will be the very last nursery that we decorate!

I bought his bedding, and copied the circles that are on the bedding, onto the wall.

It took us a LONG time, but I think it turned out awesome!!!

SEPTEMBER --

September was a quiet month. The girls were a month into school, and we were just kinda getting back into the groove of everything that goes along with that.

I also had my 29th birthday...my last year to be in my 20's!!

OCTOBER --

October was a big month! I was finally full term, and we were just waiting!

We celebrated Isaac's 2nd year with us, and we had a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party for him! He's a momma's boy and will always be! That's totally fine by me! =)

The morning (and I mean early morning, like 12:30am!) of the 22nd, my water broke, and at 8:32am, we met our sweet baby Jett!!! He's absolutely perfect for us!

NOVEMBER --

November, we were able to take a quick trip to the zoo, and enjoy the beautiful weather we were having!

We had Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's house, and my mom and I went black Friday shopping! I love it!

We also attempted to take the kids' picture all together for our Christmas card. This was the best we got...

DECEMBER --

This month, we were able to travel to Colorado, to see our family, and have our Christmas with them!

Jett had his very first Christmas at home, and it was an extremely white Christmas!!!

God has blessed us with a wonderful year! Even with some bumps of sickness along the way, overall, we have been great! I'm looking forward to 2010!

Glory to God in highest heaven,

Who unto man His Son hath given;

While angels sing with tender mirth,

A glad new year to all the earth.

~ Martin Luther

Around the house

Here's what we do around our house after Christmas.

The kids play with their Christmas toys...

...like Isaac, reading books with the Leapfrog Tag.

And playing with chalk and letters from their chalk/letter board...of course, not with the board...but still fun, nonetheless.

And taking apart the chalkboard, so he can put the chalk in the parts.


And then there's Jett, who isn't all too thrilled with his little Christmas owl.

But aren't owls darling? I think so.

And Laney, playing on webkinz. No doubt, with her new webkinz koala bear.

Chloe's actually using the chalk and chalkboard the right way, practicing her letters. What a studious little girl.

So intent.

And Elijah drawing his name without me even knowing.

He brought this to me after he did it all by himself in his room!

Wanna know how he got those horrible scars? You won't believe it when I tell you.

It was Isaac. Okay, so if you have actually seen these brothers in action, you would believe it. He did it with his fingernails. Apparently I need to trim my kids' nails more often. Those chubby little fingers do more than just look cute. Boy, can they fight though. What do I have to look forward to?

But then they take baths together and get all snuggled up in their new towels and they look so innocent.

For like 3 seconds...then they're at it again.

We had a great 5 day weekend, being all together, and playing games non-stop. I miss Mike being home with us. I'm looking forward to this weekend, even though I don't know what we're doing for New Year's. We'll probably just stay home and play games with the kids. more games.

A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.

A White Christmas

...so white, infact, that we had to cancel a few of our plans...

We usually go out to my Aunt and Uncle's house for Christmas Eve, along with their kids, my mom, my sisters, and their families. We all exchange white elephant gifts and play games and all that, but this year, we stayed at home due to the weather. My sisters and their families came over to our house instead, since we live pretty close to each other (my mom stayed at home with my grandma, who isn't doing well). We had all the yummy finger food we had already made, watched a few comedy routines from Brian Regan (so funny!), and played games. We had such a fun time together. My neices are all teenagers now, and while I'll admit that the teenage years aren't my cup of tea, I feel really close to all 3 of them, and I just really love talking to them. They are all sweet, beautiful girls, and it makes me look forward to my girls being teenagers. They are all hilarious too, which makes everything that much more fun! :)


I didn't take any pics while they were here, but after they left, we let the kids open their stockings and one gift.


Jett's stocking stuffers.










If I had known that Chloe would be so happy about some ring pops, I could've saved alot of money on presents! :)

Laney being goofy!

I had Jett all dressed up in his Christmas duds, so I took some time to take pictures of him.

Isaac giving him love!





Merry Christmas!!

Me and my sweet baby love

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Christmas morning is usually spent at my mom's house with my sisters and their families, and a giant breakfast made up of eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausage, and biscuits and gravy! This year, the weather caused us to miss out on all this yummy food, and the fun time we have on Christmas morning together.
Instead, we woke up, and I figured we had been snowed in, so we went ahead and let the kids open all their presents from us. We usually go to my mom's first and let them open ours when we get back home, so they have time to play with them.

Here they are in the middle of gift-opening time.

His very first Christmas!!!


...and he slept right through it! :)



After we opened presents, I got out and shoveled our front walk (which eventually got covered again, since the snow decided to start up later), and my soon-to-be brother-in-law snow-blowed our driveway for us. My oldest sister got her "official" engagement on Christmas!!! Woohoo!!! Mike couldn't do any of it because of this. We were able to make it to my mom's and open her gifts and have our yummy ham dinner, but it was just our family there. My sisters and their families came later that night, after we had already gone home.

So, this Christmas was a bit different in our traditions, but it still has the same meaning that it always has. We have so much to be thankful for, and it's all because of HIM!

The first time that You opened Your eyes did You realize that You would be my Savior, And the first breath that left Your lips did You know that it would change this world forever...
I celebrate the day that You were born to die so I could one day pray for You to save my life
~Relient K

Why I Love Vasectomies

Top Ten Reasons:

10. Because Mike got off work early today, which made my day go by faster.
9. Because my mom came over to watch all 6 kids (I babysit my friends' little boy), and gave us some time alone. Albeit, in the car and in a dr.'s office, but we were together.
8. Because I was able to spend all night waiting on my husband hand and foot, to show him how much I appreciate him doing this.
7. Because we have 5 whole days of just our family together...no work or school.
6. Because we can stay up as late as we want watching movies together because of the no work/school thing.
5. Because we can joke about cooking the frozen peas for dinner. You know, the one's that he's using as an ice pack. oy, we're not really gonna do that, obviously. ew.
4. Because he can somewhat get a taste of what we women go through in childbirth. Not really though. Nothing besides chilbirth is in the childbirth category.
3. Because I no longer have to spend money on pregnancy tests.
2. Because I don't have to have my tubes tied.

And the number one reason:
Because we can have s-e-x and not have to worry about b-i-r-t-h c-o-n-t-r-o-l!


Jill Taylor: Honey, it is much safer for a man to get a vasectomy than it is for a woman to have a tubal ligation.
Tim Taylor: Says who? The "Wives With Knives" club
~Home Improvement

I just realized that I posted this on the same day as Jett's 2nd month post...sorry baby boy! Poor kid.

2 Month Jett

My little guy sure is growing! I'm finding more and more tiny little outfits that he used to be able to fit into, and is now too big for. That certainly can't be right. Tiny outfits that, only a week ago, or it seems, I was pulling out of storage while waiting for him to be here to fit into. I can't believe he's already outgrowing clothes!! What's the deal here?
He's smiling more and more all the time now too! For some reason, he loves when I say the word "baby".

I haven't even made his 2 month dr. appt. yet, so I have no idea how much he weighs, or how long he is. He loves to lay in his swing, or on his playmat and watch his brothers and sisters play. He follows them around the room with his eyes, and I just know he's thinking, when can I get up and play with them?

He was in a great mood last night, just jabbering away, so I got the camera out, to try and snap some pics of him smiling. It always happens though, I get so distracted by his ADORABLE smile, that I totally forget what I'm doing, so most of the pictures are of his after-smile face. Not sure that makes too much sense, but hopefully you get the idea. :)

Cross eyed baby

This picture cracks me up...he's just concentrating so hard! :D

It looks like he has red hair in some of these pictures...he doesn't though....his hair is pretty much blonde. I got a video of him smiling and talking, but I can't find (read: haven't really looked all that much) the cord to upload my video camera. I'll try and post it soon, though. It's so sweet!

A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankrolls smaller, homes happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten and the future worth living for.