Oh Happy Day!

Well it's official, I really did wonder if the day would come, when I would say this sentence, and that is "Our baby is crawling". She is 11 months now and has just barely decided to crawl. That may seem like no big deal, but she didn't even roll till 11 months either. So basically I have been holding, I repeat holding her for 11 months now. She did sit, but that was it, no mobility, none! Untill the other day when we dropped her off at Grand(ma & pa)'s house and as we were leaving she crawled after us. I was shocked and thank goodness for "Granny on the spot" because she grabbed her camera and got these pictures of her first literal crawl! Oh happy day!!! My arms can finally relax.

All About Me, now that I'm THREE!!

I had to do a highlight on our little 3 year old, who just turned 3 in December. She seems to me to have been 3 for at least a year now, whenever I hit the half birthday I start rounding up in age, so when they actually do turn the full year, it's never that monumental, in my mind at least. But either way here is what our 3 year old is like:

FAST LIKE DASH

You will often hear "Look mom I am fast like Dash!" (the Incredibles if you aren't sure what I am talking about) I was so happy, when we went out for a family photo shoot, that she just happened to do that, and I had the camera ready. So yes, she is fast like Dash!

BEAUTY & THE "BEAST"

Now you may be thinking that by the "Beast" I am referring to her personality, but, you would be wrong, she really is an easy going girl. The "beast" is her NEVER ENDING runny nose. I had really wanted to get some nice, Christmas dress pictures. Darrin took this one and did a great job. I was so excited to have some beautiful pictures. When I loaded them on my computer what did I find among the beauty?...The runny nose! I can't believe it. Here's a closer look:

I know you all really wanted to see that, but let's face it, I can't talk about this girl and not mention her nose.

GRANDMA J'S

You have to know a little about my mom and going to my mom's house to really appreciate this, but the short condensed version is she is a Yard Saler. She finds some pretty good stuff too. So this is just one of her great finds (not at a yardsale, but her ability to find random things, does exist outside of yardsales). I wish that pictures could speak because this one would be singing a Christmas Santa song to you right now, at least the hat would. I think Baylie's face is just hilarious in this. I can just see what her mind is thinking "Oh the Joy's of visiting Grandma J's!"

Let the hunting begin

Tree cutting is a whole new experience for me. 2 years ago was the first year we did it, and we got lucky, we found a tree right off the road, and boy was I glad because the snow was at least 3 feet deep. So this year I knew what to expect, or so I thought. We drove up the mountain, fully dressed for the snow and picked a spot that was more mud then snow, which turned out to be okay, considering each time we go to the snow the girls insist on taking off their gloves, and then they want to make snowballs and wonder why there hands are cold!

So we hunted and searched, and walked for a long time looking for the perfect tree. After serious hiking we found a tree, which we loaded up and then kept looking for ours (because the first one was for my parents). We were all pretty tired, mainly just from carrying Eden, so we loaded up and decided that our tree better be one we can see from the road.

I would love to say we got lucky, but not really, it was more of we got tired, and finally found one, just off the side of the road. After getting it home Darrin quickly realized that we were going to need a new tree stand because it was too big around to fit in our little metal red and green one (you all know what kind I am talking about). I didn't want to go shopping, I just wanted the tree up so I suggested we cut off large enough chunks from the base so it would fit. Darrin did that, and then threatened anyone who touched the tree that they would die. Not so much by him, but more by the tree that would fall on them! Sure enough a week later, while the girls were watching Saturday cartoons, I heard a crash from our room and ran out to find the tree had fallen over. The first words that came out of Jaya's mouth was "We didn't touch it!" She continued to say that as I ran out to tell Darrin we needed a new stand. We got the new stand that night, and rescued our fallen tree, which has turned out to be the highlight of the house.

Stuffing!

Call us weird, and you would be correct. We find great laughter and joy in trying to fit our kids in fun places that they would normally not be, and Eden just played along, in fact I think she would like to just stay in the cooler!

Spilling our guts!

Carving the pumpkins is normally something Darrin and I really enjoy. This year was different. We put it off, and put it off, I think we were secretly hoping that they would just carve themselves! Finally on Monday night we couldn't put it off anymore. We dragged out our 4 pumpkins and ended up carving just 1, but at least we can say we did carve a pumpkin.

Spooky Kooky!

I love Halloween, I love dressing up, but even more then that I love deciding what we are going to be that year. I was really rooting to be the Incredibles this year, but Darrin just wasn't convinced of the spandex! So instead he came up with this clever theme, well see if you can figure it out! See answer below if you can't.

We're Tarzan, Jane, and the monkeys of course! If I still don't look familar I am the Jane from the cartoon.

Photo Session

Being the 3rd child, I have to hold to tradition and not really do much for our little Eden. Which means, that she has never had professional pictures taken of her alone. (unlike Jaya who I think I took 1 prof. picture every 3 months!) So I was feeling pretty bad for her, but not bad enough to actually attempt taking 3 kids to the photo studio, so we made our own. Here are the pics...
Eden Case at 8 months. It's the first picture, that we picked to hang on the wall.