Look Who's Smiling!

I love it when she flashes that smile at us! It's starting to happen a bit more frequently now, and it is fun. Kendall is doing really well. We still struggle with her needing to be held any time she's awake (she's not really content to just sit and watch yet), but she's doing fantastic at night, which is a huge blessing. It'll just get better and better from here. Within the next month or two she'll hopefully start interacting with us more and more, and then the girls will LOVE playing with her. They already smother her a bit. :)

Snowed In!

Winter is definitely here! Today is our 2nd snow day! We received 10 inches of snow, blizzard like conditions, and now sub-zero temps, so we're staying in. It's been a blessing for me cause I had a lot of projects to get done, and having Craig home has allowed me to work on some of them (like updating this blog!)

One of the projects that we tackled this year was to make some Christmas goodies for our neighbors. Craig and I still ended up doing most of the work, but the girls helped out a little bit, and really enjoyed eating them! That's all you need...a sugar high when you're cooped up in the house! What was I thinking!

Little Miss Jaclyn

I have been amazed at how much Jaclyn has learned this year in Kindergarten. It's like she hit a certain point of development, and her reading and writing has just taken off. It's really neat to witness her learning. She's reading all sorts of books and enjoys writing, just for the fun of it. Her teacher has done a great job of getting them to just sound out the words and write them as they hear the sounds (not necessarily correctly at this point), so Jaclyn has really taken to writing. One day last week Jaclyn had a little fever and woke up not feeling the best, so she wrote her Daddy this little note:


Jaclyn also had her first piano recital last Sunday. She played Rejoice in the Lord Always, God Is So Good, and the B-I-B-L-E. She was the first one to perform and when it was her turn, she walked right up there and started playing (no drama, yay! You never know what you're going to get with a 5 yr old). She played very well, and when it was done and people applauded, she flashed a huge smile and then curtsied. It was very cute. (Of course, Kendall decided to have a major blowout about 1 minute before it started, so Mom got to hold a stinky baby until Jaclyn performed. Yes, it got on me. Yuck!)

Just Pictures

2 1/2 Weeks!

Life with a newborn.
Hardly ever a dull moment, and if there is, you'll find me in my bed.

Where's Ashlyn?

Last night at around 10:30.
I had just finished feeding and putting Kendall to bed. I went about my normal routine of checking on the older girls, but when I approached Ashlyn's bed I noticed that she wasn't there. It's not unusual for us to find Ashlyn asleep in weird places, so I didn't think too much of it. I checked the top bunk, no Ashlyn, I checked our room, no Ashlyn. She couldn't have gone too far, right? Craig was downstairs, so I called down to him, "Where's Ashlyn?" So, he came up and we checked around a bit more. Finally, he thought to look under the bed, and there she was! There is hardly any space to squeeze under there, so that is one of the last places I would've looked, but she was there. As close to the wall as she could get. Neither Craig nor I could fit under there, so he managed to grab hold of the back of her pajamas and pull her out.
She slept through the whole thing.

The Main Attraction

Kendall is certainly a big hit around here! The girls just love to be around her (thankfully, no jealousy issues so far), and, of course, her mommy and daddy think she's pretty special too! We've also had some visitors this week to welcome our new addition. Papa and Nana came up on Monday, and then Nana stayed with us the whole week to help out. It was such a blessing. While she cooked, cleaned and watched over 2 active little girls, Kendall and I were working on figuring out life. And, we've made a lot of progress! Then, my sister and her daughter, Katelyn, came up on Thursday and then took Nana home on Saturday. So, it's been a busy week, but a good one. Here are some pictures of my parents with Kendall, and then my sister, Becky, with Kendall and Katelyn.

You can imagine how the girls just swarm around the baby. They LOVE to be around her!

And then today, Craig was holding Kendall on his lap and Jaclyn came over and started talking to her. You can see by the picture how Kendall turned toward Jaclyn and focused in on her. Kendall's really alert (at 10 days old), and I can see her focusing more on us and learning about her surroundings. It is very sweet.