And She turns 1!

Last Friday Ellie celebrated her first birthday. I always feel a little sad when our babies hit the year mark. It is so fun to have a baby in the house, and now she's just gotten so big. They just grow up so fast. For some reason or other I wasn't able to get any good pictures of anyone but her. Here are some of the highlights of Elizabeth's day in pictures:

Decided to make her own little cake instead of buying it like I did for Wes and Amberly. It took a little bit more time than I had planned...mainly because I'm not very talented when it comes to decorating and I only have one tip to work with.

Ellie spent a bunch of time at my feet trying to get my attention. Here she at least looks happy....

...but really she just wants me to pick her up and lets me know it. With Tom still recovering from his surgery there is only me to turn to....and she wants to be held now!

She's much happier in the high chair with some snacks.

She didn't hesitate to dig right in, even before the candle was blown out by the other kids.

Mmmm....this is pretty sweet! (She really only took two bites and then started trying to throw it on the floor. When I stopped her she then tried handing off to me or Reili. I don't think she liked the sticky feeling on her hands.)

Ooooh....a present.

Who cares what it is....I'll just climb on the box...that's more fun anyway!

Christmas Morning 2010

Each of the kids wanted a pillow pet this year. So Santa brought Reili a dolphin,....

Amberly a penguin,.....

and Wesley a bee.

General mayhem during the opening of presents.

Ellie loves the candy in her stocking even though she doesn't get to eat any of it.

Yeah....my own play phone!

High on Reili's wish list....roller blades. She loves skating in our unfinished basement.

Awesome...'mote control car!

Amberly asked for an MP3 player....and got a re-purposed iPod shuffle (oddly similar to the one Dad got while he was in Iraq a couple years ago....hmmmm). Yahoo!

Luke 2

One of my favorite Christmas traditions growing up was dressing up and acting out the Nativity while my Dad read it from the Bible. Since we have plenty of children now and haven't been to visit family for Christmas in quite some time, I thought it would be a good idea to start doing it. It actually turned out to be quite comical this year. We had quite the unruly baby Jesus as you will see. Even though it didn't turn out to be quite the spiritual experience I had hoped for, I think we will try to do it every year.

Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus.

An Angel brings glad tidings to the shepherd(s).

In this case the shepherd seems a little unsure of just how glad the tidings are.

The "laid him in a manger" part just didn't quite work out. Next year we'll have to use a doll.
(Not quite sure what Joseph is up to here either.)

The whole cast takes their final bow.

A second run through with Reili as Mary and Wes as the Angel just had to be done so everyone could feel that it was a success. (Still...Elizabeth was having trouble with her role as Baby Jesus.)

Pre-School Christmas Concert and Santa

Wesley started Pre-school in October and December 20th was his first Christmas concert. Elizabeth and I attended (Daddy had to work) and it was difficult to get pictures during the performance and watch/hold Elizabeth at the same time. Also, the lighting made it quite impossible to get a good shot of him so far back (I don't have the camera it would require). He was so cute when he did decide to sing or do actions though. I can't believe how fast he has grown up. We also were able to get a low enough number in the drawing to get to see Santa Clause right away. My older girls have never been interested (too scared) in seeing Santa up close so it was fun to see these two actually want to sit on his lap. Well...I'm not sure Ellie wanted to, but she did. What a good sport.

Look...#14! Hooray!

Santa, I want a Spider Man figure.

Who the heck is this guy?

Well....I guess he's okay. Are we done yet?

Ellie also hit the 11 month mark on December 14th. Here are some cute pictures of her at 11 months. She is definitely our first to take steps on her own. She still isn't toddling around, but she is taking a few steps here and there. I can't believe she is almost 1!

Putting up the Tree

If I am being completely honest, decorating the Christmas tree has always been somewhat of a stressful chore (during my entire life). I can't remember putting up a tree without some sort of stress/fight involved (most of the time with putting up the lights when I was young). Having a pre-lit tree has helped take some of the stress away for sure. Our kids are always so excited and want to get everything out at once and that gets me stressed . For the first time this year though, after a couple minutes I just decided what the heck have at it. Who cares if something gets broken or whatever (we don't put up many breakable ornaments anyway)? I had one of the most relaxed experiences ever. Our tree only has ornaments on the bottom half and many of them were made by the kids at one time or another. I decided to just leave everything where they put it this year....lets face it you only have young kids once. They are happy and I need to get over whatever OCD it is that I have about hanging ornaments in certain spots. Our tree is by no means the tree from a magazine, but when I look at it I think about how much fun our kids had decorating it. Not many people see it but us anyway.

A cute shot before we started. I love these girls!

If I could just reach high enough!

Almost done here.

I can do it!

Hmmm...what should we put on next?

My favorite picture of the night. Tom loves his baby girl!

Reili poses while Amberly takes a shot of the final product.