friendly foto fun!

the other day we met up with a friend of mine to take some family pictures so that we would have something to put on our Christmas card that I would actually be in. Usually i snap the picture, but am never in it. so this year, i get to be part of the family picture. it was so cold the day we went out and so the kids were not always excited about being there. but we got a cute picture for our card.. it think it shows us just as we are! i am excited to send it out!

these are some of the out takes. 

ENJOY!

i can not believe i have 4 kids. i can not believe how big they are all getting. but i am glad we have moments like this to capture them so i can remember them at each stage!

thanksgiving 2010

this was our first time having thanksgiving with just our family. we were a little worried. we had always spent thanksgiving with either my parents or garrans parents. we spent all morning cooking and getting stuff ready. i was worried. we made a lot of stuff from scratch, which for me is always scary for me. however everything turned out great!

 garran did an awesome job with the turkey. it was so yummy. i was really impressed. (not that i doubted him)

 for dessert i made mini apple pies. we are trying to eat healthier and have better portion control, so i thought this was a fun idea. they turned out so yummy. mini apple pies.
one of my favorite quotes from the day came from cullan. when he came down stairs, he looked at the table and said "wow mom this is fancy, now this is what i am talking about!"

the whole day was great, and now we know that we can handle a thanksgiving dinner. hope everyone had an amazing thanksgiving and got to enjoy time with their loved ones!

we wish we could have seen more of our family, but we had an enjoyable time together!

getting started.

the tree is up...with all three of our kids help..ayla sat in the bouncy seat and gave moral support. ;0)

the house is all decorated. the stockings are hung! i love this time of year. i only wish we had family around to share this time with. but we will see them soon enough ;0)

family.

so today we spent the whole day as a family. it was wonderful. were the kids perfect. no. was the weather perfect. no. what was perfect? we were all together with no schedule, no one having to be back for appointments, work or school!

today was PERFECT!

so we took advantage of our perfect day. i have a tradition that i started for the kids and i guess with garran and i when we first got married.

the first year garran and i were married, we were dirt poor. that year we made dough ornaments and that was part of our gift to each other. we still have those. ;0)

after that year we would give each other an ornament every year. when we had kids we just added them in. i like the idea of giving them a big box of ornaments when they grow up and get married that have all these memories from their childhood. this year was different too, in the fact that we took the kids to the store and let them pick their own ornaments. in the past garran and i had picked them and surprised the kids with them. i thought this was fun too. i liked to see what the kids would pick. so, i thought i would share our finds for this years ornaments.

briea saw this white bear and instantly said "pretty baby".

this was mine. i just thought it was cute. i usually try to pick something to signify something from the year, but this time i just went with cute.

miss ayla. i thought it was kind of different and cute for a first year ornament.

cullans- santa on a dirt bike....big surprise! he is such a fun boy.

this is garrans. as many of you know, he has had this image in a lot of his work called "party pig". when he saw this, he instantly grabbed it. he said he needs to make a party hat for it.

here is kael's. also very appropriate. the kid is a gum junky!!

i know i already picked one, but this just made me smile. a little ginger bread family!! so this one was for all of us.

have i mentioned how much i love Christmas and all that goes along with it. we decided to put up the tree the day before thanksgiving instead of the day after, so that we could enjoy it while we eat..

i can't wait to finish decorating the house and enjoy this time of year!!

next big project...Christmas cards!!

hope everyone has an amazing thanksgiving!!

bigger.

she's bigger. already. i keep asking her to stop getting big so quickly or at least slow down a little. we went to the doctor today for her 1 month checkup and here are her stats. 

weight: 10.1 lbs

height: 21 inches

head: 38 inches

do you see what i mean...bigger...all the time!!

the girls!

today we had family pictures taken. this is just a sneak peak, but i absolutely love this picture of just us girls!! I know ayla is upset but I still love it. I am rarely in pictures and this one just came out very sweet. I am excited about the other pictures and am trying to make that tough decision of what will end  up on our Christmas card!! i can't believe it is almost that time of year already!! however, i love Christmas cards, so i am ready!

carmack

one of the missionaries from our church had a birthday the day before mine. we decided it would be fun to surprise her with a small birthday cake and some birthday cards made by the kids!! This is one of my favorite pictures from the day. i love that she is laughing and that the kids are having such a good time!

happy birthday sister carmack!!

my big day

well thursday turned out so much better than i thought it was going to. i have to admit i was feeling a little down. i was bummed that garran was going to be in class all day and i was bummed that i was so far away from all my friends in waterloo. there was a group of us there that use to have birthdays close together and so we would all go out to dinner to celebrate each year. this is the first year i wouldn't be there for it. 

so this is how my day went. garran came home around 1:00. he surprised me by having a lady from church come over to watch the kids and he took me out to lunch. he was so proud of himself for pulling of surprise. he usually can't hold it in when he has a really good surprise, but this time he did. i had no clue. i love him so much. even when we can't do anything to big, i love that we both try to do something to make the other one feel special on big days like birthdays. 

after we got home, garran had to go back to school. boo! but the kids and i had a fun night. we had dinner together and I had picked up a small ice cream cake since I thought that would be my only form of celebration.

 here is the yummy cake. i think the kids were more excited than i was!

 b was to tuckered out to make it to cake. i was ok with that. while i love her bunches and bunches she had been really grumpy and i knew she really needed some sleep.

 ayla however was ready to party!! to bad she could not have any cake.

of course the boys were ready for some yummy fun!!

it was a fun day, and now i have started a new decade of life. hopefully i can make this next 10 years even better than the years before!!

November 18th 2010

Today I turned 30...

 Today she turned 4 weeks!

All in all, I would say it has been a pretty productive day!

Garran and His Elves!!

one more, just because they make the kids laugh so much!

A Holiday Laugh!

 My kids love these so much. They always crack up laughing. It is so worth it just to listen to them laugh!!

to good!

this was to good not to share.... 

after asking the kids to calm down, Cullan said "Sorry Mom, We were just doing the Donkey Dance of Joy!".....My kids are crazy!!

speaking of...

as i was posting the last blog entry (funny enough that it was about cleaning) Kael comes up to me and says "Mom, know what these are?" I said, "I am pretty sure that is a hair clip." He then looks at me with this sort of DUH look on his face and says.."No MOM...these are what I use to pick up trash!!"

balance

ok so I am sure that every mom goes through this, especially after bringing home a new baby. this time I am just thinking that getting everything back into balance might be a little bit harder. i know that everything will work out. tomorrow will only be 4 weeks. however, after spending all day trying to get the living room picked up and trying to get like 5 loads of laundry done, I thought to myself.. geez I have  not done anything fun with my kids today. I just wonder how some moms do it...or do they even really exist. you know the moms that have a spotless house, kids neat and tidy and have fun crafts and activities for the kids to do each day. i can only seem to get one of those accomplished a day. ;0) If my kids are tidy and neat...odds are the house is not!! Like i said I know things will level out and all will be organized chaos again!!

rare

rarely do i post just about myself, but today i realized that in 3 days i will be 30.

i guess the reason i am posting that is because the more i think about it, the more i realize that i am not upset about it all!

3 weeks.

3 whole weeks has flown right by. we sure love having this sweet little girl around.

mario brothers...and a sister.

the other day we were at walmart and they had costumes on clearance, something like 90% off. cullan and kael saw these costumes, which were a dollar and went crazy. i thought they would be fun dress up clothes. i was right. cullan has wore his everyday since i bought it. 

 Cullan in his costume!

 Kael in his..he was not so crazy about the mustache. He would only put it on for a minute and I missed it. Oh well, he is still so cute!

 the mario brothers!!

Briea wanted in on the action. she took the mustache kael would not wear and gave it a try!

checks

today we had yearly check ups for the boys and ayla's two week check up. you would think, "wow meghan, it was a really good idea for you to schedule all the appointments together since the doctors office is 45 minutes away and you could just get them all knocked out."

WRONG!

oh my heavens, it could not have gone worse. it was like I was in the middle of a sitcom.

lets cover the stats first:

Cullan-5 Years Old

weight: 46.5 pounds

height: 43.5 inches

Kael-4 Years Old

weight: 46.5 pounds

height: 40 3/4 inches

Ayla-2 Weeks Old

weight: 8.10 pounds

height: 20 inches

briea-1 1/2 old

did not get checked but is wore out from our day!

-------------------------------------------------------------------

ok so here we go. we get there at 9:00am. by 10:00am we are still filling out paperwork because it is Cullan, Kael and Ayla's first time at this doctors office. YIKES! so the kids are kind of playing in the lobby but briea however decides that she is tired, not feeling well and wants to lay on the floor and wander around and not be very cooperative. Finally we are called back. we have to strip all three down while again B is refusing to stay in the room. The boys do not want to take their clothes off, because they are funny about strangers seeing them naked. (go figure i know, my kids never seem to want to wear clothes at home.) anyways we get them stripped down, height and weight checked, then they need urine samples from the boys. OH JOY! this is a new adventure. so i take the boys in the bathroom and garran takes the girls back to the room (which i might add is right across the hall from the bathroom). so i take the boys in the bathroom and explain to them that they have to go potty in the cup. i forgot to mention that if they still had to go after they filled the cup that they should aim for the toilet. i guess i just thought that they would know that. I WAS WRONG! cullan went first. as he started to get to the top of his cup i could see the panic in his eyes. i suddenly realized he did not know what to do. AHHHHH! so I say "can you stop" he shakes his head NO!. So I grab the cup and try and get him to the toilet. unfortunately there was a stool in the way and things went down hill from there. he ended up spraying both my pant legs, the wall, the toilet paper roll and a good 3/4's of the floor before we got to the toilet. sigh. i got him cleaned up and opened the door to send him across the hall to garran. as i did garran is already standing there with ayla fussing and briea crying. garran took one look at me and then the bathroom and I just closed the door. it was on of those parenting moments where no words were really needed. we muddle through the rest of the appointment. full physicals for the boys. I was so glad garran was there for that. they look good. a few standard tests to run but for the most part all was well. then on to ayla. she has a little reflux but the doctor gave us some suggestions so hopefully things will start looking up on that front. by the time we got to the car, all garran could say was "you are a strong women to have ever done this by yourself!'' I love that my husband says those things sometimes. It is just good to hear every now and then.

i love deals!

i usually don't post about this, but i found this outfit at target for under $4.00. i think she looks so cute. the skirt was on clearance for $1.00 and the shirt was $2.86. i love a good deal and i love target!!

big brother.

someone loves being a big brother. he does such a good job at it!!

open.

i love that she is slowly starting to be more alert and that those pretty little eyes are open more often.

a face

who could not love this face. messy or not. she is just to sweet!

2 weeks

being two weeks old can really take a lot out of you. ayla has already changed so much. she is starting to be much more alert. she can hold her head a little bit more steady and is just getting stronger and stronger...as well as sweeter and even more cute!! She is also sleeping longer at night. Woo Hoo!

Happy Two Weeks!!

here again!!

becca came back again today to take some more pictures. she sent me these tonight. i am loving having a friend here that loves photography too! I am so excited to have pictures of ayla like this. i wish i would have got them with all of my kids. they are so sweet, especially when they are so brand new and all snugly and squishy. 

enjoy!

 cullan looks so old to me in this picture. he is becoming such a little man.

even though i was not planning on being in any of the pictures, i am happy she snapped one with me in there anyways. i am never in any of the pictures and this one is really sweet.