Our big 4 year old!

 

Evan turned four on Tuesday, August 7.  We had a great day full of fun.  It began with Evan getting to open some early morning birthday presents.  He was so happy today was finally here!  Just look at this smile.  The present he is holding below is actually from Elaine.  She wanted to get Evan a special present for welcoming her into the family and thought a perfect time to gift it to him would be his birthday.  Such a smart girl. :)

Later that morning we got to hang out with some of our best-est friend's the Pray family.  Cameron got Evan this awesome batman shirt!  Cameron has it too, both boys love that they can dress as twins!

Carly even made us all a special lunch and then we got to celebrate Evan with ice cream sandwiches.  It was fabulous!

Later that afternoon we headed over to the Fountains to hang with our other best-est friends the Wisners.  Tuesday is free train day so we treated all the kids to a ride on the train.

This was Elaine's inaugural train ride too.  She slept through the whole thing.

 

Then we visited the toy store, ¡me gusta! KIDS.  The children had  a lot of fun testing out the toys.

Then it was home to meet Daddy and then head out to dinner at one of our favorite Birthday Spots, Red Robin.  Just look at our happy boy as the servers sing to him.

 Followed by another look of delight knowing he would get to eat this delicious birthday treat.

Finally, Evan's birthday was capped off by a few more birthday gifts from Mommy and Daddy when we returned home that evening.  What can we say, this kid is spoiled. :)  Let's just say he was pretty excited.  Look at this picture below; it says it all.

At four Evan is awesome!

Here are some of the important milestones to date:
-He can spell and write his name (Preschool is awesome!)
-He can draw actual pictures, including people, the sun, grass.  He also enjoys trying to color within the lines.
-His favorite color is red!  He also enjoys orange and yellow.
-He is a very good eater.  Evan tries new things, he doesn't always enjoy them, but will make a good effort to taste when asked.  He loves strawberries and watermelon.  His favorite foods are pizza and spaghetti.  His favorite sandwich is peanut butter.
-He can ride his big boy bike super fast and with lots of skill.
-He is excellent at video games on the I pad and Leapfrog.
-He loves to play and has nonstop energy!
-He is a champ at make believe.  Enjoying pirate adventures and tea parties and picnics with his sister.
-He is a natural entertainer and can be found singing his favorite songs (Vegitale Worship Songs) and dancing.
-He loves all things boy- cars, trains, boats, superheros, bikes, racing, and pirates, to name a few!
-Most importantly he loves his family and enjoys spending time with all of us and prefers to be together with us if it is an option. :)

We are blessed beyond words to have our amazing, larger than life son, Evan Asher!  Thank you God for blessing us with his precious life just four short years ago.  Happy Birthday son!  You make us very proud and bring us joy every day.  We love you!

Elaine's first Thanksgiving

This post is way over do!  Bear with me, I am trying to catch up. :)

Here is our little turkey on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 22.  Doesn't she just look adorable.  Here is another cute picture of her too, just hanging out.  Her shirt couldn't be more accurate.  We are so very thankful for our little Elaine.

We all were able to celebrate at my Grandma'a again this year.  Our family always has the best time.  Here is Grandma giving Jim a few carving tips; she also was admiring his work.     

Here is my family in action all working together to get the delicious meal on the table.  We had a lot of great team work going on. 

 My Dad helped to entertain the kiddos.

Here he took some time out to take a nice picture with Evie too.

And no Thanksgiving celebration would be the same without also helping to celebrate my Mom's Birthday, that also happens right around Turkey Day.  The kids were very happy to help blow out the candles, and also greatly enjoyed the cake and ice cream treats.

 Lastly, a lovely picture of my brother and sister-in-law together.

It was a wonderful, delicious, and super great Thanksgiving!  We are blessed!

Five Months Old

Our little love bug turned five months old on December 8.  She continues to be just the cutest thing and has the most beautiful twinkle in her eyes when she smiles.  

At five months Elaine's accomplishments include:

-Everything and anything is going in her mouth and being chewed on.  She can't get enough of her toys.  Can we say TEETHING!  She also does not sleep so great during the night because of it too. 

-She is sitting up really well on her own with some support, as seen in these pictures.

-She loves to stand and has really strong legs.

-She has the best smile and laugh which turns into the cutest little giggle when you tickle her.

-She can roll, but is not so good at rolling all the way over.  She is happy just hanging out, playing with her toys and chewing on them.  She needs variety though!

-She continues to be such a good girl, but is a little more random on sleep these days.  She had a bit of a cold along with the rest of her siblings which messed things up a bit, along with teething.  She doesn't sleep long in her car seat now however, either and is easily startled. 

-She does like the Ergo and can be found checking everyone out while riding in and then will usually fall asleep.  

-She loves to see what everyone is doing and prefers to be carried facing outward and enjoys being carried on your hip too.

-Elaine continues to be a great eater and is growing like a weed.  She appears to be a little longer than her siblings at this age.

-She loves her feet and especially enjoys pulling off her socks.

We love you so much Elaine and Happy Five Months!  You are growing up too fast!

Four Months Old

 
 
Our little peanut turned four months old on Thursday, November 8.  She is an absolute pleasure to have in the family and we just can't get enough of our little Elaine.

To date she is:

-Talking all the time, she loves to squeal and make raspberry sounds.  You can find her making her voice change volumes.  It is so cute.
-She drools and loves to blow bubbles a lot now too.
-Elaine can roll.  She rolled for the first time, Saturday, November 10.  Pops was visiting too and even got to see it.  We witnessed it two times and were trying to get it on camera, but kept missing it.  It never gets old to see your baby learning to do something for the first time.  Before this, she could be found moving back and forth to the side position.  With this action Elaine can actually turn around completely in a circle without assistance.  After rolling though, Elaine does tend to get stuck on her tummy and needs help rolling back over.  She is getting stronger every day though.
-She continues to love her brother and sister.  They can always make her smile.  Her brother gets a big kick out of saying "Goo goo, gah gah" to her and thinks that is the secret to making her laugh.  However, really it is just her brother's smile that does it every time.
-Elaine is still a great eater and sleeper.  However, with the sleep she has regressed a little and gets up before the rest of the kids these days.  She was spoiling Mommy and Daddy before this so we really can't complain.
-She loves to just lay on her back, kick her legs and hang.  However, she is enjoying chewing on toy at this stage too along with her kicking.

We had Elaine's four month check up on November 19 and she weighed 13 lb. and 15.8 oz.  She is ranking in the 38% on size.  Here height was 2' 11''.  In this area she ranks 60%.  The doctor thought she was looking great and she did excellent when it came to her 3 shots and oral medicine.  She of course cried, but was very brave and stopped when we left the office.  Way to go Elaine!

Elaine is simply amazing and a complete blessing to watch grow and develop.  We love you little darling and Happy Four Months!

2012 Halloween Fun

We had a fantastic Halloween this year with our three kiddos.

The morning started off with a lot of joy. The kids were elated that Halloween day was actually here.  They had been counting the nights (Evan loves to count nights :) ).  This is how they looked Halloween morning.  Evan opted to wear his Woody costume from last year to Preschool, since they had already seen his Spider-man Costume and he would be wearing it that night too.  

Here is Evan at Preschool with some of his classmates and Mrs. Netty, and Ryder and Evie (the siblings).  Ryder was also dressed as Woody, which is hilarious, because at their Preschool Harvest Party both boys were dressed alike as Spider-man too.  Great minds think alike! :)

Evie and Elaine had on regular clothes with Halloween designs in the day time.

We made a Jack-O-Lateran Pizza from Papa Murphy's for dinner too.  It was so much fun, not to mention delicious!  The kids loved it.

After our yummy dinner it was Trick-or-Treating time.  

We had Spiderman, a.k.a. Evan!

Evie as Dora Enchanted Forest Princess.

 

Last, but certainly not least, our little Lainey-bug, a.k.a. Ladybug... 

With wings included. :)

Here are the kids in action at one of our favorite neighbor's houses, Miss. Nilda and her dog Sparkle. 

Miss. Nilda also took a picture of our family that night too.  Thanks Nilda!

After this we continued on our way.  The whole night, Evan kept proclaiming..."This is the BEST Halloween EVER!"  It was adorable.  Evie was having a blast too.  

The neighbors in our community get so into Halloween.  These are some of the extravagant houses we visited this year.  Here our neighbor is showing how this decoration works.

My babies holding hands as they walk to the next house...precious!

Our little darling Elaine riding in the stroller during part of the night.  Most of the time she preferred to be held, however, the stroller came in pretty handy when the big kids got tired out.  Evie was using it between houses and would then jump out to walk to the door to get her candy.  The stroller was also used to hold the buckets of candy when they started to become too heavy. :)

Lastly I leave you with our munchkins, and their final results of the evening in front of our house with their pumpkins.  One of their favorite treats was microwave popcorn! :)

Here is Evie eating her candy, having some popcorn and watching "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" as we awaited a few additional Trick-or-Treaters at our house.

After our movie, we checked outside to see how the crowds were going and it was raining.  God provided a perfect night for all.  It was as Evan declared..."The BEST Halloween EVER!"

Romance Weekend in South Lake Tahoe

Jim and I got the opportunity to escape for an overnight trip away from the big kids with our Church to Lake Tahoe on the weekend of October 19-20.  It was AWESOME!  We had a spectacular time and couldn't get enough of the beauty of God's creation at the resort where we stayed, Resort at Squaw Creek, Lake Tahoe and the area in general.

This is also where they film the Olympic Zone during the Winter Olympics.  Here are Elaine and I by the country flags.

Here is a picture of our room 

and the beautiful view out the window...breathtaking!

Here are some pictures of the Lake that we got right before we left to come home on Saturday during a walk we took.

Here is our little stole-away, Elaine.   She was such a good girl on the trip.  It was fun to be able to spoil her a little bit as she got our undivided attention. :)

 
Jim and I brought home the kids these huge pine cones that we found on our walk during our trip.  The kids thought they were pretty cool.  However, they were kind of prickly and one little critter did travel home with us and decided to come out and say hi when we gave them to the kids.  The pine cones ended up going outside quickly after that, but not before we could get a quick picture.

A big thank you to Grandma and Grandpa who watched the big kids for us.  They had the best time and so did we!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We love you! :)