special delivery

i am blessed with 2 very special, life-long girlfriends who have beautiful families who i adore. we decided to do something special together for christmas, so we all made cookies and packaged them up to take to sheltering wings. our kids were so excited to deliver them to the kids at the shelter. we got to take a tour of the shelter and learn about what wonderful things God is doing through the shelter that my mom/"mawmaw" directs. we finished the night off by eating dinner together at dave's pizza. our waitress stopped us on the way out to brag on how well behaved all of our kids were. that's always a nice thing to hear ;) making memories with some of favorite people is even better though.

the big kids with the director of sheltering wings

dinner at dave's

me, angie, & stephanie

Y basketball

the highlight of the season is always the trophy, ya know :)

santa at the library

dropping off their letters in santa's mailbox...

she was in awe of him!!! and he loved her just as much :)
this was as close as abram would get and he did NOT let go of my leg ;)

precious!

1st glimpse of snow

yellow belt

after asking for a few years about karate, we finally let eli have a shot at karate classes. he LOVED them! i'm actually a little jealous because i always wanted to take karate when i was little. in fact, jerry and i have talked about taking classes ourselves one day. this teacher is so good with the kids and eli has already learned so much about self defense. he got promoted to a yellow belt last week and will get to continue on after christmas break :)

8 months

miss kinley turned 8 months old on thanksgiving day, so i'm just now getting to her monthly update. it's amazing how much a baby can change in just 1 month!! she's now scooting EVERYWHERE!! it's more like an army crawl and it's gettin' the job done. her favorite destination is the dog bowls.

with her new mobility comes the "everything in my mouth" stage. the boys were pretty good about not putting things in their mouths, but not baby girl. she finds the smallest thread, crumb, lego, penny, etc and it goes straight in! the boys are quickly realizing that nothing is safe on the ground anymore. and when she's on the floor upstairs, she starts squealing when she sees eli's room open...a whole new world. anyway, she's also able to get from sitting to scooting by herself now and has attempted to pull up on her activity center toy.


she got her first tooth last week...boo :( i'm not ready for teeth. she's a late bloomer for teeth though compared to her brothers. she's turning into a great eater now! of course, no interest in the homemade baby food that fills our freezer, but she LOVES whole peas and cut up cooked carrots! she also likes yogurt...the kind with a fruit & veggie in it (and the most expensive!) i'm just glad to know she's eating something on a spoon because there for awhile we were getting nowhere with solids. i think she was just holding out for "real" food!

she's still nursing about 4 times a day and has been giving her daddy a hard time with the bottle when i'm at work. i think she thinks it's a chew toy or something. she doesn't seem to mind too much though and if she's gets hungry enough, i'm sure she'd take it. she's pretty dramatic with her sippy cup, as you can see :)
she still sleeping great. usually 12 hours at night and 2 naps during the day. very predictable and easy most of the time in regards to sleep, that's for sure. actually easy & predictable in regards to pretty much everything!! a dream baby, no doubt about it :)

trimming the tree

of course, abe found the tiny bit of snow and had to eat it!



hot chocolate!





tryin out the tree :)