Allie Catch up 10-12 months

I have been so bad about blogging, so here is an Allie catch up.  I will do her first birthday post separate.  We've had a rough couple months with a lot of sickness, but everyone is finally getting healthy and we're ready for summer.  As long as she is not sick, she is a very happy baby!  She can throw a tantrum though!  It is so funny.  She throws herself down onto her stomach and arches her back with her legs straight out and arms straight back screaming.  Seriously she does it every time you put her down and she is not ready to be put down.  She has started walking.  She took her first real steps at the very end of April, but started really walking right around her birthday.  She loves her siblings.  If she hears them upstairs playing and having fun and she is downstairs, she will just stand at the bottom of the stairs just longingly looking upstairs.  Once you finally pick her up to carry her up she gets so excited and starts jumping crazily in your arms and hyperventilating and making squealing sounds!  It's so cute!  She also does it every time our door lock opens.  She knows someone is coming home and she gets so excited!

Here is a picture of her eating some of her first finger foods

Allie's 10 month shoot

Allie's 11 month shoot

Big Boy Bed

Yesterday during Brayden's nap time he was fighting his nap.  I was in the playroom with Kaitlyn and then all of the sudden he walks into the room!  That was his first time crawling out of his crib.  I put him back in which resulted in him crawling out over and over about 3 more times until I gave up on the nap for the day.  That night we went ahead and converted the crib into the toddler bed.  At night he was running around all night but did finally go to sleep in the bed.  Hoping that the newness of that will wear off soon and that he will still take his naps!

Showing off the big boy bed

 Kaitlyn wanted a picture of her in her bed too :)

Brayden Stitches Round #2

Last week Kaitlyn and Brayden left for a sleepover at Nana's house.  Justin and I had a date night at Cheesecake Factory planned since we only had Allie and having only one kid now feels like you are free!  Well a few hours after they left, Mom calls me and informs me that Brayden fell and she thinks he needs stitches.  He fell into an open door and split his lip open.  So she loaded him up and we left to meet her at Levine children's hospital.  He was once again very brave.  He didn't cry at all except when they put the numbing gel onto his lip.  After that he was perfect the whole time.  We sang Old MacDonald had a Farm the whole time they were stitching him up, just like the first go round of stitches on his forehead.  He has been excellent the whole time since getting them as well.  He hasn't acted like it even bothers him which is good and still eats everything.  Still too early to tell if it is going to scar though.  So luckily it was nothing too serious.  But I swear he is the clumsiest, most uncoordinated child ever.  Kaitlyn seriously was running and walking better than him at 12 months than he does at 2.5 years!  He falls all the time, so I am worried that things like this are going to happen too often with him. 

Snow Day 2014

This winter has been one of the coldest I can remember.  A Polar Vortex Storm came through and we actually got quite a bit of snow.  Justin was off work for 2.5 days so that was awesome!  And the kids got to experience quite a lot of snow!

Allie's 8 Months!

Allie's 8 Months!  This was a big month for her.  She started pulling herself up and started putting herself into the crawling position...but not really crawling yet.  She can pull herself back into a sitting position from her tummy.  She is a great baby.  So happy.  She is by far the happiest of all of them, however she can go from happy and laughing to screaming her head off in a split second!  She is so animated and gets so excited all the time!  I love it!  Routine is still about the same.  Wakes up around 7:30 or 8:00.  4 bottles a day, 3 solids a day, and two naps a day.  Bed by 8:00pm.

Christmas 2013

Everyone had a good Christmas this year.  Busy as always.  My mom and brother came over Christmas Eve for dinner and to open one present before Christmas.  Then Christmas day the kids came downstairs to see what Santa brought.  They lucked out this year.  After we opened our family presents, we headed over to Nana's house.  The kids must have been good b/c Santa came over there too!  All the extended family came to Nana's house for Christmas lunch.  After we opened presents over there, it was then off to my Dad's house for the third Christmas of the day!  Then the following morning we left for Justin's parents house for our fourth and final Christmas!  Here are a few pics:

Santa Fun

The kids got to see Santa twice this year.  First time was our annual neighborhood Cookies with Santa, and the second was hosted by this Greek restaurant off South Blvd.  We discovered it by coincidence.  We ate dinner at the restaurant the week before and the hostess mentioned that every year the owner throws a Christmas party for the community with free food and Santa arrives by red helicopter.  So we decided to check it out.  It was awesome!  Free burgers, fries and drinks for everyone, and then we all got to watch as Santa's helicopter flew towards us and landed.  I've never been so close to a helicopter landing before.  It is really powerful!  Brayden got scared, food boxes, dust and debris started flying everywhere!  But it was cool, after the helicopter turned off Brayden was fine and the kids got to go hug Santa.We'll probably try and do this every year!

And here is our annual neighborhood picture with Santa: