Abbie's First Swim Lesson!

Abbie had her first swim lesson last week, it was also her first time swimming and she loved it!

Dressed and ready to go!

Getting used to the water

Coming up from "swimming" to the bottom (not alone) - she loved it! What a little fish.

Evan and Abbie - 1st Christmas Comparison

Evan's birthday is May 30th and Abbie's is May 23rd, so they were basically the same age at their first Christmas'. In these pictures they are wearing the same pjs...Evan fills them out much better than Abbie did as they are 9 month pjs and Evan is quite a bit thicker and taller than Abbie. Let's just say that at 4 months Evan was 2 lbs heavier than Abbie was at 6 months. We have people tell us that they think they look a lot alike and some that think Abbie looks more like me and like my mom. Here is a pretty good comparison. They definitly favor each other but have their own look as well.

Evan

Abbie

Evan

Abbie

A White Christmas

Merry Christmas! Dallas received the tail end of the winter storm that crossed the nation over Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had about 1.5 inches of snow which meant we woke up to this on Christmas morning. Did I mention that it was 75 degrees on Wednesday?

Abbie was very excited about her Discovery Dome

Evan was very excited about his new bike. Since everything was still iced over he did his early practice inside.

Then outside we went to play, have snowball fights, make snow angels...

Spencer loves to be wherever we are as a family.

Abbie with some snow she just picked up...about to try it out for the first time

Rolling the bottom of the snowman

Complete with a carrot nose and acorn eyes

We have a picture just like this of Evan. Same pjs and everything...I hope to compare them soon as they were both born in May so the age is the same

This racetrack has literally been played with for hours each day. He has thanked us many times over for it and it's something we can all play with together. There were also a few preschool board games under the tree that we've been having fun with too.

Tad the learning Frog, not immediatly sure about him, but came to love him quickly

Ready for the road now that the ice had melted

(if you need a bike for a child...Walmart.com Rock It Bike...best deal around for a kids bike that they will only use for a few years-good quality).

And our boy is off...wow...old enough for his own "big boy" bike

7 Months

Our Abbie Girl is 7 months old! This month has brought more firsts and more fun with she and Evan. Abbie continues to join in the craziness around here and has begun to compete with the volume level of her brother. To be honest, it's hard to be the only "quiet" one a house of extraverts. We even had to take our food to go the other night from Chili's - yes Chili's, a family friendly restaurant (had a gift card) - because of the noise level of our children. Not being bad, Abbie was tired, and teething - she screeches and talks louder and louder the more tired she gets. Evan was just getting restless. We chose to take our dinner to go as opposed to coninuing to subject the restaurant to our noise level. Whew...it was a crazy 30 minutes!

(that felt like an hour!).

This month has found Abbie babbling more and playing with her sounds. She can sit up unassisted for quite awhile if she wants to. However she is usually over and on the move - rolling still for mobility. She is trying very hard to get up on all fours and gets pretty close; she desperately wants to keep up with her big brother.

Abbie has also gotten her two bottom teeth in and is working on a few more. Thus the 12-18 months of teething has begun. She did well but definitly had a rough few days with swollen gums before they finally cut through.

She continues to enjoy her excersaucer and jumping while there. She eats two solid meals a day and has done great with that. We chose not to pull out the high chair this time and are using the bumbo with a tray. It works great and saves so much room! It's really a lot easier to clean up as well. In a few months we will just switch her to a booster seat.

We are having so much fun with our sweet girl.

Ruthven Christmas

We went to Houston for about 24 hours to get together with my family for Christmas. It's been just over 2 years since my immediate family was all together so it was really fun. We had the opportunity to visit our former church where we met, married and Jeff later worked. It was fun to show Evan where we got married and see a few friends we haven't seen in awhile. We also visited a few fun restaurants that you can't get anywhere else. True to Houston traffic form - we ended the trip going 2 miles in 1 hour due to a wreck on 45 in The Woodlands. Two kids crying and nowhere to go but sit...that's the Houston freeway I remember! For those we didn't get to see...we are sorry and wish our trip could have been a little longer to see more of you.

Abbie's cousin Paige knitted this hat for her. I think she likes it! She has also learned to smile for the camera which is so fun!

Fun with Brayden and Wendi

Hanging with Paige

Magdalena surprised us with a visit! She hasn't seen Evan in a few years. You can look back to the beginnings of this blog and see Magdalena with Evan as a baby. She took care of him some when I went back to work and took care of my 14 year old neice when she was a baby and my sister went back to work. Needless to say she is a member of our family and we love her!

Our family decended upon Molina's Mexican Restaurant for lunch on Saturday. 11 adults and 9 children from 7 months to 14 yrs. Two of my cousins and family were able to join us as well.
We love this place for large family events because no matter how loud or misbehaved the children are, they are kind and serve you well. They also have Jose's Dip...if you've had it, you know what I mean. This is only about 1/2 the table and one of the rare moments kids were at the table. There were at least 1-2 adults always chasing a child somewhere...chaos! Oh, and usually that child was our firstborn.

Paige and Abbie after lunch

The Floor in Process...

Yes...it has been 3 months since this saga began...

Here's what the floor looked like when we left town on Friday...no floor...it's a start...

Here's how it looked when we got back on Saturday. Almost all tiled...getting closer!! As you can see our stuff is everywhere. I don't know how people do full remodels while living in the house. Just having our kitchen floor done is crazy enough. Partially because we have a pantry/closet that houses most of our appliances and they all had to come out, as well table, chairs, etc.

Cookie Decorating/Christmas Worship

Sunday night our Community Group met at church for cookie decorating, dinner and a Christmas Worship Program. We absolutely love our CG! There are 4 families with a total of 6 kids ages 4, 3, 2, 16 months, 9 months and 6 months - whew! We are a wild a crazy bunch for sure...at least the kids are and us parents are just trying to keep up. What an incredible privilege to walk in community with others and not only model that for your kids, but bring them alongside.

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Tasting to see what to add next...no he's not done!

Gummi Bears too???? (notice all the gumdrops already added)

The finished product. He entered it in the cookie decorating constest - we haven't heard anything yet...

The bite...there was only one. I mean did you see the cookie? I think the sugar hit his veins faster than he could chew...and really, he only ate one bite of it.

The older kids in the back dancing to the Christmas music. They were having so much fun together dancing and singing to the songs.

The Tree

Abbie has discovered the Christmas tree and she is mesmerized by it. She loves to move the needles around in her fingers.

Where's Abbie?

There she is!

Experiementing with the sippy cup...or in Abbie's case, it's a fancy teether. Can't wait to see her face when she realizes water will come out if she figures out how to take a sip.

SNOW!

On December 2nd Dallas saw it's first snow of the season. It lasted a few hours but barely stuck and eventually turned into drizzle rain. Evan was so excited that the best I could do was to get shoes on him...so Lightening McQueen pjs and tennis shoes. Needless to say he didn't stay out long as it was pretty chilly. He loved it though!