What we've been up to: January 2013

Okay, so I know I said I was going to try to take more pictures to blog with on my good camera that takes way better pictures than my really old and outdated 3G i phone, but this mama is pretty busy and just doing the best I can!  I am due for an upgrade in March, so maybe my frugal self will get really wild and get the cheapest i phone offered that is a step up from my 3G.  Then at least my pictures might be slightly better in quality as I run around doing a million things for my 3 kids while still trying to capture memories!

So, back to the purpose of this post:  We have had an interesting January.  We started casually looking around at houses right before Christmas.  The "casually" looking quickly turned into looking online at ezmls multiple times a day, uploading the realtor.com app on my phone to check when I can't get to my computer, talking to 2 different mortgage brokers, and looking at  every home in our town that is remotely close to our price range.  So, you know, it's no big deal or anything.

The kids have really been good about it all.  Here's Mallory all ready to head out, yet again, to see just a few fixer-uppers!

We have found a few we are interested in but haven't made any offers yet, so we'll see!  I get twitches when I think about getting our house ready to sell and keeping it "show ready" with three young kids, especially since the reason we are selling is because we are busting out the seams of our cute "starter" home:)  Being a one income family definitely rules out the whole 2 mortgage thing so we will have to sell while still living here, like I'm sure most people have to.  I'll do my best to keep you all posted but if you don't see many house hunting updates, just know I'm probably going crazy trying to find every Lego Will has scattered on the floor 5 minutes before someone comes to see our house!  If you live in my town and feel like you see me at Walmart or Sonic every time you go, just know that I'm probably killing time during showings.

So, back to the rest of our life!  We got Madeline and Mallory their first matching outfits for Christmas.  This was tough to find when your 8 year old refuses anything smocked!  Thanks to Matilda Jane, we found something.  I think they look so sweet!  I didn't plan to ever attempt to match them with an 8 year age difference, but Madeline thought it would be fun, and it was.

Mallory started rolling both ways right around this time, so nothing is safe!  She rolled all the way from her play mat in the background to be near Madeline, who was doing her homework on the floor.  She's eyeing Madeline's pencil here.  I wish I had captured a picture of her grabbing it while Madeline was trying to write!

Uncle John and Aunt Lindsey got Will this spin art set for Christmas.  He thought it was a lot of fun on a cold Sunday!

Will just celebrated the 100th day of school, which is a huge deal in kindergarten.  He had to bring a hat with 100 things on it.  We went with golf tees, which made for a very hazardous, but cool, hat!

Mallory turned 7 months on January 23!  I love how much bigger she looks here!  She has such a fun and happy personality.

She sits ups so well, loves to babble, rolls all over the place, and has turned into a stomach sleeper which scares this worrier mom to death!  I kept sneaking in to roll her back over but she would just go right back to her belly, so I gave up.  She is not crawling but it really trying too.  She hasn't figured out how to get up on her hands and knees at the same time.

We had an unnaturally warm day on Sunday.  We asked Will to go change out of his church clothes to go play outside, and this is what he came out in.  Not sure about his sense of style yet!  He has such a great sense of humor and loves to make funny faces for the camera.

Another busy but good month.  February here we come!

Family Photo Shoot

In October, my brothers and I gathered our families to have pictures made as a gift for our parents and grandparents.  It was not the best experience but we were able to get some good shots of everyone. Our family members loved their gifts, so it was worth all of the chaos:)  I tried hard to get these all in some kind of logical order but Blogger was making that very difficult, so bear with me!

Some fun pictures of the "big kid" cousins:

I love the look on Will's face here.  He could not seem to jump at the same time as the girls, but at least his hands are up:)  I'm impressed with Madeline's jump.  That girl has some 'ups!

Sweet individual pictures:

Love Madeline's eyes here.  Just so strikingly beautiful and the missing tooth makes it even more precious!

This picture of Will is my favorite of the whole session.  It just captures him perfectly and makes my heart melt!

Sweet little Mallory:

Robbie's little girl Emma with her beautiful brown eyes!

Love Lucy's little half smile, just so adorable!

Oh the fun of trying to get the whole group.  It seemed like there was always someone not looking:)

I think this was the one we went with for my grandparents:

Except for the phantom hand on Madeline's stomach, this was one of the very best pictures!  We had it blown up, cropped, and framed for my parents and they were blown away by the sweet faces!

The babies were so calm and cooperative:)

Mallory's face cracks me up in this group shot:

I'm not sure why photographers love the jumping shots so much but at least it gives us something to laugh at after the chaos of the photo shoot:) The three guys in the back are the best part!

Funny faces!

My favorite shot of our family.  I am so glad to have a new blog header!

Trying to get a shot of all the kiddos sitting up, but it was tough with 2 babies that couldn't sit up yet.

My three babies!  I wonder what Mallory is so focused on?

Our other family shot.  It's okay, but I like the other one better, less posed:)

We were exhausted and cold afterward.  I'm not sure we will do it again for awhile.  This is the first time we have ever had professional pictures done of our family, outside of church pictures.  I am enjoying the few pictures I like but am not sure it was worth the trouble or expense.  Maybe next time we can find a more reasonable photographer who is better at handling family shoots!

Christmas 2012

By this point on Christmas Eve, Nathan and I were exhausted but still had to get everything ready to host Christmas for my family the next day.  We were told that there was a Christmas Mass at 9:00 the next morning, so we had to be ready early too!  Luckily, we are a great team and it all got done fairly easily:)

We try very hard to raise our children without a sense of entitlement. We want them to not worry about what others get or have but instead to be grateful for the blessings they do have. We want Christmas to be about Jesus while still enjoying a little of the magic we enjoyed as kids ourselves.  We decided the best way for us to do that was to keep things simple.  Santa does visit our house but not the Elf on the Shelf.  I worried that my kids would be jealous of other kids who do have one, but they didn't seem to mind at all.  They are such good kids! I don't have a problem with Elf on the Shelf, we just decided it was not necessary for our family in our quest to keep Christmas simple.  We also make a big deal out of choosing two angels from the Salvation Army Angel Tree to shop for.  Madeline and Will get so excited to do this every year!  We do have an Advent calendar and do many church related activities to prepare for the Christmas season as well.

A few years ago, we decided to have them write letter to Santa asking for something they want, something they need, something they can wear and something they can read.  It keeps things organized and helps them really think through what they ask for.  Then Santa does his best to oblige their wishes and adds some stocking stuffers of his own:)

They were so excited to see their gifts that morning!  Madeline wrote Mallory's letter for her asking for a toy purse, some sippy cups, a new outfit, and the Pat the Bunny book.

 Madeline asked for a scooter, new earrings, a pair of TOMS, and Judy Moody books.  She later sent him an amendment to her list.  She had decided she wanted Dork Diary books instead but Santa was sweet and gave her both!

 Will asked for a Lego Police Station, a bigger box for his Legos, a Spider Man costume, and Lego books.  Do you see a bit of a theme with him:)

 Santa spent almost 2 hours getting this done.  It looks simple but had like 6 booklets of directions!  These sets are so detailed.

 Will was blown away!

 Cool Spider Man!

 Madeline showing off her earrings.

 Mallory took a quick look at her gifts but was more interested in getting some breakfast, so Nana took care of that!

 We all ate breakfast and got dressed for church.  I was pretty impressed that we were able to accomplish all of this with no melt downs in time to take a few pictures before leaving at 8:40!

Here's our family all dressed up!

 Apparently we got a little miss information about church.  When we pulled up, there was no one there.  We found out that there was only a Christmas Eve service this year!  So we went home and read the readings for Christmas together as a family.  Way to improvise!

Then it was time to open family gifts.  You can see how excited Mallory was!

 She sure loved having her Nana around to spoil her:)

 Nathan loved the fancy new skillet from my parents.  I'm happy too.  That man sure can cook!

 My parents got Mallory this cute little dress up mirror that she loves!  It does so many things and is just perfect for her age.

 Will got the Lego mine and he and Pawpaw spent the rest of the day putting it together.  They were so proud of the finished product!

 Madeline got the American Girl doll, Caroline.  She also got all of her books and was so excited!

 I sure love that she asked for so many books.  Here she is with them all spread out.  This girl sure loves to read!!!
 Side note:  Don't you love the Christmas mess in the background.  My OCD self wants to jump in the picture and clean it up!  I also just noticed that Maddie put Caroline in Mallory's Bumbo seat, so funny!

 Will with his new Lego sets on his Lego table in the playroom.  Let me tell you that this has provided hours of entertainment for him!

 Nathan cooked an amazing dinner for us all, as usual!  I hate that we didn't get a picture of it.  We also had some snow during that time!  Nathan was so excited and cracked us up going back and forth between cooking and checking the weather on his i pad:)
It was such a nice Christmas and I am so thankful that we did not have the bad weather and power outages that so many of our friends had to deal with all over the state.



I'm adding these last pictures a little out of order, but just noticed I had not posted it on this blog.  On December 23, Mallory turned 6 months old!  I can't believe she has gone from this tiny little newborn:

To this cute little baby, already sitting up on her own!  It's so cute that she looks like she is pointing at the sign:)

I'm still in shock that she is already halfway through her first year!  It has gone by so fast.  At her doctor's appointment, she weighed in at 14 1/2 lbs and was 26 inches long.  She's a little squirt compared to her brother and sister at this age:)  She wears 3-6 month clothes but is almost ready for 6-9 month.  If we put her in a disposable diaper, she still wears a size 2.  She is sitting unassisted and starting to roll a lot more.  She loves the sound of her voice and is starting to babble. She lights up for her Daddy and brother and sister but is a major Mama's girl.  She still won't take a bottle and we are hoping she will learn to drink from a sippy cup soon.  She loves every kind of food we have given her and makes the cutest mmmmm sounds when we put her in her highchair.

It is amazing how much she has grown and changed and I am so excited to see how much she changes in the next 6 months!

Christmas Eve 2012

We left to do an early Christmas with Nathan's family in Conway on the Saturday before Christmas. We had so much fun seeing his side of the family and the cousins had such a good time playing together. As usual, I didn't take any pictures:( I have decided that sometimes it is more fun to just enjoy the experience rather than being so focused on pictures. Luckily, my dad took care of that for our family celebrations!

On Christmas Eve, we headed to Little Rock to see Robbie and Emma. My mom, dad, and Grandma and Grandpa Taylor also met us there. We watched Emma open her presents, played with the kids, and ate some great snack food, as we always do:)

Such a silly boy!

Mallory wore herself out and took a nice nap all cuddled up with Daddy:)

Then, she was ready to go again! Laughing with Mommy.

My dad had fun with the kids, trying to capture different emotions for a poster project he wanted to do. They were so funny and cute!
Surprised:

Silly:

In deep thought:

Happy:

Silly Nana getting in on the dress up fun:) She was wearing fairy wings too!

Madeline is cracking me up in the "Brave" costume wig. I had no idea she knew how to cross her eyes!

After our snack dinner, we loaded up to head back to El Dorado. We got the kids in bed and then got the house ready for Christmas morning!