skiing

We took Katie skiing a little while back and after that trip she told me she didn't want a birthday party, she only wanted to go skiing again. Sounded great to us! We were joined by Nana, Papa, Grandpa, Aunt Emi, Uncle Dan, Connor and his friend, and Adrienne. We had a great day and Katie was flying down the mountain by the end. Her goal was to make it down the mountain 3 times since last time she only went twice. She went down 6 times! We are hoping for many more ski birthdays in her future!

 Driving up. Jammies, hot chocolate and a new nail salon game on the Kindle. She also got to watch Ever After for the first time.

 with Aunt Emi

 Katie and Grandpa

 Mommy and Kate at lunch break.

 One of the highlights of her day was her lunchable.

 Through the trees with Daddy!

 On the lift. Everytime we got on she would find where we were on the map.

Getting some air.

2013 Snapshot

This post has been saved in my drafts folder for weeks, for when I have time to add pictures. I don't have time to add pictures and I want to post it before we are half way through 2013! Already life is changing. Edits are in green!
Time is whipping by faster than I can believe and when I saw this idea on another blog, I knew it was a quick and simple way to record where we are, at least for a little bit. So here is where we are in 2013:

Taylor finally graduated from Grad School and we are so excited for the coming homework-class-meeting free year. It is still amazing. Time with him every night to play and have fun is amazing! So thankful we made it!

Katie and Levi have trouble going to bed EVERY  night. We have tried lots of things but they still are up there playing in there beds and running around. We have even tried sitting in the room with them and they are awake for hours. We should probably drop afternoon naps, but I'm not ready for that yet. Still bad. Praying for a bigger house with rooms of there own for each of them!

I just registered Katie for Kindergarten!  She got into the school we had picked and I am so excited. She is ready for more social interaction than just her brothers!

We joined Villasport and it has been such a blessing to our family. We go to the pool, classes, and I love just walking on the treadmill. The kids love the playcenter and are always excited to go and sad to leave.

Levi loves watching movies. He would watch television all day if I let him.

He is also super-focused. I have to physically touch him to get his attention if he is busy.

Katie loves all things hair, nails and beauty. Her hair is so long and I think I should cut it but can't bring myself to do it.

Katie and Levi are best-friends. They play pretend all day long and are getting better at working out their fights.

We are going to try and sell our house for-sale-by-owner in the next month and are packing up the house to stage it. We will see what happens!  The sign is in the yard. Praying for the right buyer in God's timing.

I still go to playgroup every Monday. These girls and their kids are such an amazing blessing in my life. They are my sounding board, encouragment and best-friends. I love that our kids have been playing together since they were babies.

We meet once a week with a group of families from church and, similar to playgroup, these families are such an encouragement to walk through life with. We have 13 kids between us age 6 and under. There are 5 families we meet with. We recently added worship and prayer time with the kids and it is the sweetest time together.  We just added Baby Logan this week and love him already!

Grayson is tiny. Off the charts tiny and we are trying to fatten him up. If he wasn't such a horrible teether and would stop getting the stomach flu in between bouts of teething I think I would be more successful. Gray gained 1 lb and 1 inch. We are going back to check him in about two week again. I think he is really starting to grow though. Lots of naps and some 12 months clothes don't fit him anymore.

Thanksgiving and Grayson's baby dedication

Apparently I didn't have my camera around much during the month of November. We celebrated thanksgiving at my folks house. The kids loved that Garrett was home from college.

 Our thankful tree, corn fingerprint crafts, and ever-shrinking countdown until Daddy was done with schoool!

 We dedicated Grayson at Vanguard church too. Our head pastor Kelly Williams prayed a prayer of dedication over him and us as his parents. The significance of this event for us is that we are commiting to follow God in our parenting of him, to prayerfully guide him in the hopes that one day he would choose to follow Christ on his own. The church body and our families also pray for us and walk this journey with us. I love that Levi is peeking at the screen.

 Praying with our family and friends. My good friend Laura led a prayer in a more intimate setting.

iphone pics

Here are some last pics from our old hard drive. I found a bunch of pics from Taylor's phone that I thought were funny. It has been fun to see the pictures Taylor captures.

 

Our little blurry climber. None of the other kids have climbed like Grayson does.

 Fun picture to have your husband send you when your aren't home. I can't for the life of me remember how he got this. Head bumps can get scary big!

 My kids love Itz. It is basically a glorified Chuckee Cheese. This was Levi's first time ever on a ride. He was finally tall enough.

 Fancy pants hair. No idea what this was for either.

 Katie planking. And more importantly is that an empty dishwasher!!!!?

 Date night dinner at the Mona Lisa.

 Just realized his eyes are closed, but I don't want to post just a picture of me, so, Sorry babe!

 And a picture of Taylor's Grandma and George at the end of the wedding festivities in CA. Grayson was fading quickly.

Halloween 2012

Halloween banner the kids and I made. I love the black one on the left with 2 mouths.

 Katie's cat. I love that she is at an age that she can produce things like this on her own. Levi still needs a lot of help so it looks "mommy-crafted."

 Katie and I had matching outfits and she loved it. Someday that will so not be cool:)

 All the kids are our lifegroup Halloween party.

 Mini-Chicken pot pie mummies.

 All three kids gettting in on the carving action.

 Brotherly love.

 Squish.

 She picked a Cinderella pumpkin.

 The trick-or-treat crew.

 Happy Halloween! Katie was a monarch butterfly. She talked about it for weeks! Levi was a hippo and Gray was the obligatory first Halloween duck.

 Clones.

 Checking out her loot.

 This is the best pic of all three of them. The outtakes were hilarious. Let's just say Grayson wasn't happy for too much longer.

Disneyland

The day after Kevin and Lydia's wedding we were leaving to fly home around 6. The night before we made a last minute decision to go to Disneyland the next day. I am so glad we did. Was it a ridiculous amount of money? Yes. Did we have 3 very tired kids? Yes. Did we have to leave by 3 to make our flight out? Yep. Given the chance I would do it again in a heartbeat. After coming through a long season of school for Taylor and 3 babies in 3.5 years it was such a fun celebration for our family. The kids were all at such a perfect age. Everything was magical for Katie. Levi was in awe the whole time and Gray was such a trooper and even slept for part of the day. We told the kids what we were doing on the way there that morning and their excitement was so priceless. The pictures are out of order, but I will fix them in the scrapbook and don't want to mess with it now!

 

Levi on "Small World"

 The Buzz Lightyear ride. This was one of our favorite rides. You got to shoot the characters throughout the ride and it actually tallied up your score at the end. I was not as good as I thought I would be:) Gray was zonked at this point. Betty's face is so priceless!

 The Suppes family was out for the wedding and we ended up realizing we were all going to Disney that morning. It was so great to have an extra pair of hand and friends to share the time with. Taylor's family used to go to Disney with the Suppes when they were younger.

 Disney Pic! Levi was crashing hard at this point.

 One of my all-time favorite pics of Katie. We were standing in line to see Rapunzel! We waited for 30 minutes. Apparently that is a ridiculously short time.

 Meeting her favorite princess. She was so excited.

 And...the corny Disney posed picture. I love that each character has a set pose. It actually really looks like the movie character!

 Taking our tired crew home. My feet were tired, so I'm sure they were exhausted.

 They ended up not falling asleep until we got home. No idea how with a face like this!

 Katie loved this ride so much. We went several times. When Levi finally got brave enough to go on the ride. We told Katie she couldn't go never thinking she would go by herself! It was so weird to see teeny Kate by herself in the first car. She loved it!

 Meeting Cinderella.

 Snow White was the only princess Levi would get close to.

 Katie on "Small World"

 Sillies

 The teacups! Mommy was more than fine sitting this one out.

 Arriving at Disney.

 Levi hugging Pluto. So cute.

 They were a little unsure at first.

 Yay for Disneyland!