Happy New Year!

Our last day in Montana we spent most of the day packing. At the end of the day Hans and I left all three kids with Grandma and Papa to run to my cousins new house to see what they were doing with it. Grandma and Papa got the experience of bouncing Aubrey on the ball and playing with big girls a full time job, but they loved it. Once we got home we packed up quickly and headed to my brother's house to have a New Year's Eve party. There was a lot of my extended family there and some friends so it was really fun to visit. We ended the night playing rock band and party sports on the kinect. We had a blast and actually made it till midnight. Well Claire fell asleep on Grandma and Aubrey slept on Papa for awhile.

She is such a cutie and loves to wear lipgloss (make-up), jewlery and even Grandma's reading glasses which had to have hurt her eyes after awhile.
Of course when I am having fun visiting I forget to take pictures. But I did get a few at the end of the night.
Josh getting ready to play.

Olivia loved joining in and playing on the girls team when we were doing party sports.

My cousin Greg and his wife Sarah competing in track in field.
Claire taking a rest with Grandma.
My sister-in-law Carrie's brother. He was so funny to watch play.
Papa got Aubrey to sleep.

I must add in here that three times when we were playing the party sports on the kinect that a husband/wife pair were in a boxing match. Hans and I, Greg and Sarah, and Matt and Rachel and each time the wife would knock out her husband at least 3 times and each time the girls beat their husbands which then led to us winning that round of the team play. It was quite humorous to watch.

On New Year's Day we packed up the car and even packed up Ellie (our cat who got left behind in August because we couldn't catch her) and headed home. It was a long trek but the kids once again did great. Aubrey is pretty good on the highway with sleeping it was when she was awake that it was hard to keep her entertained. But our car was so full that I just packed the front seat full of stuff and sat in the back with kids to help keep the entertained and because I could watch movies (just kidding)! It worked out great and was nice to have one day to unpack and settle (somewhat) back in before Hans headed back to work on Monday.

Before we took off Papa got Aubrey to take a bit of a nap. He must have the touch with her.


Now that we are back home and mostly settled in ( it only took a week). We are slowly getting back into the swing of things. I didn't really set any New Year's Resolutions because I know I never keep them. Because every year it is the same things I want to do. I always struggle with ALL the things I want to get done and not being able to do everything I want to do. My days are packed with just caring for 3 kids, homeschooling, the daily things that must be done like making food and cleaning up and then I add projects in on top of that. Plus I would like to get back in shape, spend more time with the girls, read my Bible and have a daily devotion time and the list goes on and on. So right now I am working on contentment. Trying to know I can't do everything and trying to prioritize right now. I love having a clean house, but am working on letting the little things go. Speaking of priorities my little girl need some attention and she will only be this little once so I must go. But FINALLY I am caught up!! Well at least until tomorrow.

Christmas Vacation-Part 3

I am finally getting closer to being done with my posts about last year! Oh the joys of being a mom of three.

The day after Christmas we headed up to my parent's house to introduce Aubrey to the Louden side of the family and have another Christmas celebration with my family.

Hans holding Aubrey the morning before we left.

When we got to Grandma Janice's house she had a little tree for the girls to decorate with their special ornaments. They had a blast doing that.
Even though most of the ornaments ended up on the same branches that Claire could reach.
You can se Claire's hair was still braided and Olivia still had wavy hair from taking her braid out.

The girls were excited to see Ellie our cat again and play in Grandma Janice's toy room. Another exciting thing for them was that Grandma got them a bunk bed for the room next to the room we sleep in so Olivia was very excited to sleep on the top bunk and Claire did great sleeping on the bottom. It was nice for us to have some extra space.

On Monday we did some shopping which was nice for me. Hans came along and wrangled all the girls while I got a chance to shop at my favorite clothes store and get some new clothes which are always much needed. That night we went to MacKenzie River Pizza Company for dinner (another of our must do's when we are home because we just love their pizza).

On Tuesday my cousin Carrie came over with her 3 boys. We had a good time visiting and of course I didn't take any pictures because I was having too much fun visiting. Her boys are getting so big now. She has 3 year old Michael and the twins Conner and Dillon are 18 months. After that we got the girls outside since the weather was still nice and we had snow and had to take advantage of it. We tried to sled on it, but it was too wet, perfect for building snowmen though. So the girls, Hans, and Papa built to snowmen as I took pictures of the all the fun with Aubrey in the wrap.
Doesn't she look scary throwing that snow at me?












That night we did Christmas with my family. Mom made an awesome turkey dinner for us and then we opened gifts. I forced everyone to take a family picture (although they were all offering to take the picture).







Uncle Josh with Aubrey.
My brother's new wife, Auntie Carrie
I love snow covered trees so I couldn't resist taking some pictures of the beautiful trees.

Little Miss Aubrey is getting so big!

I love these little shoes.

On Wednesday we went to the matinee show of Tangled. The girls loved it and I liked it too, pretty cute. That night we went to Josh and Carrie's house for dinner and got to play some rock band (I love singing) and then we played our new kinect. It has been such a fun game to have. Here are some pics of Josh and Hans boxing each other. It is quite the workout and really fun.




After boxing we did some bowling. Claire fell and hurt her lip and then fell asleep and slept on Grandma for a bit.
Olivia is really good at playing the kinect. Here she is bowling. She got a 135 that night and did awesome. So fun to get her included.

On Thursday I had a hair appointment(yes I still get my hair done by my hair dresser in my home town and the ironic thing is she is from Bainbridge Island which is just 30 minutes from where we live). Hans came with me and took care of Aubrey and then we did a little more shopping at the mall on our own. That afternoon we did some visiting with my Grandma and just hung out. Hans was going to Olivia skiing one more time but by this time the weather was really cold and wouldn't have been much fun for her.

Just one more post to go about our New Year celebrations. Getting closer to being caught up!!

Christmas Vacation-Part 2

Oh boy am I so far behind. I started these blog posts in 2010 so that if I ever get around to buying more blog books then they will be in the right year. But boy is it taking me a while to get the pictures uploaded, writing and then publishing them. Here it is Saturday already and I haven't even finished unpacking all of our stuff from Christmas and we need to get the Christmas stuff put away. It has been a bit stressful for me to not just get things done like I like too. So I am working on letting the mess go, letting the not getting much done on the to-do list go, and just enjoy my sweet little girls who are at such a fun ages right now and are getting bigger by the day. So hopefully I will get one more done today and only have 2 left to finish up. Be sure to check back to Part 1, we had a great time swimming and skiing and got a lot of fun pictures of the girls' first time on skis. So here goes part 2.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we spent just hanging out, playing with the kids, baking, relaxing, getting things done that needed to be done. We started our Christmas Eve festivities early for the kids around 3 Grandpa Eric read the Christmas story to us all before we opened gifts from the extended family. Then we had dinner (yummy prime rib) and took some pictures before heading off to the Christmas Eve service at church. By the time we got home the kids were definitely getting tired and grouchy and Olivia did not want to wear her pjs that we get new every year on Christmas Eve to wear as a family and have for Christmas morning. Oh the difficulties with children! I was so glad we had done gifts earlier as we barely got our stuff set out for Santa then it was off to bed. A wonderful day filled with family and fun!!

Not the best lighting but I love Claire's expressions.


Claire has so much fun coloring these days.
Auntie Anna put in the cutest braids for the girls. They loved them and it took a lot of convincing to take a bath a few days later and get them out. I need to practice but the girls will not sit still for me to try.

Olivia is getting so good at coloring these days. It took a long time for her to really care about coloring in the lines and not just scribbling everywhere. Now I am so glad she enjoys making her picture pretty and unique.


Me and my man...Where's Aubrey? Oh that's right sleeping in her favorite spot on my chest in the wrap.
Grandpa reading the Christmas story to the kids.



The kids at their table.
I love how are their mouths are full in this picture.

Cousins are the best!!


Our family before church.

We then took a bunch of family pictures with my tripod and timer. Claire would not smile as she was wearing "makeup" her lip gloss or chapstick that makes her rub her lips together constantly.


Christmas morning...Hans and I woke up early for some reason and couldn't wait for our girls to wake up. I know that won't happen much longer in our lives. It really should be the other way around.
Dad being crazy Christmas morning.
Olivia decided to take her braid out the night before so her hair would be curly.
Cute baby bottom.

Opening stockings. (we are all wearing our new Christmas jammies minus Olivia who had a matching set to Claire but refused to wear them)




Aubrey was pretty excited about Christmas morning as you can see.




It is sometimes hard to understand waiting!
Trying out my new 50 prime lens I got for my camera. I haven't had much time to play with it, but am hoping to in the next few weeks.
The girls got a mobigo and vreader from us for Christmas. They love playing them when we give them time (well mostly Olivia it is still a little old for Claire).
Riley and Claire are the best of buddies!

Christmas day we just hung out and played with our new toys. As well as packing up our stuff to leave the next day. We had turkey for dinner and watched Christmas Vacation. It was another great day spent with family.