Our little swimmer...

Olivia is doing great in her swim lessons that she takes every Friday and this is her gear (but of course I have no pictures of her swimming...I should get some soon!!).  But on this day, Aubrey found her gear and decided that she wanted to be a little swimmer.  She loved walking around with this on.  So cute!!

Aubrey

Aubrey is getting so big these days.  I need to get some video of her soon as she is changing so much lately.  Talking lots, imitating lots, and just getting to be so much bigger it seems.  She is still a baby, but I can see her growing up faster because of her big sisters.  She just loves being with them and being just like them.  I decided to bring this little couch down from the room the other day and they have been loving it.  I came downstairs with just Aubrey as she was not falling asleep and she went over and lay on the little couch like this to watch tv with us.  So super cute!

I remember when Olivia was little I was always taking pictures of her sleeping.  Well of course I didn't have near as much to do and if the camera woke her up, oh well. Then I had a second child with more to  do and of course didn't want to wake her once sleeping so I got less of Claire sleeping.  And now I have hardly any of Aubrey sleeping because I really don't want to risk waking her up and I always have so much to do now when she is sleeping so I just never take the time.  But the other day I went up to wake her up so we could to head to swimming and she looked so sweet that I decided to grab my camera and try to get a pictures since I was going to wake her up anyways.  I of course didn't get it focused right and then she woke up, but it is still a cute picture.  (And yes a put a big feather pillow on top of her when she is sleeping it makes her feel like someone is next to her and I run a fan and the vent in our bathroom to create white noise.  Oh the things we do to help them sleep well.  She is down just one nap a day these days and usually sleeps 2 or 2 1/2 hours if I don't have to wake her up to go to one of the big girls activities.  Poor third child!!

Our Valentine's Day

This is a bit late but I wanted to post about our very fun Valentine's day last week.  Olivia is getting to the age now where she really looks forward to holidays and special days.  She was counting down the days till Valentine's day.  The week before we made some Valentine cards with the pictures I had taken and here we are heading to the mailbox to mail them off.  My three girls!!

Olivia is getting so big!  Those two are heavy!!

I always like to make family feel special and I read a book a long time ago which talks about making those special memories with your kids and that holidays, birthdays, or other "special" days can be ways of making traditions that your kids will have memories from always.  So Valentine's Day although very commercial has become one of those days that I try to make the day extra special.  We started the day with cinnamon rolls (yes the refrigerated kind) baked in a heart shaped pan with strawberries and blueberries.  The girls loved the cinnamon rolls.  Then we did a short version of school so that I would have enough time to do some cleaning that really needed done as well as prep for dinner that night.  Aubrey took a great nap and I was able to get some cleaning down and prep dinner so that all that had to be done was to cook it up a bit later.  For dinner I made ribs, shrimp scampi, asparagus, twice baked potatoes, and french bread.  All super easy but super yummy!!  The girls didn't like it as much as Hans and I but we both ate way too much!!  Oh and when Hans came home he brought each of his girls a red rose.  All of us girls loved that that!!

Our dinner table...

Aubrey even had her own special spot but she really only wanted to eat the chocolate all night so we eventually had to hide it from her...

And of course we had some little gifts.  This was the girls' favorite part, especially Olivia as she is very much like me and loves to give and receive gifts.  She is very much a gift giving love language girl.  And Aubrey just loved opening the present!!

The big girls got some goggles for skiing with.  Which we haven't been skiing yet this year (except the one time at Christmas time) because Hans has been working every weekend since the beginning of January.  But we will hopefully still have some snow the end of March as that is when we have our ski trip planned.

Aubrey got a talking picnic basket which I didn't get a picture of.  The big girls over took it because they didn't get any toys!!

Again trying to get a good picture of more than one person can be quite tough with these silly girls ;-)

For dessert we had heart shaped brownies with peanut butter m&m's on them and ice cream.  Well most of us did.  Some didn't want their brownie which was fine with me ;-)  Oh and we also had chocolate dipped strawberries and bananas (which I didn't get a picture of).

It was a great day!  It was fun to make my family feel special and I hope they did.

My little Valentines...

I love these little girls so much!!!  About a week ago we had some wonderful sunny weather so I got them out on the back deck to take some Valentine pictures.  They cooperated pretty well this time.  Well except Aubrey is still tough to get a good shot of since she doesn't hold still long enough and smile all at the same time.  Once they get to two they become much more bribable!   Here are a few of my favorite shots.  Still haven't had much time to spend on editing so they are only slightly edited.

They found the umbrellas and really wanted to take pictures with an umbrella.  Silly girls.

Love this one of Livy!

Then Aubrey woke up and I tried to get a group shot.  Wasn't working.  But this one is kind of cute!

And then not so much...Claire picking her nose, Aubrey crying, and Livy not looking at the camera as usual.

 Got a few cute ones of our baby!  Although her hair was still sticking up from her nap...details, details!

And another group shot gone wrong!  Claire was done with pictures by this point so she just stuck her tongue out the whole time.  Oh children...

I love you my little loves!!!!  Happy Valentines Day!

First pony, school, Darla and playing outside

Aubrey is very much wanting to be like her sisters these days.  They were getting ponies in their hair the other day and Aubrey quite obviously wanted one too.  She left it in for quite a bit.  Maybe I should put them in more often so they know she is a girl instead of a boy.  And she is still looking like she might keep the red hair.  Only time will tell.

Most of the time our school is not done on the computer but there are days when she just wants to play games so it is a great time for me to turn on the learning games and let her learn while she plays.  Claire loves to watch and learn along as well.

My three girls.  I loved how they were all sitting in a row.  We don't watch a lot of tv, but they are loving Little Rascals lately and "Darla".  Claire is just sure we should name our new baby Darla.  Sorry sweets, it doesn't follow our rules ;-)

Last week and the first part of this week.  We had amazing spring like weather.  Temps in the low 50s and lots of sun to brighten the spirits.  The girls loved going outside to play and soak up the sun and I loved that we have a safe yard where they can do that.  Even Aubrey loves to go out with them and Olivia is really good at watching her and helping her play.  My girls are growing up!!

God took me literally...

On January 31st we had our 20 week ultrasound and found out that our little one is another little girl.  I remember saying just a few days after Olivia was born as I held her in my arms so in love..."Hans, I want three more of these."  Meaning I wanted three more babies someday because we had always talked about having 4 kids.  I think God must have taken me literally as both Claire and Aubrey have looked a lot like Olivia when they were babies so we will have to wait and see if this one follows suit.  The baby looked healthy although measuring a week behind my dates, which has never happened before.  I know that my dates are not off and I know when I ovulated so the week behind concerns me a bit even though the doctor was not concerned at all.  My fluid level was also a little low so I will be checked for that again in about a month.  I must admit although Hans and I are glad that our baby is healthy we are both struggling with the loss of not being able to experience and raise a son.  It is hard to understand unless you too have been blessed with all one sex of children.  It will take us a while as we grieve not having a boy, but that does not mean we love this little girl any less.  This will more than likely be our last so that is also playing into the sadness.  We would love to have your prayers as we travel through this tough time.  I may write more sometime about this, but don't want to feel judged for my feelings so I may just write them somewhere private.  Please respect our feelings even if you don't understand them...