Happy Birthday Ladies!

My little ladies aren't so little anymore!  I now have a couple of smart and beautiful 6 year old girls!

I had a permanent grin on my face as I was looking back through pictures to make this collage. I have loved watching these cuties grow right up.

The Sunday before their birthday we had family over to celebrate.  It's a good thing that there are 2 cakes!  Every one came to celebrate and some of the neighbors too! 

For their birthday Casey & I gave them a bunch of clothes for summer.  One of my childhood memories is shopping trips with my Grandma Babe.  So - I want to make that a memory for my kids too.  Grammy and I took the girls shopping for their summer attire.  What's kind of funny is I didn't take one picture of Taylor & Rylee on this shopping trip, but Alexa got plenty of attention.  She seriously was having the night of her life.  She was doing big girl things and LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT!

Another gift from Casey and I was a trip to dinner and then to build-a-bear!  The girls loved making their stuffed animals.  I think that they also loved the parent time at dinner.  We each took one and helped them with their place-mat games while we waited for our food.  One-on-one time is something that doesn't happen to often at our house!  Taylor ended up choosing a rabbit that she named Brownie.

Rylee made a white tiger which she named Sparkle Glamour.  Watching life through the eyes of my children gives me pleasure.  Why do we all have to grow up?!?!

Pictures!

I attempted to get some pictures of my kids a couple of times.  Caleb was due for his 9 year old pictures and the girls were turning 6.  I thought, "I have a nice camera!  I can just do this."  Professionals just know what they are doing.  Period.  I took the kids to Mantua one snowy morning and we tried that - needless to say, they sun glare off of the snow as a little much for everyone.  

 Then one morning before school I thought Taylor & Rylee were looking extra cute, so I just tried some in my driveway.  F A I L.  They girls look cute, but the angle is wrong, the lighting is wrong,  wrong, wrong, wrong.  (that is a stupid word...wrong...looks Chinese the more I type it....wrong)

Shelby Evans is amazing.  She has captured a lot of darling pictures of my little people. These pictures of Caleb make me happy.  He is a cute boy!!  He is so artistic and his sense of humor is coming along nicely.  The other day he was SLOWLY eating his dinner (some soup) and I said, "You better hurry and eat. It doesn't taste very good cold."  Without missing a beat, he replied, "It doesn't taste very good warm either."  Then I looked at him and he was grinning and said, "Just kidding!!"

Taylor...look at that pretty girl.  She is so sweet.  She is always thinking of others and always trying to do the right thing.  She is my little mini me.

Rylee...another pretty girl!  She can also be sweet, but she sprinkles in a little bit of sass and drama too.  She gets so emotional!  We were at quilted bear a while ago and she came to me, hugged me and said with tears in her eyes, "This is the best day of my whole entire life."

They have both told me that they don't want to be twins anymore - which I am thinking means they don't want to dress the same.  I don't enforce it when we are just home doing nothing...and my mom says I can dress them how I want for the next few years.  I'm thinking 3rd grade I'll stop being so weird about it.  I understand they are individual people...but they are individual people WHO LOOK THE SAME!  It's neat!

I brought Luke & Alexa along for the photo shoot and had some group shots taken.  Alexa was such a poser!  Luke loves his manhood.  There are several pictures that he is just making sure his package is still in tact.

I love these kiddos.  I am so glad I have these pictures to love on when I get old and wrinkly.

January

I finally got around to taking the kids pictures with their favorite Christmas gifts.  Taylor loves her art kit, her jewelry box, her barbie and her lotion.  She forgot her little kitty in the original picture and insisted on taking another one with her cat.

Caleb loves his magic set and his Jurassic World legos.

Rylee loves her jewelry box, her lotion and her cat. 

Alexa just LOVED her make up the very most.  She sparkled for at least a weak straight.

She also loves her new Elsa dress from Santa.  She is actually looking at her sweet reflection in the TV as she adjusts her crown.  Such a sweet little princess!

I am currently still Luke's favorite thing.

These two and their beds.  They got new bedding from Santa and they LOVE it.  Princesses for Lexi and dinosaurs for Luke.  They are snug as bugs every night!

Caleb has been studying the Solar System.  I happened to have a mobile paint kit that I had bought a while ago and he LOVED putting it together.  He was so fun to watch.

Casey & I took the big kids to the circus.  It was neat!  Caleb loved the guys in the motorcycle cage and he LOVED his cotton candy.  The girls loved everything.  

Taylor couldn't sleep one night.  I look exhausted...but she sure wasn't.  I don't know why - but at least 1 kid ends up wedged in between Casey & I every single night.  Sometimes 2 kids.

I babysit my friends kids after school a couple days a week.  This day, we rummaged through my tote of snow clothes hand-me-downs and found enough snow gear to head out to do some sledding.  It was a lot of work, but they had a lot of fun.

It was a cocoa and toast kind of morning.  I decided it was time to teach the littlest how to dip their toast.  Lexi was a pro...and Luke loved observing.  Look how cute they are!!!

We had so much snow this month!  One afternoon after school we made snow cream.  (fresh snow and sweetened condensed milk).  We added sprinkles and oreos too!

My little girly girl.  I got her dressed after her bath one morning and she grabbed her purse and her headband and was ready for the day!

Casey did his fair share of shoveling this month.  It's times like this you appreciate the single car driveway :)  And holy camouflage!  He loves the stuff.  

December

As I got through my pictures each month, it amazes me how much goes on!  I'm so thankful for pictures.  They make me happy.

All of these kiddos had a dentist appointment at 8:00 one day.  8:00 AM.  We made it right on time and I was told they were the best group of 5 siblings that the office had ever had in!  I do have really good kids.  I'm so grateful for that.  The dentist did tell me that I need to start saving for the orthodontist.  Caleb is missing a tooth, Taylor has a small mouth, Luke has a massive under-bite and Lexi is a nighttime thumb sucker.  We'll see if Rylee ends up being the only one not needing work done.

So...we have 3 kindles and 2 TV's.  But this particular moment all 5 of my munchkins were watching 1 kindle.  It must've been quite the show!  (notice Lexi's fancy shoes?)

I had a birthday.  I was surprised with so much love!  I thought I was just going to a craft night with my Bunco group and their kids but they also surpised me with gifts and Angela had made me a rainbow sprinkle cake!  Casey even surprised me with balloons and my kids, parents, siblings, neighbors and in-laws gave me some gifts.  I felt the love for sure and my heart was so full!

Caleb game home one day with his school Christmas craft.  I LOVE it.  Brad and Mona gave me a thermal laminator for Christmas and this was my first laminating project.  I want to keep it forever.

During Christmas break I took my 3 big kids, RJ, MakLayne and Addison swimming at Crystal Inn.  They were non stop crazy for 2 straight hours and still weren't ready to leave!  They had so much fun.

My girls made themselves some earrings one day.  Silly sisters.  And they still like to dress like it is summer time!

Casey & I went to see Juanito Bandito with some of my family.  I have a cold sore.  I bet I get one every Christmas from here on out.  It's fun, but stressful too!!

This little Lex and her lips.  She loves lipstick like no other!  I don't even know where she found this tube of lipstick.  I will tell you it did end up in the garbage though.  And let's not even mention that she's wearing a crown and a pretty skirt.  She's going to be one fancy gal when she grows up!

Angela stopped by one afternoon and Lexi was coloring and Angela shows her how to trace her hand.  She admired it for a bit and then looked up and said, "But what about my feets?"  It was adorable.

What is this??  Lexi month?  I couldn't resist taking this adorable picture of her.  She is the biggest spit fire I've ever met, but look at how soundly she sleeps!  So cute!

Taylor & Rylee are always wanting to help me in the kitchen.  I was making a couple of things for my parents Christmas party and had the idea for them to make some mini toothpick fruit kabobs.  They LOVED making them.  I took their picture and Rylee said, "Be sure you send that picture to Grammy"  They were a hit at the party.  They were the first thing gone.  Good job girlies!

On Christmas Day we had a beautiful snow storm.  The kids loved it.  Luke & Lex were so funny.  They would take a few steps and then flop right onto their bottoms.  They'd stand up and do it all over again and again and again.  It was hilarious.

Christmas!

Eddie kept us busy all month long.  Caleb cracked up when his toy dinosaurs had him.  I love getting a sincer chuckle out of that kid.  With the light bright one night, he made the "Eddie Rules" sign.  Meaning of course...that he is awesome.  The kids were so confused.  "What are Eddie's rules??"

Eddie brought magic seeds back from the North Pole one night.  The kids were so excited to plant them!  The most delicious cookies grew overnight!

Casey's family came over on Chirstmas Eve afternoon and we exchanged a few gifts, visited, and ate and ate and ate.  After they had all gone home, we started our cookie decorating!  I made the cookies a few weeks ago and put them into the freezer....smartest move ever!  All of the kids love doing this kind of stuff.  It's fun to watch all of their creativity.  Caleb insisted that we had some shark cookies in with our Christmas ones....wish granted.

After the cookies were all cleaned up, we headed into the front room to open their Christmas Eve gift.  Caleb has me figured out - he knows what's coming.  Look how cute they are!!  

Christmas morning...they were all racing up the stairs to see what Santa had brought them!  I had to make them go back down until I had my cameras ready.  They were so patient!

Santa brought all of the girls a barbie dream house to share!  And they each got their own barbie! Caleb lucked out and got an awesome velociraptor Lego set and a xBox Jurassic world game.  Rylee went straight for her stocking before her presents.  She is my daughter.  I love my stocking!  I love Taylor's sweet smile as Rylee is showing me her lotion.  We got so much snow on Christmas Day...Luke and Lexi were loving watching it out the window.  They were more interested in it than their gifts!  

Casey & I got the kids the cutest blanekts for their gift from us this year.  Caleb couldnt' sit up for the picture because then you couldn't see how awesome his blanket was.  Luke was cracking me up.  He would step all the way into his blanket, put the teeth over his head and then flop onto his belly and attack Casey.  It was so cute!!!