The Everyday {December}

So I decided once a month I need to post pictures from my phone that capture the everyday things we do.  Those pictures probably bring back the most memories and it's fun to remember the every day little things that happen. So without further ado, here's a look back at December :)

Swinging at the park...Molly's first time in the swing, she looks so little!

Swinging is tough work, time to just chill out.

Eleanor really got into the Little People's Nativity set.  She insisted that Mary needed a bed to sleep on. 

Rainy days

They asked if they could go out and stomp in puddles...sure, why not?

They love to dress up in my boots.  Here they are singing along with Barbie Princess and the Popstar.

Penelope loves to go up to her room with a big stack of books.  It also makes the books more interesting if you wear plenty of headbands!

Trying to burp this sleepy, cutie pie girl.

This is how we color.  These girls could color all day long. I like it too, check out my picture of Strawberry Shortcake :)

We had some pretty warm days in December.

Ever since my sister Laura aka Muffy visited, Penelope loves to go sit on the bed and use her laptop just like Muffy did when she had work to do :) And it never hurts to have your sparkly chapstick nearby!

Penelope and I had a little date to the mall one Saturday and she got to ride the carousel, she was in 2 year old heaven!

Again, dressing up never gets old around here. Apparently Penelope was pretending to be Andrew and Eleanor was me.

Molly gets to hang out with Andrew during church while I play the piano in Primary.  There is a Spanish ward that meets after us and apparently Molly loves listening to their meetings!

And probably the most exciting thing we did in December...we bought some dirt! We are building a house and it will be finished in April.  We are VERY excited!

December Happenings

December started with a trip to Hunter Farm to look at some christmas trees, ride on a sleigh, and have a visit with Santa.  As exciting as it is to pick out your very own over-priced christmas tree, we decided to go with our cheapy fake one for another year.  So we just admired all of the beautiful real ones and Eleanor and Penelope ran through the rows and rows of trees.  I tried to snap a picture but they were just having too much fun.

    

After all the frolicking through the trees we got in line for our sleigh ride. 

  

    

We rode over to see the animals and give them something to eat.  Santa was also in the barn with the animals, but the girls were more interested in hanging out with the goats, sheep, pigs, cows and chickens.  

  

 

   

Penelope started to get a little bit nervous when the animals were getting loud so she found some reindeer to love right outside the barn.  

  

Then it was time for our hayride back to the fire-pit for s'mores and hot chocolate.

 

  

And this is how Penelope felt about having hot chocolate when it's 71 degrees outside.

So from the first weekend in December until Christmas morning I didn't take any pictures on my camera.  Oopsies.  I did get some on my phone so I'll have to fill in the rest of December in another post with camera phone pictures.  I think my point and shoot camera is on its last leg.  Most of the pictures I took Christmas morning didn't really turn out so I mainly have video clips.  So I thew them together and made a little movie.  I figured it's probably a good way to organize all the videos I take, especially since it really does capture more than just a picture and the girls love to watch them.  I just used Windows Movie Maker to do it, which turns out isn't very user friendly and you can't do a lot of cool stuff.  (In college I used imovie a lot so that's what I'm used to.  Anybody know if you can get imovie for a PC? Or is there a better movie making program for a PC?)

Anyway, here is a glimpse of our Christmas.  We stayed home and enjoyed a nice Christmas together with just our family.



Since we didn't go anywhere for Christmas we decided to go on a fun outing to Discovery Place Kids.  It was the best children's museum! We went the day after Christmas so it got a little crowded, otherwise we could have stayed all day.  The girls loved it! Here's a video of some of the things we did there.




For New Year's we headed over to Wilmington to visit Andrew's parents.  His sister was there with her husband and his grandparents were also visiting all the way from Washington.  We had a barbque on New Year's day and enjoyed playing outside in the beautiful North Carolina weather! 

sometimes my kids look presentable

so I try to take their picture...

{I wanted to get a "birthday portrait" for each of them. Eleanor's birthday was in October, Penelope's birthday was in August.  

November seems close enough to their actual birthdays, right? Especially considering we threw a new baby into the mix in September.} 

sometimes they insist on wearing a green tutu...

sometimes they want nothing to do with taking pictures...

 

sometimes they cooperate...

sometimes they don't get along very well...

{fighting over a stick-turned-microphone}

sometimes they really like each other and play together so nicely...

 

but, one thing is for sure, I think they are always pretty cute!

       

and of course I couldn't leave out this little cutie from the post :)

 

A Name and a Blessing

We blessed Molly on November  4th.  And I'm completely aware that was more than two months ago :) Let's just say I'm a little behind.
But, it is a new year, so I'm resolving to be better at recording our family history! (Baby steps, right??)

Now that we live in North Carolina we are much closer to Andrew's parents so we get to see them more often.  Andrew's dad often has business in Charlotte so every other week or so we get to go meet up for lunch at Chick-Fil-A with him and the girls love it!

Anyway, they were able to be with us for Molly's special day.  It is always so neat to get a glimpse into what the Lord has in store for his little spirit children, and so humbling to think that the responsibility of helping her reach her potential is mine!

Unfortunately, I didn't get around to taking pictures of just Molly before church.  Even with the extra hour we got from daylight savings that morning we were still rushed :)  By the time we got home from church she was already changed into something more comfy, so I made sure to snap some of her during the following week.  

 

She is such a doll!  And have I mentioned an AWESOME sleeper?!! Definitely earning some favorite child points :) At 7 weeks (about the time of her blessing) she was still sleeping in her swing. (We've since moved her to her crib, she was just getting too big for it and a flat spot on her head!) At night she was sleeping from about 11 pm until 6 or 7 am.  And boy do I love her for that! And for many other reasons of course. 

 

She has the cutest little face.  I think every time I go to pick her up I think to myself or even say out loud, "you are so cute!" She has such a content little personality and just loves to watch her sisters.  She is always scanning the room to make eye contact with anyone.  Now she'll smile as soon as she locks eyes with someone, but back then smiles were a little harder to come by.  She likes to be held, but she's not a cuddler.  So once she falls asleep I always hold her precious little cheeks right next to mine and take a mental picture while savoring that moment. Oh, just such a sweet little girl.  She also really enjoyed just being with me and Andrew late at night once the big girls were in bed.  She would just talk and coo and give us all her smiles.  It was like she had been holding them in and saving them all day just for us!  She goes to bed much earlier now and I kind of miss those days of just sitting on our bed and getting acquainted with her sweet little spirit.     

 

Some of her nicknames are Molly girl, Miss Molly, Miss Molly girl, Molly pop, Molly Molly. 

 

Molly has actually always been my favorite girl's name but I could never convince Andrew to use it until now -- since she was the third girl, our favorite names list was dwindling.  Elizabeth is my middle name, and I am also the third girl in my family, so that is pretty neat.  And it is my mom's middle name, too.  We sure do love our little Molly Elizabeth and feel so lucky to have her in our family.

We attempted to get a good family picture before church (you know how that goes)...

And then we tried again after church...

  

Needless to say, we had a lot of outtakes.

I guess I'll just have to get used to my new reality of "good family picture" :)