Happy Valentine's Day!!

Love, Evie, Ella, Henry and Grant

Cookies for Santa

For Christmas this year Evie and I made sugar cookies for Santa. It was a special Christmas activitiy as it was something just Evie and I could do and it involved using my Grandma B's sugar cookie recipe. We used to make them with her for Easter. I even made her special icing and they turned out quite delicious. We left two for Santa (the only thing I didn't get a photo of), goat's milk and some carrots for the reindeer. Evie was quite thrilled Christmas morning to see that he had "enjoyed" her treats. She also wanted to leave out some for "baby Desus" but I told her that the treats were for Santa only as he only visited once a year. Jesus on the other hand was with us all year long. I told her that Jesus lived in my heart. Now she repeatedly tells me and others (including my mom who was quite confused because of her mispronunciations) that "baby Desus bibes in my heart."

Another, quite adorable story of Evelyn took place as I was putting up our many nativity scenes. We were talking about the characters and asked Evie who Jesus' mother was (Mary) and who his earthly father was (Joseph). Then I explained that Mary had baby Jesus in her belly like I had the babies in my belly. To this Evie explained, "I've got baby Desus in my belly too!" It was a Christmas miracle! She is always making me laugh!!


Mixing together the sugar cookie ingredients.

Mixing the cake batter for Jesus' birthday cake. I was delicious too! Evie was at first scared of the mixer but then grabbed hold and mixed away. We did this as the cookie dough chilled.

Mmmm....chocolate batter! One of Evie's favorite parts!

Cutting out cookies. We had stars, trees, angels, snowflakes, bells, candy canes and of course a moose.

Icing the cookies, hard to resist eating all of them at this point. Evie and dad each had one before Evie went off to bed.

The bakers!

Evieisms

One of her purses. She loves to stuff all her bags and purses to the brim. Then she tells me she's going to "peskool."

With her "triplet" stroller from Anma and Anpa V.

"No pictures please!"

I am a bad parent, I admit it. For even though Evelyn is slightly behind in her language skills, I secretly LOVE her mispronunciations. They are adorable. I have a hard time correcting her. For instance, I think that "namies" are a lot more comfy and enjoyable then plan ol' pajamas. I love to put off today what I can do "manara." I have a hard time just calling the babies Grant, Henry and Ella instead of "Nant, Enry and Ayla." And finally my parents and Shawn's will never be known as anything other then Evie's and the babies "anma's" and "anpa's." Here is some other Evieisms.

Peskool: preschool
Do-Do-Dora: Dora
Andy-ane: Candy cane
Not et: Not yet!
Darbage: garbage
I wan ugs and isses: I want hugs and kisses.
Can I hab some ocen, peas?: Can I have some lotion, please?
baby Desus: baby Jesus
Q-numbers: cucumbers
Pebutter an delly samich: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Ot-og: Hotdog
I'm Hungee, mommy: I'm hungry, mommy!

Obviously she has a little difficulty in the "hard" consonants like "k" and the like. She also has problems with the first letter to words. My name is Tawnda and she pronounces it "Awna."

Other completely adorable things she does is every morning da-dee asks Evie "where's my hugs and kisses?" Pointing to her lips and then chest Evelyn tells da-dee "here and here!" Evelyn gets up at about 7:30a everyday. By 8am all of her toys are out and lined up all over the house, including her cars. She then gives them books or food to "eat." Maybe she believes as Sara Crewe does, from the story she and I are reading together: The Little Princess, that dolls and toys come to life when we leave the room. Her favorite movie, Toy Story, certainly confirms this.

Nearly every toy she owns has a mama, daddy and baby. Including her cars, animals, dolls etc. Anything she sees either gets labeled mommy, dadee, baby and sometimes if they look a little older anma or anpa. Lately she has at least been playing with toys other then her babies. She builds robots, plays with Mr./Mrs. Potato head (usually she dresses up a spud as me, the other day I had a pig nose for eyes, a tongue for one ear among other interesting features-not sure how I should take her demonstration of me), reads books among other things. Playing house is by far her favorite activity still, even if the only toys she had were rocks.

Up next a few pictures of Evie and I baking cookies for "Santa."

Shawn

I spend a lot of my time and energy focusing on the kiddos and thus some people are often neglected not only on this blog but also in our scrapbooks. Thus my post today. I finished these 3 pages about Shawn. I wanted something to document where he is RIGHT now. Simple things like favorite food (pepperoni pizza) and more complex like his favorite verse right now (Romans 15:13). The third page is dedicated to something I talk about all the time to people and Shawn: my ideal man list. This is the wishlist I always had in my mind about characteristics I wished my future husband to have. Would you believe that Shawn fulfilled 9 out of 10??? I guess I can live without a Scottish accent!! Check out #10. That was truly something I thought would be great after watching Titanic. I thought the name was (admittedly) dreamy and sexy. What can I say? I heart Shawn!

Xander

Missing my nephew, Xander, a whole bunch-especially after completing these 2 pages of him when he was 4 months old. It was the first time seeing him in over 3 months and he'd changed so much. It's kind of how I feel now, knowing he's growing and maturing and I'm missing out. Enjoy the pages. Xander, I miss you buddy!! Love you FOREVER! Auntie Tawnda

From the beginning til now

Initially, I had my picture taken with Grant, Henry and Ella for a couple of reasons. First because I wanted a picture with all three of them together. And second, on the day of that first picture they were 5 days old and had regained most of the weight they'd lost after birth and thus holding them you and I can/could be astonished that only a few short days before they had fit in my belly. Not only fit, but able to move an astonishing amount (Grant flipped from day to day. One day his head was on my left, the next day it was on my right-up to the c-section). In total they weighed 12lbs, 13ozs. I wanted this picture to commemorate this. In reality, Ella and Grant should switch places based on where they were in-utero but because of the I.V's and monitors we had to place the babies in this order.

Third, I once saw a scrapbook page where the child had had a picture taken with a stuffed bunny at birth and then every month thereafter. Thus, recording the child's growth in a unique, visual way. Since we didn't do that but had pictures taken with me, I decided I would have to be their "bunny". Here's how they've grown in the last six months. Amazing how much they've changed!!

First Food

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Henry, Grant and Ella enjoying their first taste of food of cereal and breast milk on the 15th. Despite a rocky start (ie silly faces which we interpreted as "what is THIS??") they all really enjoyed their first meal. Grant was the most adept at the skill of opening his mouth and using the tongue to push food to the back of his throat and swallowing. Ella was really good at opening her mouth, but had a little problem with the last part and Henry's tongue just wasn't cooperating. All followed the spoonfuls with their hands as if trying to get it all in. It makes for VERY messy feedings.

The feedings go like this: I line up the kiddos in a semi-circle, bibs on and ready. I am in a swivel chair and go from one to another offering a few spoonfuls each and also catching what comes back out. Usually they enjoy their cereal/pears/green beans combo. Mostly because the original introduction of green beans did not go over well. You'd have thought that I was giving them lemon juice for the VERY sour expressions. And it wasn't just the first spoonful, the faces and accompanying quiver continued even into the 4th or 5th spoonful, especially for Henry. Applesauce wasn't much better.

On the 26th Henry finally started getting the hang of it keeping more in then out. Ella, however, has become harder to feed because she wants to lick it instead. Though she does produce the best faces looking cross-eyed and talking. These are some of the funnest and funniest parts of my day. Up next: peas or bananas. Yummy!!!!