Miscellaneous

Kole has his drivers license now...so,crazy!  He has been coming over once a week to watch the girls so I can have some me time.  I actually started working on a quilt top! Sophia loves to snuggled Kole and the feeling is mutual I'm sure. 

I got a smart phone! So we've been playing around with all of the fancy features and sites I've been longing for. Like instagram and blogging pics from my phone.  So cool! 

Evelyn and Mia make me laugh everyday.  Evelyn wanted me to take a picture of the heart on her forehead.  Mia decided that Evelyn had an owie on her face. Yeah, that was real fun to take off....

Zoo

We had a fun trip to the cities today.  First we stopped to pick up Amelia's flower girl dress.  Then we stopped at a Michaels. The one we have is so small that they didn't have a unfinished wood castle I was looking for.  I was Super excited that the one we stopped at today had the castle.  Now our wooden saints dolls will have a home to live in.  I'll post pics of that project when it is completed.  Our final stop of the day was the zoo. The girls had so much fun!  They loved trying to find all of the animals in each of the pens.  We had a picnic lunch which is also a huge hit around here lately.  They were so exhausted that Evelyn actually fell asleep before we left the parking lot!

Christmas Tree

Amelia was watching a Christmas movie and when she turned around, surprise!  There was our Christmas tree.  She couldn't believe her eyes.  She helped Daddy put up all of the ornaments while I decorated the rest of the house.  It went so fast with all three of us helping.

I thought maybe all of the decorations would entice Evelyn to crawl.  Nope.  She loved looking at everything but didn't care about crawling.

Gymnastics and School

Amelia got very brave with gymnastics this fall.  All of a sudden she was walking on the high balance beam by herself, swinging on the bars without assistance, jumping on the big trampoline by herself, even jumping to the bars from a block and doing a beautiful swing after catching the bar.  Her favorite though was jumping into the pit from the high horse.  She would beg to keep jumping and tire herself out every class.  

I was very proud of my big girl and all of the skills she developed.  Although she loved gymnastics we had to take a break at the end of December.  She really could have progressed to the next class but because of her age there wasn't a class available.  We are also so busy during the week that I needed to cut out some things so we could slow down a little bit.

I told her we would do homeschool instead which she has been thrilled about.  In fact she has been begging me to do school with her the instant she wakes up in the morning.  Our library has awesome boxes put together all designed around different themes.  They have books, finger plays, games, and felt board items.  For now we'll work through those and keep working at her letters and numbers.

Fort

It all started with a car seat box that came into our home.  

After that day Amelia has discovered how much fun forts are.  She begs for forts and camping and will make them out of everything including the dining room table and pew bench in the front entry.  She also loves to tuck herself in the nook under the steps in the basement.  I used to always make elaborate forts so I've really enjoyed watching her play the same way.

Good Helper

Papa John brought us some cow pasture dirt for our garden.  

Anytime there is work to be done Amelia loves to be there and help out.  She was covered head to toe in dirt after an hour of helping Papa and Daddy.  

Random October

We decided to get a group shot of our Tuesday friends at the beginning of October.  It's fun to see how much they have all grown and changed.  

Evelyn began falling asleep in the car and one day I found her sleeping with the book in her hand.

Kirsten comes to our house on Wednesday nights for a little bit until Kallie and Kole are done with church.  Amelia was super excited to show off her ball pit.

At some point over the fall I began calling Amelia, Mia.  Through the spring and summer she would always say "that's mys, that's my mia's" and it was so sweet I just kind of picked it up.  We've been working on pronunciation so she now knows to say mine.  She does know that I have a plethora of nicknames for her and responds to all of them.  Mia, Amelia, Amelia Rose, hun, sweetheart, hunny, babe, baby girl, and big girl are just a few.  Evelyn so far is usually called, Evelyn, baby sister, or little hunny.    

We were also very excited to buy a camper.  Of course I was so focused on cleaning and organizing it that I forgot to take pictures before we put it in storage for the winter.  We have many camping trips planned for the summer which Mia is very excited about.  There are bunkbeds in the back and she has decided that Evelyn will sleep on the top while she sleeps on the bottom.  I told her we'd have to think about that.  She was also very upset the day daddy took it to the shop for storage.  She knows that it is down at Papa's shop and has asked to go see it several times.