Colby Dean

Last night, an amazing event took place... Gabe and I were packing boxes and carrying them downstairs. (Not that. Keep reading.) Then, the phone rang. It was my brother-in-law, Curtis. My sister had her baby!!! Colby Dean was born at 8:49pm, weighing 8 lbs 4 oz and was 21 inches in length. He and Joleen are both healthy and should be released from the hospital today. Gabe got off the phone, told me the news, and I got all excited. (duh.) Then, Gabe said, "we've got one box left. Let's take it down to the garage." I couldn't do it! How do you find out that a precious little baby is born and in the arms of your sister and bro-in-law and then take a box downstairs??? Doesn't that seem wrong? Shouldn't the whole world stop spinning when something that amazing happens??? Once I was done sharing these thoughts with Gabe and calmed down a bit, we took the box downstairs.

Baby Colby- even though the whole world didn't stop when you were born, I did, and I fought for the rest of the planet to stop too.

January

I recognize that January was quite a while ago, but we're making our blog into photo albums now so I don't want to miss this stuff. Please excuse the "out-of-order-ness". :) Enjoy January with me!

Hehehe... The process was a painful 5-7 minute head-bobbing one, but he finally did it. He fell completely asleep.

Andrew's (first) big-boy bed. Later that week, we got one for him from Ikea. It's a cool, reversible bunk bed. In the meanime, we made $20 off of buying and selling this one on Craig's List.

Cam and Janelle came out for a visit and we got to have an old small group game nite at our house. We stayed up until 1:30am playing Mafia... That's what 30-yr-olds do, right?

A trip to the train station.

Remember my "feeding problems" post. Now can you understand me a little better?

Getting Dressed

Andrew can completely dress and undress himself now, except he still sometimes has difficulty taking off his shirts. When he can't do it on his own, we ask him to try one more time. This is what he usually does. It cracks me up!
Keira, on the other hand, can already help us get her undressed and redressed again. She's been doing that for a couple months now. There are so many things about her that shock me. I don't know if it's all girls, or just Keira, but here are some of the surprising things I've noticed about her (regarding dressing):
* she picks out her own clothes (the pic above is her first outfit she picked out.) Honestly, I tell her to choose a short- or long-sleeved shirt and pants or shorts and she picks them out. She only picks out things that match and typically the outfits look cute. (Although, the socks she chooses do NOT usually match!)
* She likes hats and likes to choose one herself
* Keira LOVES shoes. She will hand us her socks and shoes and stick out each foot as we put them on her
* She recognizes that fashion isn't always comfortable. She has a couple shirts that are really cute, but you kinda have to squeeze her little head through the neck. It's worth it to her, though. She loves the shirts enough to endure the pain. Stilettos, here we come!
This is the way I helped her first outfit choice. We opted for covering up the "jellybean look", as I call it.

Other things that shock me about Keira:
* she folds her hands when we pray
* she says, "duh" for duck and dog
* she is very independent and gets frustrated if we try to help
* she's a show-off
* between her and Andrew, Keira is the leader

Fullerton Arboretum

This past weekend, we got the kids dressed up, headed over to the Fullerton Arboretum, and took some pictures while exploring the garden with the kiddos.
The day was beautiful and the kids were happy. I hope you enjoy some of these shots...

Birthday Party Part II

Keira loved her cake. She was so polite and lady-like. I was very proud. :)

She just took little bites and used just two fingers for most of it.

She literally stuck the cup onto the cake.

Keira ready for presents.

When we went to New Zealand a couple years ago, I remember it being very difficult to get a bad picture because of how beautiful everything was there. I think Abigail is a lot like NZ. It's very difficult to get a bad picture of her. Isn't she adorable???

Birthday Party Part I

Saturday was a beautiful day and the party was great. We had a great time with friends and family and Keira got to wear her first party dress! How fun!

Here are some pics of the set up of the party. Allie took most of the pictures on this post. I think they are amazing!!!

The guest of honor arriving...

We had bubbles...

wagon rides...

tricycle rides...

and lunch!

... and more bubbles...

Keira loves to do things that "big girls" do. One of which is "riding" Andrew's tricycle.

We also had wall-climbing... I think every dad there climbed this wall... even MY dad!

Of course I had to get in on the fun too...

I can't believe what a big girl she is!

I love my little Keira!