baby girl

On January 31 we took this picture of Jennifer and Mikayla to let our families know that they were going to be big sisters! For the past two month we have been waiting and getting for our newest sister to arrive.

Today, April 11th, was the day we had been waiting for! Kelly Christine was born at 2:30 this morning. She weighed 5 lbs. 15 oz. and was 18.5 inches long. We did not get to see her until about 4 this afternoon and let me tell you we could not wait to see her!

 She is one beautiful little girl!

 She already makes some pretty great faces!

From the moment I laid eyes on her I just wanted to pick her up and hold her! Sadly it is not that easy. Baby girl is hooked up to just a few things and we had to wait for a little while before we could hold her. Once we got her in our arms it was hard to put her back in her warmer.

Jennifer and Mikayla kind of have their dad wrapped around their fingers. It is pretty safe to say that little miss Kelly will be no different. 

Kelly girl had kind of a long day, so she was pretty tired. This was the most we got to see of her eyes. Oh I wanted her to open her eyes all the way, maybe in the morning.

Daddy and Kelly snuggled in for a little bit.

Tomorrow, Friday, afternoon at 2 Kelly will be having surgery to fix a few problems with her tummy. Until she has a few issues fixed up she will not be able to eat. Her time frame for recovery is a little bit up in the air right now. It could be a few weeks for longer. We know that God holds Kelly and the next days in His hands and we are trusting He knows best. Please pray for our sweet girl throughout the next few days.

After a crazy day we are ready to rest but I will keep you all updated tomorrow as things unfold.

a little painting fun

At the beginning of each month Jennifer brings home something from school to decorate. She decorates whatever it is and then it goes back to school to be hung up for the month. For the month of April she brought home an egg. So, being the crafty people we are, we decided this would be a good item to paint.

Mikayla was very excited about the idea of painting, she was not going to be left out of this activity!

 Jennifer was very excited about painting as well. She chose to paint her egg purple and pink.

 While Mikayla had fun painting on the paper not all of her paint actually stayed on the paper.

Not only was there paint on her arms and hands, somehow the girl managed to get paint on her face. It sort of looks like she used the paint for lipstick.

 Thankfully the paint cleaned off well! Once the girls were all cleaned up it was on to the next activity. Which for some reason was playing the cupboards. Jennifer use to love to do this when she was little. Now she is slightly too big, as you can see.

Although there was lots of doors slamming and it got a little loud, it was fun to listen to the two of them giggling so hard about such a little thing like hiding in the cupboards!

winter break?

So this morning when we woke up to this out our windows....

 I decided that maybe instead of calling this week our spring break, we should just go ahead and call it a winter break. 

 Because let's face it, there is nothing spring about all this snow!

 I don't feel that we will be shedding the snow pants, boots and heavy coats anytime this week. 

There was some time spent outside but not in the sun or warmth. It involved a shovel, snow blower and lots of warm clothes.

Jennifer once again thought it was great!

She thinks it is pretty great to help clear the driveway.

This girl on the other hand, well she doesn't love the snow as much. Bring on the sun and warm weather, this girlfriend is with me on that!

Kayla girl and I stayed inside and just watched the clearing of the snow take place. 

 We are tired of the snow, after all doesn't spring mean sun, melting snow, warming temperatures and getting to play outside without layers of clothes on? While it was pretty outside this morning I'm just ready for spring! 

spring break

Today as the rain has been coming down and as we looked outside a few minutes ago and it is now snowing, yet again, I find myself dreaming. Dreaming of what I would rather be seeing as we start our spring break. 

I would much rather be seeing this:

a happy, laughing girl running into the ocean.

 The sun shining and getting to wear shorts.                                   Another laughing girl getting her toes wet.

Yes, you see I would much rather be on the beach in Florida, enjoying the sun with my family.

 Instead we are at home and as I look out my front window this is what I see, wet yucky snow, with more falling from sky now.

And this is what I see in my backyard, lots of water and more snow.

Yucky winter or riding bikes outside, in shorts?

 Snowy weather on spring break or the beach?

 As you can probably tell I would much rather be on the beach right now. Instead we are spending spring break at home. We will be making a trip south in June so I shouldn't complain too much I guess. And we are busy getting ready for something pretty exciting at our house! So I will just look at pictures of last spring break instead of looking out my window right now at the snow falling from the sky.

snowy day

It seems all week we have been hearing about and waiting for a snow storm to come. Well finally last night the storm was upon us. When we woke up this morning there was snow, not as much snow as was first thought, but enough to make Jennifer excited. The girls were up early this morning and school was two hours late so that left us just enough time to play outside before school!

Jennifer was of course beyond excited to see freshly fallen snow on the ground. Mikayla, well to be honest, I think she could care less about the snow. She wants to go outside because dad and Jennifer are but once she is out she does not last long.

 Trying to make a funny face with snowy gloves on does not work so well!

 Mikayla does love to get buried, I think she prefers the sand on the beach better though.

 Mikayla would prefer to pull the sled rather than ride in the sled.

 We were able to get in some outside time after school today as well. Again, Mikayla was just along for the ride. She did not really want to play in the snow, she was loving playing in the house though.

Jennifer on the other hand was loved doing everything.

 There is a little hill behind the apartments that are across the street from our house so we ventured over with our sleds to do a little sledding. Mikayla, well she wanted nothing to do with going down the hill. She just wanted to sit in her sled and watch and so that is what she did.

 Jennifer loved sledding!

 Hope you all had a great snowy day too!

catching up

So I realized the other day that it has been over a month since I have graced blog land with pictures of the girls. It seems the last few weeks have just been busy. There have been sick days, ice days, snow days, another sick day and well some days have just been plain busy. So here is a little glimpse into our past few weeks.

Mikayla was the first sick girl. Thankfully it was just a twenty-four thing and she was back to herself but she was pretty sad for those few hours. Mikayla does not handle being sick too well.  

This cold weather is killing Jennifer and her needing to ride a horse. She set up her own show jumping arena right in the living room! As you can see she even has on her riding helmet. 

She also discovered that our couch cushions work well when you need a pretend horse. They are just right for her! Again she has on her riding helmet and she also has some reigns on this particular day, made from one of dad's ties. 

When you have two days off of school in one week you need to be creative with what you do to entertain yourself. There is always making a house out of the couch.

 We also made, yes I said made, our own puff paint! In order to dry and make it puff you put it in the microwave, it was pretty cool I must admit.

 One of my lovely painters, who would not let me take her picture without making some sort of face.

 And my other lovely painter who loves to say cheese!

 Our next few weeks are shaping up to be just as crazy but I will try not to wait another month before giving you another glimpse at the beautiful girls!