Holiday Fun

We have some pretty excited girls that the holidays have rolled around. The girls love spending time with family and there was a lot of that over the past few days! We spent Thanksgiving day with Bill's family. There was a smaller than normal crowd this year, lots going. But the girls thought it was okay because it meant lots of attention from the people that were there. It was a relaxing day and I hate to admit but I didn't even take my camera out of the diaper bag!
Friday we were up and off to Minnesota. The girls were very excited to be going to aunt's Jen's house and staying in a hotel.

Friday was a the big Iowa football and of course we had to support the Hawks! These are 3 pretty cute Hawkeyes.

 Of course going to a hotel means one thing for my girls: swimming! Jennifer was determined that we were going to swim two times. She got her wish and she loved every minute of it.

 Saturday morning Kelly even got to go swimming. She did good but after a while her little chin started quivering so I had to take her out of the water.

 Saturday we celebrated Christmas with my family. When the stockings were all passed out Jennifer shouted to me, "Look mom we're the same!" She does love her Aunt Jen!

Jennifer and Mikayla both got some presents that will be lots of fun to play with. 

 And Kelly's first Christmas experience was spent taking a nap on great-grandma. There will be plenty of more opportunities for her to get in on the fun. 

Hope your Thanksgiving weekend was full of fun memories! 

random pictures

So November is flying by, it is hard to believe that the holidays are quickly approaching. I do have some pretty excited kids that Thanksgiving is coming. And we have already been talking about Christmas too. I was looking through some pictures the other day and thought I would share some randomness from our house lately.

Some nights before bed we play a game. On this particular night Jennifer wanted to play Old Maid. Now as everyone knows the whole objective of the game is not to get the Old Maid. Well Jennifer has decided that the object of the game should be quite the opposite- she wants to get and keep that Old Maid card. In an attempt to keep the card she decided that maybe she should turn it around so that Bill could not get the card. Little did she realize that by turning it around, he could see the card. Oh the laughter over this! 

 Our Kelly girl is growing so much. I will fully admit that we comment several times a day on how cute she is. She is at a fun stage where she is making noise, she can be quite loud at times and smiling all the time. She is so much fun!

 A few Saturdays ago I was putting laundry away in the girls' room. I began to think that Mikayla was being pretty quiet- Jennifer and Kelly were with me so I wasn't too worried. This is where I found her. She had gotten the bowl of seasoned crackers off the counter and set up a little "picnic" and was just eating away. It was a sweet picture.

This has been one of more favorite things to see lately. Over the past months Mikayla's love for Kelly has grown so much, it is sweet to watch. When Kelly was born and we first brought her home, Mikayla could give or take her sister. She liked her but didn't really care to hold her, lay beside her or talk to her. Now Mikayla spends lots of time with Kelly. Mikayla gets excited to see Kelly in the morning, she talks to her, brings her toys and will just be beside her for long periods of time. One of my favorite things is when Mikayla looks at Kelly and says, "Hey, girl!", in the sweetest voice. We often call Kelly, baby girl or Kelly girl, which is where Mikayla is getting girl, very sweet to this mom.

 I just took this picture last week. I wish they all were smiling but that is difficult task with three kids. I do love this picture though. Jennifer is "closing" her eyes for some reason. Mikayla just looks sweet with her head on Jen's shoulder and Kelly is happily smiling. What joy these three girls bring to my heart!

Jennifer's turn

It seems we are on a roll lately with the girls. August it was Kelly in the hospital for heart surgery. Then came Mikayla, she had her tonsils out. And Friday it was Jennifer's turn. She had to have some dental work done. A few weeks ago it was discovered that she had an abscess on one of her teeth. It thankfully wasn't bothering her but it had to be dealt with. Sadly Jennifer is very nervous about the dentist. And when I say nervous I mean kicking and screaming, crawling up me, trying to escape the room, will not even let the dentist look at her, kind of nervous. So her dental work had to be done at the hospital, under anesthesia.

When we got to the hospital Jennifer had to have some x-rays taken of her neck first. She did great with that. She thought it was fun, after each one they let her go back to the computer and check out her bones. After that fun activity was over, girlfriend was ready to head home! Much to her dismay we were not able to go. 

It was a fight at first to get her to put on the gown and pants. But eventually we did, she is a cute little patient. 

 They were running a little behind so we had lots of time to wait, which for us was not a good thing. Jennifer could not eat anything in the morning, which did not make her happy. And she knew the dentist was going to be doing something to her, so that also made her unhappy. So we spent lots of time snuggling before it was time to go back. 

 About twenty minutes before it was Jennifer's turn they have her some medicine to "relax" her a bit. It really was a good thing because otherwise it would have been ugly getting her away from us, she could hardly keep her eyes open by the time they came to get her.

 Jennifer had two teeth pulled and spacers put in, once J was asleep and they were able to take x-rays the dentist found that the same tooth on the opposite side also had an abscess. The dentist said she did great. He commented about how impressed he was that she put on the gown and pants. He was thinking we would not get her to do that. We laughed as he said he was fully expecting World War 3 with her!! We were so thankful she did good. And we are happy to have it done and over with. Once she woke up Jennifer was ready to go home! She did not want to linger any longer than she had to but I don't really blame her. She of course had to wait a little bit. While she waited Jennifer knocked out 3 purple popsicles, which is why her face looks so weird in the picture and she got lots of snuggling from mom and dad.

 Having dental work done is really not a big deal but we are three for three as of now. All three girls have had something done in the past three months. I am really hoping we are done for a while!