Celebrating Mom's 60th Birthday

It's been a while since we had a sister's weekend so we decided to get everyone together and celebrate Mom's 60th birthday...in January. Better late then never. 

Love you, Mom! 

January 30-31

K'Lyn and I may or may not have had too much to drink. Ok, I probably had more.
Either that or I just can't hold my liquor like my sister can. 

Pedicures - one of the ladies doing our nails said you are considered lucky in her country if you have 5 girls.
Just one more, Mom! :)   

Dinner at RoCA

Claire - 18 Months

I missed a few monthly updates for Claire and am just now catching up. I'm looking back at some of her earlier ones and reminiscing on the ones where I started "Claire is seriously the happiest baby ever..." Let’s just say that you won’t hear those words come out of my mouth these days. She hit the terrible twos in full force at the ripe age of 15 months. I think it started with a combination of breaking several new teeth at a time and battling a few ear infections. She knows exactly what she wants and when she wants it and she will throw a fit if you don’t get it for her. She tries so hard to keep up with her older brother and some days she is successful, which usually ends in giving mom either a heart attack or a mental breakdown. Someday I will appreciate her tenacity. Someday…

Who needs toys?

I gave her some of my old makeup and she knew exactly what to do with it.

What a cheeser.

I know you want me to sit down, but I'd rather pretend I didn't hear you.

Christmas

This is the first year that Elliott understood the idea of Santa and truly looked forward to his arrival. It was so much fun to see his excitement, yet painful to listen to him ask over one hundred times "When do we get to open presents?" We worked hard at making sure Elliott understood the meaning of Christmas and I think we got half way there. If you ask him whose birthday we are celebrating he will promptly say "Baby Jesus," but then follow it up with "But when is it my birthday?"

Christmas at Pops and Mimi's

Making cookies for Santa

Christmas Eve 

Christmas Morning

Elliott's present from Grandpa John.
I think Grandpa and the big boys enjoyed it just as much as Elliott!

Christmas jammies at Grandma Linda's

Christmas at "The Farm"

 

The Evans Wedding

Our friend Justin Evans got married to Megan Reese on November 14th. Mark was an usher in the wedding so we got to partake in a weekend full of fun and shenanigans in Kansas City. We met Justin in 2008 when we moved to Kansas City. We were neighbors in our first apartment complex and then he lived with us for a few months in 2010...until we kicked him out because we got pregnant. Sorry, Justin! Wishing you guys a lifetime of happiness!

Kellen's Baptism - September 19th

We made the trip up to Minneapolis September 18th and 19th to celebrate Kellen's baptism. We went to a pumpkin patch on Saturday and Elliott and Claire loved it...Kellen just slept. :)  The baptism ceremony was Sunday morning and Kellen was surrounded by his loving family! Such a fun weekend for such a special event.

Family Pictures

We decided to make a trip back to Kansas City and get our pictures taken at the same park that we took our first family pictures in 2.5 years ago. It was stressful. Elliott was being his usual crazy self and couldn't sit still. When he was sitting still he gave his cheesy, eyes closed smile. Claire just wanted to eat goldfish the whole time and we couldn't get her to look at the camera. It was like trying to grab hold of two squealing pigs all while Mark and I looked at the camera and smiled like everything was normal. Nikki somehow managed to capture some amazing photos amidst the madness!  

Halloween

Elliott was super excited to be a ninja turtle this year...even though he's never really watched the show. We picked out his costume online (yes, I do about 97% of my shopping online now) and the ninja turtle costume caught his eye right away! We threw Claire's costume together last minute. Surprisingly she sat very still when we drew her cat face on. Elliott did some trick-or-treating in the neighborhood with two of his neighbor friends, and he got mad because he couldn't keep up with the two older girls racing from house to house.

Sorry this post is so late. I figured it's about time to post October happenings now that it's the first week of December. Where did this year go?!?