11 months

Hannah turned 11 months yesterday. She has been talking a lot more lately. She's always babbling and making baby noises. She's pulling herself up all the time, and walking along all the furniture. She laughs a lot. Especially at things her sisters do. She's eating everything, drinking cow's milk (nursing three times a day and some formula too), and has a great appetite.

This is another new thing: she always has her tongue out. It's so funny because it is all the time.

It's so sad to see her grow up. I want her to stay little forever, especially knowing we're not having any more kids. But it is so amazing to see her learn more and interact more. We are in love with this baby girl.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

This is a lengthy post. I figured I'd give one long post about the month of December. It's been a very busy month for us. It's hard to believe another year is coming to an end.

We brought out all the Christmas decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving. The girls had a lot of fun putting ornaments on the tree.

The gate helped keep all three girls away! Last year, we had about ten broken ornaments. So this year we just made the "hands off" rule. No broken ornaments this year!

We also couldn't put the presents under the tree. The girls started playing with them the first night we put them under there. I didn't want to have to rewrap everything so they wound up on the shelf.

This was our attempt at a Christmas card picture. It turned out fine but I never got around to sending those cards... Merry Christmas everyone!

Our friends hosted their annual Bunko party and this year they added an ugly sweater contest. Or course I went all out. Mike even joined in.

Yeah, I took the prize!

Christmas Eve we went to the 4 pm service at our church. Ava and Allie were in a childrens' choir. They were able to go on stage and sing Christmas carols. They had a lot of fun!

After the service we went to Jeff and Tara's house and celebrated Christmas with my side of the family.

Papa, Grandma, and all their grandchildren.

Christmas morning we woke up and read the Christmas story to the girls, sang happy birthday to Jesus, and had breakfast. My parents and Brian came over. Then we let the girls open their gifts.

Hannah enjoyed crawling around on the floor, getting into things.

The girls loved their princess barbies.

After lunch we headed over to the Epleys to celebrate with Mike's family.

Kathy had a great idea to give Ava and Allie a big fruit basket as a present. My girls LOVE fruit. They were eating out of this all day.

We had a wonderful Christmas. Our families were so generous and the girls were spoiled once again. Thank you so much!

Finally, we continued with our Italian Christmas tradition and made binulatha today! Mmmm, I love this stuff. The girls did a fantastic job helping.

Workout

I've been trying to get my butt into shape so I do this workout video often. The girls will usually come in and start doing it with me. They last about five minutes before they get bored with it. I was getting ready to head to the store and they asked Mike if they could do it on their own. I was able to get some video before I left.

Plie' squat jumps

mountain climbers

walking planks and supermans

They do pretty darn good if you ask me!

I haven't really been posting much lately. I've thought of some different things to post about but then I never got around to it. Then I thought about how much is coming and how much I will be posting in the next couple months, so this is really a good break right now! I'll surely post about Christmas and New Years. Then comes January and three birthdays so there will be lots of posts that month. So right now is a good down time:)

But I can share some funny moments we've had recently with the girls:

Allie bumped her elbow on the chair and called Mike and said "I bumped my elbow on the chair and my brain fell out!"

Hannah has found her lungs. If either of the girls come and take a toy from her, she screams, LOUD! And if we look at her and say "Hannah, no, no" She'll laugh. I think we might be in for it with her.

Auntie Jessica asked Ava how she got so cute and Ava said "I was born that way, but some kids are born without legs, and they just walk on pegs, but sometimes they fall over." (We talk to our kids sometimes about how fortunate we are to be healthy and to be able to walk and run. This must have been Ava's interpretation of that!)

Ava got a time out for not listening. Allie was asking why Ava had to go to her room, so Mike and I were talking to her about obeying and being a good listener. We're having this discussion with her for about three minutes and then I ask "are you a good listener Allie?" Complete silence followed. She hadn't been paying attention the entire time.

Gingerbread houses

Mike's mom used to build and decorate gingerbread houses, then sell them at craftshows during the holidays. She said there was one season where she made over a thousand dollars at a three day craftshow. She is an expert when it comes to these festive, delicious creations! This is the second year the girls have decorated houses. We went over to Joe and Kathy's last night and the table was all set up for decorating (and eating of course).


Ava getting ready to get started.

Allie taste testing to make sure the candy is good for the houses.

Grandma Epley getting all the candy into bowls.

YUMMY!

Mike helped Allie with her house.

Ava and I worked on this one.

Ava's finished product.

Allie's house.

Braden did a great job decoratiing his house, while Cobin watched his big brother.

Hannah and Cobin had fun playing together!

Mke made this Christmas tree out of candy and an ice cream cone. Isn't he talented!?

This is a fun tradition that we've started. The girls love decorating their houses but I think they enjoy eating them even more!