Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Colorado again this year.  

Grandma knitted Caitlin a sweater and she loves it, she hardly took it off the entire trip!

Ashlee had to show us one of Grandpa's hats.  He uses this one for night grilling, it is just one of about a  hundred hats he has hanging downstairs.

Snuggling, or dog-pilling, on Mom.

It was nice fall weather so the girls played outside quite a bit.

Molly and I only lasted outside for a few minutes, it was a bit chilly for us.  Grandma found the down vest for Ashlee and she wore it nearly the whole trip.

I helped them make a few crafts with their cousin, Gavin.

Chris did a kazoo concert with them.  We had no idea what they were hiding behind their backs, or so they thought.

Grammy with all the great grand kids.

The four grand kids.

We went to the Christmas parade in Estes Park again, and it was by far the warmest year we have had up there.  And we even got to go out to eat at a steak house after the parade!

The girls love to sit in Grandma and Grandpa's hot tub.  Especially since the hot tub at swimming lessons has been broken pretty much the entire semester.

We also enjoyed seeing lots of family, and our good, good friends from Iowa (I need to get the picture from Chris' phone), Chris and I had a date to the movies, and LOTS of great food.  We had a great trip and were certainly exhausted by the end of it.

8 months

Molly is 8 months old now!

• She is a bit of a Mommy's girl; if she sees me she wants me
• She takes a nap every Tuesday and Thursday in her car seat during Zumba. (such a good girl to let me exercise)
• She is very mobile, but doesn't crawl.  She rolls and scoots.
• She loves watching her sisters play and being with them

• Her hair is really filling in over her entire head, but is not enough for a little clip yet.
• She still takes a bottle.  A must on the occasional nights I work.

• She likes to eat EVERYTHING, except for when she is actually fed food.  All toys go straight to her mouth.
• She continues to gag with baby food, so will really only eat things that are in the little net.  
• She wears 6-9month clothes and size 3 diapers.

• She naps in the morning and in the afternoon and goes to bed at 7pm.  She still wakes up once during the night, but has actually slept through the night on 3 occasions.
• We set up some Christmas stuff and so far she has only looked at it and not tried to eat it.  We shall see how long that will last.

• She likes the Gerber puffs and is getting better at eating them.  Last week she would pick one up with her left hand, switch it to her right, back to her left, and finally into her mouth.  So silly.

• She likes her car seat, but has been known to cry for an hour + on longer trips.  We are hoping for the best when we make a long drive in a few weeks.

Dance Party!

We were watching some old video's and I decided I had to post this one.
The girls were dancing before school last year and I just started recording them without them knowing it.
Caitlin is obviously using the TV as a mirror, and Ashlee's moves are awesome.

This week

So far this month we have had an overwhelming LACK of pictures being taken.  

But we do have a few from this past week.

Caitlin is becoming a really great reader and loves to read books to her sisters.

Molly was fine and happy until she saw me and then she started whining and crying, she is kind of a mama's girl I guess.

She is reading a pretty hard book I got from the library about Thomas Jefferson, and doing a good job sounding out all the words like "tyrant, disobedience, independence."

I took a timer picture to document my skinny jeans and boots- I know, me and skinny jeans, who knew?  But I laughed because you can't even see the pants at all :)  Oh well, I am not taking another one.

A 2nd girls weekend- of sorts

Chris was scheduled to adjudicate (judge for ACTF) 2 shows in Colorado over this past weekend, so he took Ashlee with him.  They stayed with Chris' parents and Ashlee got a lot of time with them and her cousin!  We were worried she would be home sick and cry; but she didn't at all, she was so good the whole time.

That left me, Caitlin, and Molly at home to have a fun weekend ourselves.

It started snowing just before Caitlin got out of school on Friday. Perfect tongue catching snow!

We went out for dinner and frozen yogurt Friday night.

Saturday we cleaned, played, went to a birthday party and played in the snow.  I can't remember the last time I went out and played in the snow with the girls, Chris usually does that, but we had lots of fun!

 It started getting windy and the snow started blowing around- see it blowing off the roofs?

This little girl was great and loved playing with her big sister.

Caitlin is so good with Molly.  She let her ride in her boat, and she even did all the rowing!  Lucky Molly.

Girls Weekend

Last weekend Molly and I flew to California to have a girls weekend with my mom, sisters and sister-in-law.

We got a group picture after church- which is a super blurry pic from my i-phone.

It was super fun and nice to get away for a few days.  Thanks to Chris for keeping things running at home and taking good care of Caitlin and Ashlee.