Eliza Jo is...

 Uncle Joey and cousin Chloe are visiting for a few days and were able to celebrate with Lizzy today!  Our little monkeys ran around and jumped at Pump It Up this morning and then celebrated with banana cake tonight!  Eliza had a special date with Daddy and Uncle Joey to Starbucks for a treat in the afternoon and got to skip her nap :)

 Lizzy JoJo,

You are our "family clown", and you entertain us with your goofiness in what you say and do every day!  You are so full of happiness and joy.  We love to hear you singing, and you have memorized so many songs that you insist that you have the correct words to, even if you might be just a little off ;)  Your favorite movies are Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Mama Mia, mostly because you love the songs in them.  Most days for the past few months, you have insisted that you are a boy.  You raid your brother's closet and wear his 12 month clothes!  You are usually either Gideon or Sky, and sometimes Chris or Martin from Wild Kratts.  Every once in a while now, you will put on a dress to pretend to be a girl!  You love your baby dolls, though, and love to take care of them.  You can keep up with your big sisters, and add fun ideas to their play.  You still aren't quite sure that you like having a little brother, probably because you give him such a great reaction when he comes up and grabs your clothes or pats you on the head, that he is encouraged to keep pestering you.  When he is near something that might choke him, crawling for the bathroom, or crying, you are the first to run to his rescue, though.  You love to be busy....and we call you our "busy Lizzy"!  You always want to help me with everything, especially in the kitchen.  You can measure ingredients, chop vegetables, and crack eggs with perfection!  You amaze us with your focus on coloring and can stay in the lines on pictures with lots of detail.  You love to draw, color, and practice writing letters....anything to keep up with those sisters!  You still walk up to me every day and ask for "uppee" and I hope that doesn't change for a long time.  You are passionate in everything and let people know exactly how you feel about things-we sometimes say you are like Jekyll and Hyde because you can be screaming about something one second and then laughing the next.  You tell your sisters that certain things are "super, super, duper special" to you when you don't want to share and often exclaim that we have to "hurry and come see, it is Amazing!!!"  We love your intensity for life and your sweet heart for your family.  Happy Birthday, monkey girl!!!  Love, Mama

Christmas 2011..family, friends and traditions

We were blessed with four special nights with friends and family, celebrating the birth of Jesus, the miraculous first Christmas gift, and enjoying good food and wonderful friendships.  We met friends at the Live Nativity on Friday evening, where we drove our car through the sets where actors were dressed in costumes, telling the story of the birth of Jesus-it really was incredible! We headed to Starbucks for hot cocoa and hanging out afterward.  Saturday evening, we gathered with our church friends for a candlelight service and singing.  Christmas afternoon, we gathered with two other families for Christmas dinner, and the kids had a great time playing together and making ornaments while the adults got to enjoy talking.....we actually did get to sit and talk because the sweet 11-year-old girls did a great job playing with the little ones!  We finished off with the Nance family Christmas on the 26th and grandma and PaPa's house.  Close friends joined our family for a fun evening of playing, exchanging gifts and eating....someone even started the meal with cheesecake! ;)  We are truly blessed by the special people in our lives!

Here are some pictures from Christmas morning:

This boy found the last bit of milk and cookies, and enjoyed a little breakfast!

Discovering his present from Santa...

Our morning started at 5:30 am, when Hannah and Eliza burst into our bedroom, shouting "Christmas is here!!  There are presents out there!!!"  We tried to get them to go back to sleep by telling them it was the middle of the night....but who were we kidding?!  There was NO way they could sleep, so we got up and they started playing with their Santa gifts with Daddy, while I prepped brunch (It was actually really good that we got an early start, because I had forgotten to put together the egg casserole and soak it overnight, so the extra hours helped save our brunch!)...

Eliza is always my helper in the kitchen.  I told her that we needed to crack 4 eggs into the bowl, and then walked away for a minute, and came back to 4 perfectly cracked eggs in the bowl, except for one little piece of shell that she told me she had already removed!  She truly is helpful in the kitchen!!

By 7:00, the girls were really wanting to open some more gifts, and Daddy was getting a bit impatient, too!  So, we let them go wake up Clara to join the party, and they started with their stockings...

We sat down and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, and ate some cinnamon roll birthday cake before we headed to the tree for more gifts.  Molly knows Joe too well, and couldn't resist this gift from The Christmas Story....I suppose this lovely leg lamp will be showcased in our front window next year...

Hannah had some of the best expressions of excitement and joy with each gift that she opened!

Hugging her gift...

Isaiah kept himself busy with a favorite game of dropping things off his tray and looking to see where they fell....."uh, oh"....

Eliza was thrilled with this and said "It's a real boy toy!" 

Being goofy...

Grandma and PaPa joined us for brunch, and brought the girls the Playmobile zoo set-it has already provided HOURS of entertainment!!!
We added this "raspberry soup" to our traditional brunch this year, and the kids all loved it!  It had raspberries, yogurt, and a little cinnamon and clove...

Another new tradition was our Jesse Tree.  I had intended to have them hang the Jesse tree ornaments on a small Christmas tree, but we started them on these hooks that were already up from our Halloween picture banner, and it ended up that we had exactly the right number of hooks and it was more fun to see the pictures spread out in order from Creation to the birth of Jesus!

This has been a really fun year for trying new traditions and deciding which traditions make this season special for our family and glorify the sacrifice and amazing gift of Jesus, God with us. 

Botanical Gardens

This place is just incredible!  We enjoy walking through here every year, and this year the girls had several things that they remembered from last year that they had fun looking for!

 Isaiah loved the bright lights, and got a little crazy, bouncing in the backpack...

 This dragon was a new addition this year, and I think they said it had over 6,000 lights in it!

After enjoying the lights, we headed to Red Robin for dinner.  Restaurants are a challenge these days with Isaiah wanting to be down on the floor exploring, so we were in and out, meals finished and back in the car, in 30 minutes!

Under the mistletoe...

Isaiah's first kiss! (Other than his Mommy and sisters, of course!)

Aunt Julie has been here for the past week, and the kids have kept her well-entertained!  They have been "gazelles", standing on their tiptoes in these tiny shoes, and usually putting a pair on their hands, too, to prance around the house....

Julie left Teanne home in Bend this trip, but the girls made sure she had a "stand-in" right away, leash and all!

Another day, they were the bird characters from "Rio", and this was their bird nest that they decorated for Christmas with every hanger in the closet......it kept them busy a LONG time!!!

Isaiah has discovered what every baby niece and nephew have at one point....pushing Aunt Julie's wheelchair is lots of fun!!!  Julie is a good sport when she starts moving across the room suddenly with the little motor behind her :)

He had a nice crazy hair-do after his bath!

I thought I had this hanging high enough out of his reach....but tiptoes work great for adding a couple of inches!

Sister pile!!!

Clara and Hannah got to perform one song with their ballet class at the Homeschool co-op Christmas party.  They were excited to have Aunt Julie here to watch!  I love Hannah's very serious expression...

Clara told me that once she started twirling, she just couldn't stop, and she might have twirled a few too many times! :)

 Hannah's beloved "Pip" was also in the audience...

We made one trip to the airport this morning, but everyone had slept late, and we were too late for Aunt Julie's flight, so we'll try again tonight.....we get to keep her a few more hours!!!  We'll miss her, and I will miss having an extra set of eyes to keep watch on these crazy kids!!!

eleven months!

Climbing, climbing...

Isaiah's favorite spot in the playroom is at one end of the couch, where he holds on and jumps like crazy!

4 teeth on top, 2 on the bottom...

Isaiah's been pushing around the walking toys at co-op, so I brought this little car in from the garage tonight, and he LOVED it!!!  He was pushing Eliza all over and getting rides from Clara...

He's a little bulldozer, and pushed his way right through or over what ever was in his path!

We ended the night with a crazy dance party, and learned that Isaiah loves to dance just like his sisters!  As soon as the music started, he was bouncing up and down to the beat and rocking back and forth on his hands and knees!  I really can't believe we will have a one-year-old next month!!