2013 Favorites

It is the last day 2013!  The last day of December (and this is my TWENTY-FOURTH post of the month.  Holy moly)! 

To wrap up 2013, I decided to go through our year of pictures and narrow them down to my three favorites for each month. 

That was a tall order.  My first January picture was #3609.  My last December picture was #9177.

I did pretty well with that limit the first half of the year, but once a certain baby came around, limiting myself to 3 favorite pictures was pretty much impossible.  So I cheated a little bit in the later months.

Here you go, the year in review.

2013 was an incredible year for us- new home, new baby, new life as a family of 4.

Happy New Year and blessings to you all in 2014!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Happy Sunday!  A teething baby is still running amok with our sleep schedule, so I'm not feeling the most witty or inspired tonight.  I apologize in advance if this is a very boring wrap-up. 

Winter break is more than half over already.  It always goes so fast when there are so many fun things to do.

Saturday

These were the only two pictures I took.  Oooops!

Check out Maya's hair!  She has a hilarious bald spot with a fluff of longer hair on top of it.  I now call her my little unicorn.  Callie and Maya hung out with G-pa and Daddy yesterday afternoon while G-ma, Auntie Cat and I went to a movie and then dinner.  Callie and Daddy made a giant snowman named Rapunzel.

Sunday
Today was a fun day.  We spent the morning at home doing some cleaning, and I got this shot of our little squishy chunk monster baby unicorn.

The cheeks.  Seriously.

We spent the afternoon taking Gosselin family pictures! There were approximately 36 people who all got together to hang out and be in pictures. 

We all managed to cram together for a big family picture, and then we did individual family pictures and other smaller group pictures after that. Here is a taste of the great-grandkid picture...hilarious. 

Piperlee, Seamus, Liam, Wakelyn, Everett, Eliana, Maya, Callie, Nate
(I'm not sure if I'm right about Liam and Wakelyn- they are hard to tell apart!)

Getting all those little ones to stay still, look at the camera and smile all at the same time was just not happening.  It will be interesting to see how all the pictures turned out!  Regardless it was a fun time with the family.

After that G-ma, G-pa and Auntie Cat took our girls so Chris and I could have a couple of kid-free hours.  We wandered around Menards, the Galleria, and then had a nice dinner at Macaroni Grill.

It is amazing how weird it is to eat a meal out without out trying to entertain a 4-year-old or eating one-handed while bouncing a 5-month-old on your lap.

When we got home we had a little play time and the girls were being adorable, as usual.  This is pretty much how they "play" all the time these days.  Callie get right up in Maya's face, Maya grabs her hair, pokes or scratches her, Callie becomes a tattle-tale, and Maya just does her baby thing. 



IMG 9177 from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

I love watching them together.

It is hard to believe that soon it will be 2014.  A year ago we were in Puerto Rico and I was totally nauseated from having a baby in my belly.  This was a very fast year!

Favorite-Things-Phone-Dump Friday

What a week!  In case you missed a lot of my pictures from Christmas, you can see a couple here, but most of them here.

It was a whirlwind week and we're still trying to recover.  At least our house is...it still looks like a Christmas tornado went through. I hope to get a lot accomplished this weekend.

As for the girls- Maya started consistently napping IN HER BED!  MERRY CHRISTMAS TO US!  We just have to rock her a little bit and put her down and she STAYS ASLEEP.  I know this may not sound that worthy of all capital letters, but after 5 months of her only napping in arms or the occasional car seat, IT IS.

Callie is 4, which isn't looking a whole lot different from 3 at this point (for as much as we have talked about everything 4-year-olds can do).  Callie asks "Can four year olds _____ (poop on the potty, eat broccoli, use manners all the time, sleep without a pull-up, etc.)?"  And we always say yes.  She's learning that this isn't necessarily true, but we're trying.  We did get rid of the pull-ups at night, and after two nights of accidents at about 3am, she has had 3 nights being dry.  Hopefully that keeps up.

Onto the favorite things (besides Christmas, of course)...

Favorite Thing #1: Time to be at home with the girls again

Favorite Thing #2: Watching the hair stylist wet, comb and blow dry Callie's hair
without a peep from her.
(At home, getting her to wash her hair is a battle, and if I even get a comb within an inch from her
head she yelps.  Forget the hair dryer.)
So it was a successful trip to the kids hair salon, with a happy baby in tow.
 

Favorite Thing #3: After posting this (true) story on facebook, I got almost 20
comments from others about how they have been there, calling me a super mom, or how I
deserved wine or tequila after the experience.  It is awesome to share crazy parenting
experiences and feel totally supported.

Favorite Thing #4: Henderson/Suurmeyer Reunion
We grew up with the Suurmeyers and they now live all over the country.
We used to be 11 people and now with marriages, relationships and children, we are
many more than that.
They were all back from Christmas and it was awesome to be all together.

Favorite Thing #5: Suurmeyer/Henderson: Then and Now
Chris thinks our group picture circa 1997 could be an ad for an Amish community.
I'd say we look a little better 16 years later.

Favorite Thing #6: Lunch downtown with Bops and Auntie Yoda

Favorite Thing #7: Taking advantage of the 30+ degree weather before it drops
below zero again.

Have a great weekend!

TBT

The birthday/Christmas craziness is over.  But my first throwback is about Christmas since, well, it was just yesterday.

Callie was 3 days old on her first Christmas...Maya was 5 months old on her first Christmas

 

 

 

The last of the family picture throwbacks are of G-Pa and Auntie Mari.

But I couldn't leave out our final canine family member (and me).  Kona Hope has been a great big sister to both of the girls.

Here are two more that I made from the May 2010/December 2013 pictures.  I'm excited to move onto a new month (and a new year!) and a new batch of baby Callie pictures.

2013 Christmas: In Many Many Parts

Part I: Christmas Eve Morning

Highlights:

Giving the girls their Christmas presents from us

Playing with birthday/Christmas presents

Girl play time while Daddy worked a half day
(added bonus: Maya napped IN HER BED...TWICE)

Trying to get a decent picture of these two crazies in their matching Christmas dresses

Part II: Christmas Eve Church Service

Highlight:

Getting to (unexpectedly) be the Holy Family during the last hymn- Silent Night.
We walked down the aisle and set Maya in the manger. She entertained all the people
who came to see her at the end of the service with smiles.
It was an awesome experience.

Part III: Christmas Eve with the Hendersons

Highlights:

Hanging out with GiGi

Opening lots of fun presents



Back at home: Getting all the Santa stuff ready
Presents, cookie/candy/milk, and note from Coo-Koo

Part IV: Christmas Morning at Our House

Highlight:

Checking out the presents from Santa.  He did pretty good this year.

Part V: Christmas Day with the Gosselins

Highlights:

Playing in our jammies

Opening fun presents

Resting after a fun morning

Part VI: Christmas Day with the Extended Gosselin Family

Highlights:

Seeing family, playing games and meeting another baby- cousin Piperlee

Part VII: Christmas Day Evening at Home

Highlight:

Winding down with two of most adorable girls in the world

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday just like we did.  Once again, Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone enjoys this time with friends and family...and wish you way more nice than naughty on this merriest of holidays.  Though naughty can be pretty awesome too. 

Merry Christmas!

5-Months-Old!!

This little Squishy face is 5-months-old!

Seriously, don't you just want to squish her cheeks?  I can not stop kissing them.

She is growing by leaps and bounds...rolling over, grabbing toys, and the latest development is a wonderful belly laugh that is so infectious.

Her first tooth has just barely popped through on the bottom, which is wreaking havoc on our sleep schedule and causing her to put her hands in her mouth almost constantly.

She also likes to just burrow into you when you hold her, and I love it.  Though most of the time she wants to be held so she is facing out and can see the world.  Watching her look at all her surroundings is so fun- you can just see the wonder in her beautiful dark blue eyes.

She is vocalizing so much more now...testing out all kinds of funny sounds.  It is hilarious.



IMG 8912 from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

I call her my high-maintenance baby, but she is perfect just the way she is.