What could be better?

What could be better than three adorable kids giggling at the camera?  Nothing.  I am totally in love with these guys.  We grabbed the camera right before bedtime a few weeks ago.  I'm so glad we did because I love the personalities ringing through these photos.  Daniel's little bum was coming out of his diaper and of course, I thought it was adorable.  Good news in his world...his finally slept through the night.  Oh happy day!  This little guy has by far been our worst sleeper.  He was waking up every 1-2 hours every night.  I finally got so exhausted that I became determined to fix our sleepless problem.  We let him cry it out two nights ago.  The first night he cried for 45 minutes before he fell asleep.  Last night, it only took him 15 and he didn't wake up until 6:00.  That's a miracle folks.  I was so, so happy!  I'm a big believer in letting them cry it out.  It only takes 2-3 days and they are set.  That makes for one happy mama, let me tell you!
Check out that little bum!  So cute!

Yes, I realize that my house is messy in the background but that's life I guess.  The kids were about to go to sleep.  They had gotten out of the bath, finished stories, and were just being too cute not to take a few pictures. 

Come on!

We had to throw Daniel in the mix.  Sorry my flash was so ridiculously bright!

Nice Andrew!

Check out that drool.

I love Andrew's sweet face in this one.

Once again with the nose picking....

Sweet.

What could be better?

Fun in the Snow

So, we tried desperately to take some quick family pictures while we were at my mom's house.  Complete.  Failure.  There wasn't even one that kind of turned out.  They all looked awful.  Sad.  One day we'll get Daniel up on our wall.  I did want to post this picture though because it just speaks volumes about these kids' personalities.  Andrew is my crazy man.  He loves to laugh and be the comedian.  Anna is the little mom.  She would take care of babies all day long if she could.  She is so gentle and nurturing.  And Mr. Daniel loves to be held...all...day...long!  And so, this picture is my kids in a nutshell.
Here are just some cute pics we took of Daniel one night.  I love these little jammies on him. 

Anna got to take home the pet penguin from school.  It's just a stuffed animal but you would have thought she had just been given a million bucks.  She was so excited.  She had to write a little report on what she did when Pete the Penguin stayed at her house.  She wrote, "Anna and Pete played in the snow.  It was fun." 
Darling!

Check out that face.  This little boy knows NO DULL MOMENT.  I am constantly amazed at what he gets into.  And even though I see him do crazy things all the time, I still often feel baffled.  Like last week when he colored with markers all over my walls and fridge, then took a bat to my Noah's Ark picture in my basement and shattered the glass while all the kids were playing.  And that was all before he poured an entire bottle of Elmer's glue all over my bills and ate a half a bag of marshmallows that he snuck out of the cabinet.  This all happened within one hour.  He might be crazy, but I sure do love him.  No one could love him more than me.  He's a nut but he's my nut, and he completely melts my heart.  Andrew often says, "Hey Mom, guess what!  I love you!".  He has such a tender side to him too.  I'm one lucky mommy. 

I know these pictures are dark and blurry but I love his little face in all of them.  We have fun with this guy!

My sweet princess got sick this weekend.  The poor girl had a throw up bug.  She was awake from 1-3 in the morning screaming hysterically and then finally puked like crazy.  After that she went right to bed.  She slept in until almost 10:00 this morning.  I stayed home with her from church and she slept for three more hours this afternoon and then crashed at 7:30.  Good news though, she is feeling much better now.  We'll see who gets it next.  She was so sweet this afternoon.  She kept saying, "Mom, I love you," like every 10 minutes.  I loved it. 

Do you think he's happy or what?

New Year's

 These are the last of my GA pictures, believe it or not!  We ended up staying through the New Year.  We were just having so much fun and couldn't leave.  The weather was colder than we thought it would be.  However, we did have some really nice days and spent them playing in the leaves.  The kids were in heaven.  It is so nice having a back yard.  We've been in an apartment for so long that it's hard to imagine having a real back yard that isn't full of neighbors and maintenance men.  It was very private, and we were in heaven.

 Andrew would count to 20 before he would run and jump in the leaves.  He does 1-10 perfectly.  After that it's "eleve" (combo of 11 and 12), 14, 16, 19, 20!  He loved it most of all. 

 LOVE him!!!

 Josh and I really did get married on the perfect day.  Why?  Because it's over the Christmas break and we have my wonderful parents as babysitters.  We can leave for as long as we want and they actually WANT to watch our kids.  It's perfect.  Josh and I celebrated five years this December!  It has been the most fun, wonderful years of my life.  He is perfect and I love him dearly.  I'm one lucky, lucky, lucky girl!

 We had to make chocolate covered strawberries.  It's a tradition! 

 Andrew really LIKES this tradition!

 Granny snuggling with baby Daniel.

 Good ol' Uncle Grease.  This is my brother Greg.  We called him Grease Monkey growing up, (not sure why??).  It was then shortened to Grease and now he is Uncle Grease.  My kids absolutely adored him.  He was so good with them. He's going to make a great daddy one day.

 Can't you just see Andrew saying "cheese" in every picture?

 5 years baby!

 This is our New Year's Eve photo.  Look at Andrew's little face!

 We did sparklers with the kids for the first time.  I just knew Andrew would love it because he's obsessed with fire and blowing out candles.  Both he and Anna were terrified.  It didn't take too terribly long for Anna to warm up to the idea.  Andrew never quite did.  He finally stood beside me as I held a sparkler.  Maybe next year....

 We had a New Year's countdown at 7:15 before the kids went to sleep.  It was quite the party.  We had cheering and dancing and noisemakers.  The kids loved it.  I love having dance parties and have taught my kids how fun they can be.  Anna asks me all the time if we can have a dance party when Dad gets home from work.  It's great.

 Aunt Kellie really got into it.  ;-)

 Even Grandpa took Anna on a twirl, complete with a dip.  She loved it!

 Everyone started doing this line dance that I didn't know.  I've seen the youth do it at dances but I'm not cool enough to remember the name.  They all loved it.  I have such a fun family.

 Daddy and Andrew dancing the night away.

 A little more sparkler fun.

 This is as close as Andrew would get to a sparkler.  I'll take it.

 It was so funny that this was the real New Year's Eve party.  We were watching something fun on TV, eating lots of yummy food, and we all had some ipod or ipad and were playing pictionary with each other.  Sounds lame, right?  Wrong!  It was so fun.  It's the game app that you can download and play with other people.  We did it forever and had so much fun!