Are We Alive?

I am officially the worst picture taker these days. Rick took these pictures for me because I asked him to. I need to take them because my girls are growing so fast but we forget.

Keira was having a hard day today. I woke up after sleeping for a couple hours to her bawling and screaming and bawling some more. My guilt meter goes way up when I hear either of the kids crying during the day when I am suppose to be sleeping and I often go out to help if it doesn't mellow in a couple of minutes. This time it didn't so I went and helped out. We were trying to calm her down. Apparently she had been crying off and on all morning. I was up for about a half hour trying to help calm her down. She came and took a "nap" with me and seemed fine once I went back to sleep. Rick said he saw her rubbing her head and she was still cranky so he thought maybe she had a headache. He gave her some tylonal and she had a LONG nap and has been just a little cutey all this afternoon. What a smart guy I have! Other than her hard day today, she is full of information. She will tell you anything about everything if you give her a minute to do it. She loves to sing any song she can think of and often comes with me to primary (because she refuses to go to nursery) and loves to sing with the "big kids." They love to sing all of the songs that she loves to sing. Too funny. "Once There Was a Snowman," "I am a Child of God," "Book of Mormon Stories," and so many others. It is so fun to have such a good singer around the house.

Elaina is getting to be such a big girl. I think she is going to be scooting and crawling before she starts rolling over with any regularity. She can get places (inches away) very slowly (she would probably lose a race with a snail). But she does it and is so proud of herself. She is still such a happy baby and has a smile and a squeal for anyone who will give her just a minute of their time. She loves to do this thing where if she gets excited and is laying on her back (although it is starting to move to her sitting up too) she will lift up her rear end with her legs and wiggle it back and forth and laugh and laugh. It is sooo cute. We are so happy to have her in our family. I think she is going to continue to bring us some much needed calm to our family. It won't surprise me if she is the peacemaker in our family. Such good girls I have. I am a lucky mom.

Big Bums

I don't have a picture for this so just scroll down and look at my last post if you need a visual aid. I had a WIC appointment yesterday and they weighed and measured Elaina. I was in shock when they told me her stats. Last month at her 4 month check up she was 19 lbs, 26 1/2 inches. This month (yes, one month later) she is 21 lbs, 27 1/2 inches. Holy Cow. That child is growing. It seems like almost an impossible rate of growth. At least we know that all of her spitting up isn't effecting her growth at all. She is either going to slow down soon or she is going to be as tall as Keira sooner than later. So funny to watch the genetics at work.

Our Cupcake

Our cute Elaina is 5 months old as of the 31st. Where has time gone? I thought we just brought her home from the hospital. She is one of the sweetest babies I have ever met. She LOVES anyone to give her attention. She is definitely going to be the social bee of our family (not that it is hard with a family full of introverts.) She talks and talks all day long and if someone gets into her line of sight she squeals and laughs and talks, talks, talks. You just can't find a happier baby. We are so happy that she is a member of our family.
By the way, her Grandpa Allen apparently just HAD to get her that shirt because it is so true. She is everyone's cupcake. Just look at those cheeks!

Merry Christmas

Here are some pictures from our Christmas morning. For Christmas Eve we stayed home because we didn't want to deal with the roads. We had a fun night of pizza and Christmas movies. Then for Christmas morning I woke up early (not by choice, my body wasn't ready to sleep in the middle of the night. Darn work schedule) so I had breakfast all ready for everyone when they got up. We had our traditional "Good Stuff." Keira hardly ate anything. She was too excited for presents, which she could see from the kitchen table. We had a fun morning of opening presents. Keira opened every single present we got no matter who it was to. Elaina and she each got a rubber ducky and she kept making them kiss. So funny. Elaina was content to just sit and watch. She thinks her sister is pretty fun. We then got ready and went to my mom and dad's brand new house. It was the first time that we had been there and we really liked it. We will love driving there when the snow has melted. :) After spending a couple hours there, we went to Grandma Inman's and played with cousins. That is always really fun. Tomorrow we are going to Rick's parents so Christmas will continue for us for one more day. We hope everyone had a great Christmas and has a Happy New Year!

P.S. Rick was obviously there for Christmas morning but all we got were two pictures of his hands. Whoops!

Family Picture Fun.

My cousin, Tyra, was in Washington a couple weeks ago and volunteered to take our family pictures. She has been doing photography out of her home as a business for a while now and I have admired her pictures so I was excited that she did that for us. We had crazy times with the baby spitting up on everyone one and everything and Keira being more interested in playing with cousin Anabelle (Tyra's almost 2 year old) than getting her pictures taken. We also just made up places in my Aunt Mary's house to take pictures. Tyra has really cool things at her house but did a great job with making things work. Check out her other stuff at www.momentsbytyra.blogspot.com. Oh, there are tons more but these are my favorites of the bunch.

Playing in the Snow

When I got home from work this morning it was snowing pretty good. So I got Keira up and got her all dressed and we went outside. I wanted to play in the snow with her for just a minute before I went to bed. She absolutely loved it and I made her a little "snowman." Rick is going to take her out later but she had fun for a couple minutes with her mom. I made her hot chocolate when we got in, which she has never had before and really liked that too.

Who is Who?

I took a picture of Elaina today playing in her brand new jumperoo her Grandma Marcia got her for Christmas (a little early but we needed it now!). I was wondering how Keira looked at this age so I went through some old pictures and found some pictures of Keira in her exersaucer (which she got too big for and broke which is why we no longer have it). They just happen to be about the same age. I think Keira is about 2 weeks older in that picture than Elaina. They look SOOO much a like. I can't believe it. I just love their chunky cheeks! It will be interesting to continue to watch them both grow and we will see if they change or stay very much the same. Their personalities are worlds apart so hopefully they will be compatible and love to play with each other. So much fun.

Oh, Keira is the top picture, Elaina is the bottom in case you didn't know. :)