Sunday Best

These kids are just growing up so fast!!!  After church on Sunday, I decided to take some pictures of them.  

I know that I do not have enough hands for all 3 of these kids, but I am so glad for all of the help that people give me, especially when I am trying to juggle them all at church.  It makes my 2 hands seem like enough when I get help. :) Between taking kids to the bathroom, and feeding and diapering Aftyn, I am often asking people to help me, and they do.  Parenthood is a great way to teach us humility and to accept help from others (or beg of it, like I do.)  But it is definitely rewarding!  I love my sweet kids.

Swagger Wagon!

That's right! We bought a van! It is a 2011 Toyota Sienna. We are very happy with our purchase. We had all 3 kids in the back seat of the Mazda before, and it worked... but Quincey and Maiya were always talking, fighting, playing. And now that we have more space I noticed an INSTANT change. Our drives are much more relaxing now. Which makes me look more forward to our trip to Disneyland and Oregon this summer.

A couple of my favorite features:

I love all of the space... and the 8th seat that can be stored in the back.

And I love that the windows come down in the back.  

When we bought our van, my sister reminded me that the Sienna is in the commercials as the Swagger wagon. So, I looked it up, and even though I am probably the last person in the world that had not seen it, it needs to be shown.....

2 months!

Miss Aftyn has been with us for 2 whole months!!! So far, everything has been really good. The transition has gone smooth. She is a great little sleeper, and we've gotten into a good routine.  All 3 children have had such distinctly different personalities from the get go.  I remember once Maiya learned to smile, you couldn't turn it off.  She smiled huge at everything and laughed at everything.  Aftyn's personality is much more subdued.  She CAN smile, but she really makes you work for it. She is very calm.   And, for right now at least, she doesn't mind being left alone even for long periods of time (like 30 min.).  The kids and I will be in a different room, and I will hear her cooing and just talking to herself. Though most of the time I go get her. It is so sweet. We are so happy to have her.

Don't Judge! I was busy over Christmas!

Yeah, I am a bit behind with posting these Christmas pictures.  But, I feel I have a good excuse.  Having a baby a few days before can put the Christmas blogging behind a bit, but I thought these pictures were too cute to not post.  So, better late than never...

Dressed in their new church attire :)

So glad they love each other <3

Pretty Maiya

Ha! Quincey's face is priceless.  He got the Woody doll that he wanted so badly.

And Maiya got her costumes... Santa came through for them. :)

AND a Buzz!  He must have been a good boy this past year.

Princess Piano for our Princess

And here is our real present, Miss Aftyn

She has changed so much already!

Before Christmas we got to do lots of fun winter festivities like:

Wear Santa hats and drink Hot Cocoa.........

Make Tortilla snowflakes.... (these were actually really yummy, we got the idea from here)

Visit Santa Clause (we only got a pic of Maiya with Santa, sorry Q)

And of Course, we got to make our own little Snow man. 

Overall, it was a very successful and memorable Christmas Holiday!

Siblings

Aftyn

Maiya

Quincey

Happy 5th Birthday Quincey!

My little boy is growing up!  He turned 5 today.  I let him pick what kind of birthday cake I would make, and he picked a Lego Cake!  So we went with the theme and had a fun Lego Birthday Party! He kept giving me hugs and saying this is the best birthday party ever.  I love my sweet boy. 

The Birthday Boy!

The Lego Cake (so fun to make... got the idea here)

The Lego Guy plates

Lego juice boxes

We played 'Lego, lego, who's got the Lego?'

I made this Lego Pinata out of a diaper box and tin cans... It was a lot of work, but worth it.

All in all the day was a success!  Happy Birthday Quincey!

The Past month

Well, It will be a month tomorrow that Aftyn has joined our family. Time sure goes fast! So far things have gone really smoothly. The transition has been very natural. Maiya is the little mommy. She loves her little sister and loves to help out. She gets really jealous and feisty if Quincey wants to hold her or pay attention to her, so most of the time he decides it's not worth the fight, and lets Maiya have all of the Aftyn time. But, he really loves her.
Aftyn is a really good sleeper, once she gets really asleep.  She loves to trick me.  I will feed her and burp her, and change her poopy diaper and she will be completely relaxed and then i will lay her down and try to go back to sleep and then 5-10 min later she will be grunting and uncomfortable, so I will pick her up and she will maybe burp again, or poop again, and then the cycle repeats maybe up to two more times.  With my other kids once they burped after each side, they would be good, but not miss Aftyn.  So, I have developed a fear of being woken up or what I like to call 'Awakaphobia'.  It is so hard for me to go back to sleep, because I am afraid I will be woken up in 10 min.
Other than that, I am doing well, my body is adjusting to little sleep. And she is so worth it.  Such a sweet little girl.  She has smiled at me a handful of times, I am excited for when she smiles more often. 
I have been getting so annoyed at my camera.  I see in front of me a beautiful girl with such good color, and then I take pictures and I get a red-faced, and spotty girlie. It makes me not want to take pictures.  I am getting better at changing the settings to get a better picture, and I have no idea how to Photoshop. I think that will be my next wish list item is a nice new camera.  Okay rant over. Here are some of my camera's handiwork......

Our little Reindeer, coming home from the hospital

Big Brother Q

Little Mommy Maiya

Love baby yawns