Happy New Years from the 4 Little Princesses!

When they wake up tomorrow it'll be 2009!

Some Christmas pictures:

A lot of our Christmas is on video, and I haven't had time to look at that yet. But here are a few of the things we've got still pictures of:

Eric's Christmas present was a new bike (since his old one got run over...)

Claire and Emilie before the Christmas Eve service. Claire's choir was singing and Em was an angel in the Nativity play.

Claire's choir

Emilie is the angel on the right.

The stockings were hung...

Presents X 4 is a lot of presents!

Chloe checking out the baby and baby bed (that my grandma made her). She had the stomach flu and missed out on all the presents earlier in the day :-(

The girls playing with their loot today :-)

Blech....

Well the stomach bug has not left us. Chloe came down with it Christmas Eve night about 2 AM. She was really sick until yesterday. Then at 6 AM this morning, Elise came down with it. At least all the girls have had it now... I'll do a longer post with some of our Christmas pictures as soon as everyone's feeling better.

Cookie Monster

Chloe has discovered Christmas cookies. She may be picky about many foods, but she's found out that all cookies are good. I accidently left a plate of cookies from a neighbor within her reach. We came back into the kitchen and found her like this, sharing her loot with the dog...

We're still here...

I know, once again its been forever since I've posted. We've been super busy, as I'm sure most of you have too. We've been shopping, baking cookies, sent out cards, wrapping presents, and giving out cookies. Claire, Emilie, and Elise have had classroom parties.

Emilie and Elise had Christmas programs. Elise was the loudest one in her class. Her teacher told me the next day that it was funny because when they practiced, Elise didn't pay a lot of attention or participate much. Well, evidently she was paying attention, because she knew every word. I had so many moms stop me and say, "I heard Elise last night" :-)

Emilie's class recited "The Night Before Christmas " interspersed with Christmas carols (Its still OK to celebrate Christmas in Jefferson County schools :-P) Emilie's line was "Now dash away, dash away, dash away all." She practiced a lot. Elise practiced with her. Emilie said her line slowly and loudly and did a great job.

We also went up to Harvester Christian Church's Journey to Bethlehem. It is a really awesome production. They give you a Hebrew name and you're supposed to be on your way to Bethlehem for the census. The Roman soldiers pop up along your way. You travel along a road and stop and talk to different characters along the way and learn what they're doing and what they've seen. You stop in the market place in Bethlehem and then eventually get to the stable for the Nativity scene. Really neat, especially for the kids. The volunteers do an excellent job recreating the scene. They have great costumes and sets, and real animals (which Chloe loved). I didn't get any pictures however, as it was too hard juggling all the kids in the crowds. There were a ton of people there!

We were supposed to hear Claire and Emilie sing with their choirs this morning. Unfortunately, Emilie brought home a stomach bug Friday, and Claire came down with it yesterday. We are hoping that no one else is going to catch it! All I've got left to do is clean the house (although with 4 children off of school, cleaning and then keeping it clean is no small feat!)

On Christmas Eve, Claire's choir will be singing again, and Emilie is going to be an angel in the nativity scene. We have "angel practice" on Tuesday. (I want to know if the "angel" part will rub off.) We're having a small family dinner with my parents and my neighbor on Christmas Eve. We're going to watch "The Nativity Story" after dinner- kinda make it the no presents, remember Jesus' birthday part of the holiday. Christmas day will bring Santa in the morning and my parent's house for an extended family dinner/more presents. The 26th we'll see Eric's family for lunch and presents, and the 27th we're having a neighborhood party. It will be a crazy, but fun week. I'll put up some pictures towards the end of the week.

Chloe and the Christmas Tree

Chloe is fascinated with the Christmas tree. We did our annual Christmas card photo shoot with the kids Sunday night. Eric took this sequence of pictures which pretty much sums it up:

Daddy's taking my picture... I'm so cute...

I don't think anyone would notice if I got into that...

Yeah, let's take all of these "toys" off this tree!

It's Almost Christmas!!

My Little Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Wild Lights

We went to the zoo with my parents tonight to see the opening of "Wild Lights." It is a really neat light display. The kids really enjoyed it. The weather cooperated so it wasn't too cold. And of course we had to stop at Ted Drewes for ice cream afterwards. How often does ice cream sound good at the end of November? Anyway, here's a few pictures:

Chloe and I

Well, now we know the reflective piping on the girls' coats works :-)

The Jingle Bell frogs

My mom, the girls, and me

the "Wild Lights" sign

Cousins

Chloe was in love with her baby cousin Cedar today. She couldn't get enough of her. Thank goodness Cedar was a good sport about all the hugs, kisses, and attention she got from Chloe. Too cute!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope that everyone has had a great Thanksgiving! We definitely had a good one. Too much good food and lots of fun with both sides of our families. Sorry that I haven't been keeping up with posting lately. Everything is good, just a little busy. I promise to try and be better! Anyway, for now, here's a few pictures I took of the girls this morning:

Favorite Thing Tuesday

I'm going to try to think up some weekly "themes" to post about. That way I'll still have some things to post about even if the girls haven't done anything super cute or we haven't gone anywhere or done anything exciting. So my first "theme" is gong to be Favorite Thing Tuesday. On Tuesdays, I'll post about something I'm currently or continually liking. It might be baby/kid related or something that's floating my boat :-) So to start us out, here's a baby/kid item that we couldn't do without:


This is the Maclaren Volo. After going through numerous strollers over the course of 4 kids, this is the one I wish I knew about from the beginning. Its lightweight, folds up small, steers really easily, is tall enough (most umbrella-type strollers kill your back!), and its sturdy enough to put up with some abuse. The new versions have some fabric on the seat and back which is nice since we had to buy a seat cover for ours (Elise gets eczema on her legs and the mesh bothered her skin), but having mesh on the sides definitely keeps them cooler and it washes easily. The few cons I can think of are that it will tip over if you have bags on the back and get the child out, the seat does not recline (so you can't use it for newborns), and while not super expensiv, its a little pricey ( it has been our go-to stroller for both Elise and Chloe, so we figure we got our money's worth out of it!) My parents use it all the time too when they babysit.

So that's my product plug for the week. I'll post again soon after I figure out some other "themes" or if the kids do something noteworthy :-)

Last weekend's camping trip :-)

I realized that I forgot to post the pictures from our final camping trip of the season. We went to Springfield, IL. We spent Sat. out at New Salem. It was a little chilly but it was neat to see the town with all the chimneys smoking. It also made me thankful for central heating. I was cold all day! There weren't a ton of people there so the the costumed historians that were out and about in the town spent a lot of time talking to the girls and showing them things. That was really neat.

Sunday the weather was gorgeous. We decided that we just couldn't spend it inside and so we found a great place to go hiking. On Lake Springfield, they have an area known as the Lincoln Memorial Gardens. The trees were beautiful and the kids absolutely loved picking which trail to go on and finding the different colored leaves. They also had benches every so often engraved with Abraham Lincoln quotes which Claire liked to read to us. It was a really neat way to spend a fall day.

New Salem

Walking to the next set of cabins

The girls checking out the school house. They couldn't believe that kids had to sit there for school with no desks or anything to write on. The New Salem school was a "blab" school where the students just recited their lessons and nothing was written down.

Lincoln Memorial Gardens

We're not quite sure what's wrong with Em in the picture :-)
Chloe got a good nap in. We were glad since she didn't sleep well the night before!

Halloween 08

We had a great Halloween. Both sets of grandparents and all of the girl's cousins were able to be here to trick or treat with us. We had a total of 7 little girls! They had a blast and got a ton of candy. Our neighborhood goes all out for Halloween. It is truly a sight to behold. There are all sorts of neat decorations and kids everywhere. The adults have as good a time as the kids. Without further ado, here they are:

Chloe the ladybug

Emilie the witch and Liah the cat

Claire the cat and Taylor the bat

Cedar before she got her kitty cat costume on

The gang -from left, Claire (cat), Taylor (bat), Emilie (witch), Elise (pink poodle), Liah (cat), and Chloe (ladybug)