Christmas 2009

This is the Christmas card I made that never got sent out. (Walmart never printed them!)

Christmas party at Steph's house with my family. Aaron won 2nd place for the ugly sweater contest. My bro-in-law, Jimmy, won (I don't think it was really fair because Jimmy was wearing a women's sweater).

My parents joined us at our home for a Christmas Eve dinner and a nativity play directed by Carly. The girls also opened up some new nightgowns. When they came out of their bedroom after changing into their new nightgowns Carly said, "Okay...this is really embarassing, but....I really feel like a teenager!"

Aubree with her glow seahorse from Grandma and Grandpa.

Carly and Ellie got a new bunk bed for Christmas! They were so excited! It's a twin bed on top and a full bed on bottom.

New Year Eve's party at our home. We watched While You Were Sleeping. (My parents and Steph and Bryant left at about 11:30pm -ha ha! We celebrated with Chicago.)

The Professor and other cute pictures

Aubree's hair usually sweeps over to the right side, but the other day Aaron tried parting it down the middle. My first impression was... Professor. So now we call her the Little Professor.


This picture makes me think two things:
1) I wish I had a nicer camera
2) Even though Ellie is so small, compared to Aubree she looks like such a big lady!


Aubree Elf. Ellise Elf. Carly Elf.


Aubree and Carly
Did any of you hear about the parents who had their children taken away from them for a few months because they took some pictures of their girls in the bathtub? Crazy!


Carly doing a "teenager" pose. She says she can't wait to be a teenager so she can have a boyfriend - ummm.... I asked her why she wanted to have a boyfriend - because she wants to get married so she can have babies.

Happy Birthday Dear Sophie!

We love you and hope you have a great 4th Birthday!

Love,

Carly and Ellie

Well, it's been over a month since my last post. I feel like I should apologize or say what an awful blogger I am, but honestly, I feel more guilty when I'm posting frequently because it usually means I'm neglecting more important things (cleaning, cooking, running errands and most importantly husband and girls). I have a love/hate relationship with blogging. I love keeping in touch with people and seeing what others are up to and also keeping track of what we've been up to by posting on my blog. But I hate it because for me it takes up a lot of time - checking all my friends' blogs, commenting (which I haven't been doing a lot of lately) and updating mine (downloading pictures/videos and typing up a post) I've used up A LOT of valuable time! (By the way, I just got done making this post and it has taken me over 1 1/2 hours (and that doesn't include the time I spent checking other people's blogs)! Pathetic! Just thought I would insert that here to illustrate my point. I can name about 10 things that I could have gotten done in that time!) Plus, after I've gone a while without posting I get all stressed out about what I should post about - if I should catch up on everything or just start with where we're at. I've thought about just giving up the whole blogging thing (at least for awhile) so that I'm not stressing about it. (I know it's not really a big deal anyway, but I think it just boils down to the fact that I feel kind of overwhelmed with life right now! I mean, life is good, but just a little overwhelming.)

Anywho...

We went home for Thanksgiving (spent 1/2 week in Rexburg and the other half in I.F.). This is our family picture - I wish I could download a better quality (Aaron will have to help me with that maybe). All of my siblings and nieces and nephews were home - 15 adults (including Grandpa Johnson) and 17 kids (ages 17 to 7 months) It was busy and fun and loud!

Grandpa horse giving Carly and Ellie a ride. I Love my Dad!

Carly decorating the Christmas tree in their room.

Aubree! :) 10 months old.

Even though this isn't Ellie's "real" smile I still love it, because she smiles like this when she's trying to be sweet.

Franci's girls and our girls at the Treehouse Museum.

Aubree doing what she does best - just bein' cute (and putting random things in her mouth)!

Aaron and the big girls just got back from the library, so we are now going to start our Fun Family Friday Movie Night with "Ella Enchanted".

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Aaron and Camile: 80's Prom
Carly: Halloween Fairy
Ellie: Halloween Princess
Aubree: Sunflower (her cheeks are too chubby to fasten the velcro on her hat!)
This dress was one of my sister, Angela's favorite formals - thanks for letting me borrow it Ang! :) Unfortunately, I didn't have the right kind of product to keep the volume in my hair. I did get some helpful tips from my sisters on how to style it true-80's style... maybe next time. (I even made a corsage and boutoniere for Aaron and I)
This was my inspiration - too bad I don't have bangs and Aaron didn't have time to grow out a mullet! We really wanted to get a mullet wig for Aaron, but we thought of the idea too late. Isn't this picture totally RAD!

My scary dessert

We had a family Halloween party with my family on Friday. My parents and almost all of my siblings were there (we missed you Ryan and Ashley). We played games and had desserts and heard a story by a witch (Nanny Nette).

Aubree has perfected the poker face! She has this look on her face when she's unsure of someone (basically anyone other than our little family).

Carly and Ellie drew the faces, Mommy and Daddy cut them out.

(Carly's on the left, Ellie's on the right.)

8 1/2 months

Our little cheerleader

Some milestones:
Aubree sprouted her first two teeth a couple weeks ago.

In the last couple of weeks she has also started to get from point A to point B - not really crawling, but scooting, rolling, and rocking back and forth on hands and knees. She's getting close.

I wish I could say that she was sleeping through the night (both Carly and Ellie were at 6 weeks). She usually wakes up 3-6 times each night, usually because she's lost her pacifier (I have a love/hate relationship with those things!). I do think it's okay to let a baby cry it out, but it's hard when we live in an apartment that has 3 other neighbors sharing walls with our bedroom. (She still shares a room with us until we get a bunk bed for the big girls.) It's usually easy to get her back to sleep - just pop the binkie back in, but still, the interrupted sleep catches up on you.

Anyhow...on to a more pleasant topic...
This is our Breester's new way of talking - LOVE it!



You might think that with two older girls, all of these baby milestones wouldn't be that exciting, but they totally are. And maybe even more so, because you have the excitement of two older siblings on top of it! We just love to see Aubree learning new things and just love to have her in our home! She is so good at cheering everyone up (even getting Ellie to smile and laugh in the middle of her worst tantrums).

Pictures and captions

Carly wearing a friend's hat.
I overheard her saying: "Look Ellie, I'm so cute! I'm like a cowgirl - totally awesome!"

Aubree was burnt last Sunday by a hot cookie sheet. It looks awful, but it is only a 1st degree burn and the doctor said it should heal up just fine. Luckily she hasn't been bothered by it (I think I felt worse than she did.)

A visit with my friend, Jillian - (post to come)

Aaron's sister, Franci, also has three little girls. We were in Idaho for her baby's blessing. So, this is a picture of our six girls all lined up by age - Kaylie, Carly, Ellie, Annabelle, Aubree, and Suzanne.
Aaron and his little brother, Troy. They are a lot alike (and a lot different too).

Our Stake had a Relief Society 5K walk/run (I mostly walked).

Aubree eating some cheerios - she's about to gag. I'm not very good about giving her solids yet, so she's not that excited about it.

Just cute!

Aaron has been hunting for the past four days and I have been TOTALLY paranoid being here alone. (It doesn't help that I read some of the Elizabeth Smart case a few days before he left and that I have a very active imaginiation.) So, I spent Thursday night at Steph's, and Friday night at Angela's. Aaron is on his way home right now so I can finally sleep again.