The especially love when big brother Josh does the reading.
We often call the girls "squirrels" and Josh has been dubed the "Tree"
The squirrels are just nuts about their big brother.
Pulling around the big new driveway.
Zoey can't wait til she's big enough to use her brothers long board.Abby was our middle of the night alarm last night. I started fixing bottles while Ryan went in and got her. I handed Ryan a bottle for Abby and went to get Katrina.
Katrina was almost finished with her bottle when she let out a huge long melodiuos toot. Something that a man would gladly take ownership and pride in. Needless to say, Ryan was quite impressed with his daughter!
I took Kat back to her crib and got Zoey to feed. Ryan took back Abby and proceeds to sit next to me while I finish up Zoey. As I'm gazing down at her precious face, something doesn't seem right. Mind you, it's the middle of the night - the lights are low and we talk quietly so as to keep the girls still.
I'm trying to relay to Ryan my concern. It looks as if Zoey's face is broke out in a rash - there is something all over her face and I can't really tell if it's a rash or something else. Ryan turns on another light low and discover it's blood! Yikes, where the heck... how the heck... OMGosh! Ryan goes to the bathroom to get me a wipe for her face. As he's leaving the bathroom he laughs and says - Wow! you should've heard the toot Abby just let out! Sweet! As I wipe down Zoey's face, I can see it's not that bad. It looks to be from her nose. It makes sense, her nails need to be clipped and the girls recently discovered their noses. Zoey sucks a binky too - must have scratched either putting in a binky or playing with her nose. Nothing horrible - just a mess to clean up. It didn't seem to bother her, so we didn't worry.
I'm still feeding Z and cleaning up her face when Abby starts to fuss. Hmmm... what's up with that? Anyone that knows our girls knows that when they go down, they're out for the count. Other then Zoey's occasional craziness - Abby and Kat only make noise when there is a problem. Not I said "problem". So... Ryan goes to investigate. He runs out - it's pretty stinky in there - we may have a blowout! He heads to the bathroom with Abby. I'm on the couch still with Zoey feeding. Then I hear a call - honey - it's really bad -I'm gonna need help.
I finish up with Zoey and settle her back down and go to rescue Ryan. Wow! Let's just say the mud flaps on the really expensive overnight guaranteed not to leak diapers- blew out in a big way! The kind of blowout you see going down the highway and there are pieces everywhere - yeah that kind. The kind that you didn't see coming then all of a sudden a big cloud, you smell it and you say OMGosh! I hope I don't get hit with the pieces - just like that - only 10x worse! Did I mention we're now on whole milk? Something we thought would be easier... ha ha ha!
Four hands seemed like a shortage when trying to keep one little monkey from initiating a poop throwing contest! She just laid there, calm as could be smiling.... waiting for our guard to be down to get a hand in the mix. We were onto her game and worked like lightening to clear a path for the clean diaper, all the while wishing we had a gas mask to breathe through!
So here we are... in the middle of the night with a bloody face and more poop then we know what to do with - smiling, laughing and thrilled with the thought that God chose us to be the ambassadors of poop to three precious angels. Sure we're tired and would have liked to sleep in past the next call at 6:30 this morning - but hey - this is just a small blip in the big scope of things and we wouldn't change it for anything!
If we're not careful we'll blink and they'll be walking - O yeah- they are and the first year is already passed! I'm thinking after our adventure we're going to go back to the 50% formula 50% milk for awhile. So the next time you think your day is going poopy - think of us and all the poop we get to handle - maybe your day won't seem so bad afterall : )
(The last photo is of Kat - who slept through the whole adventure. We didn't actually bathe anyone last night - these photos were from last week and seemed appropriate for the story line)
Even harder with 6 of us! This is the only one where the adults looked good -
...the kids... that's another story - but hey - we're thrilled we were able to all get together to have a family photo done!
Katrina has 6 teeth and started walking just after her first birthday! 
It's a lot of work cheering - they look exhausted after a morning at church and snacking!
They're so excited to know that they'll be having a new playmate - a boy!
So did two of Kelli's cousins!
Abby was getting anxious to help Kelli start opening gifts...
Zoey helped Kelli out too with some of the paper.
Lots of heads turned as we cruised through the park - someone was nice enough to shoot some photos of all of us together.
The girls ventured out into the playground sand for the first time - not exactly the cleanest sand in the world : ) Zoey quickly clammered up and called for the twins to come.
They all played so nice together! They were soo cute!
Off to the tree house - This photo may turn out to be a classic. While we were there they fenced us in to measure for the new playground... it sounded like this treehouse is not going to make the new layout ... it was fun while it lasted. Thanks Jenn and Idioa for including us - look forward to future play dates.