Parade of Lights

They have a parade of lights here each Christmas. Grandma, Grandpa and daddy were at church still, but Kirstie joined us for the festivities. It was quite short, but fun and they had everyone's favorite - Tinkerbell - for one of the floats.

happy birthday / merry christmas

finally our turn to open some presents! :0)
a princess piano book!

a pink sweater - thanks for helping me try it on grandpa

a princess music book for me!

An Elmo piano book!

Don't tinkerbell shirts need to twirl?!

Thanks aunt Karen and uncle Kyle - I love it!

Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit this weekend. We celebrated grandma and gabie's birthdays a little late and Christmas a little early. We decided to get the whole thing over in one swoop to save that green-eyed monster from rearing it's ugly head again. We had a lot of excitment for all the new goodies.

Story Time

Story Time with grandma and grandpa is always fun!

Baking Bread

We used some of our leftovers to make some homemade goodies today - turkey noodle soup and bread. Gabie was my little helper - as you can see she's feeling a lot better. We enjoyed both goodies for supper with grandma and grandpa.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving today. Gabie woke up and said, "Mommy - my head feels better!" and sure enough she's been doing much better today. We have stay on the ball with the tylenol, but otherwise she was back to her old self. We had a relaxing day - this picture was from when Rachel took a nap we painted some magnets. We had a yummy turkey dinner with pumpkin pie for desert. We're all turning in early to hopefully catch up on some sleep!

A Long Day

pre-surgerystill sleeping long after we got home

Poor Gabie - today was a hard day for her. Unfortunately it was also a hard day for Elie and Rachel too ~ jealousy is rearing it's ugly head at our house....having a sister that had a birthday and surgery all in a couple of days makes it hard for those that are vying for attention too. The surgery went fine. The doctor said that her adnoids were quite large, so we are glad we did it all. She has been running a fever all day and is very shakey, sleepy and seems to be in pain, hopefully tomorrow will be better.

The Real Birthday

for our little chef - a baking set from nana and papa!

Gabie named her 'just like you' doll Jenna - added with Eliya's Paige they have a lot of fun playing dolls together.

Gabie was so funny - both cakes she WOULD NOT blow the candle(s) out. I have videos of both - her Sunday party Nicholas blew them out for her, and tonight we all had to help. She wants to say thank you to everyone for the cards, gifts and well wishes - she had a wonderful birthday!

This day brings back a lot of memories - there was a lot of fear 3 years ago about what it would mean to have a baby so early - but we were blessed with a healthy baby girl, who has as much spunk now as she did before she was born. She always keeps us guessing that's for sure. Say extra prayers tomorrow, Gabie, Mark and I will be leaving before 4am to get to Aberdeen for her surgery. I'm guessing that might slow her down a little - but with Gabie who knows!

Thank You!

nana reading bedtime stories

"Thank You!"

Gabie wanted to send a special thank you out to grandma and grandpa haase for the tinkerbell jammies for her birthday - they are very soft and snuggly! Thank you! :0)

Early B-day Party

Gabie and her Tinkerbell Birthday cake - it was a huge hit. All she said she wanted for her birthday was a cake and a puppy - I figure getting half isn't bad!
Gabie would only do it if I helped her.

Eliya taking a swing.

Mark got this shot - I was so impressed - right as the pinata broke!

grabbing up the loot!

This is Gabie's friend from Sunday School Taelor.

Monty and Lori, Ed and Carma got Gabie a remote control flying tinkerbell - wow that thing is fun!

This is our daycare Rachel (as opposed to our daughter Rachel :0)

These are the twins that were born the same day (same hospital) as Gabie, they just had a new baby sister join their family two weeks ago - we were so happy they were able to celebrate with us!

Kirstie may be Elie's best friend, but Gabie's pretty fond of her too! (we all are :0)

Jacalyn (our church secretary) and Gabie has a special bond - she got her a whole box full o tinkerbell stuff.

This is one of the girls' favorite babysitters - Bailey, who kindly agreed to come to a

3 year old b-day party.

Gabie's birthday isn't till Tuesday, but we had her "friend" party today. It was a lot of fun, and we had a house full! I'm starting to really see the girls' personalities come out - if you ask Eliya who she wants to come to a party she would say Kirstie and be done. Gabie on the other hand will name every person that she can think and even some people she doesn't know, but has heard of (like people we pray for, or Eliya's friends from school, etc.)

Clean Up Time

The girls decided to help me clean up for the big party tomorrow!

LWML Bizarre

I helped with the LWML annual bizarre today, when I came home this is what I found (yes, Mark was home with her :0) Gabie went with me and helped pour coffee - she was a huge hit with all the ladies.

SNOW!!!!

We got another few inches to add to the stuff that hasn't melted yet...did I mention that winter is here?!

Kids Say the Cutest Things

Rachel's newest thing is to tell everyone "wuv ew" for love you and blows kisses with it - as grandma haase got to hear on the phone last night :0)

At lunch today we asked Eliya to pray for us - she said, "Can I say a sick prayer instead of a food prayer?" I didn't really know what she meant but we said sure and she said, "Dear Jesus, please help aunt Alice who makes blueberry pancakes feel better. We love you Jesus, Amen."

The other day when we went outside after it had snowed the second time Gabie proclaimed "Look mommy! The snow grew last night!" Tonight I asked her if she would make me some popcorn. At first she was reluctant, but I told her it was my favorite and Mark agreed and she said, "(sigh) I know guys, it's better."

I need to do a better job of documenting all these precious things they say each day - and I'm glad to do it by sharing them with you.

Aberdeen

You can't really tell in this picture, but Rachie was so excited to go swimming she had the cutest little run all the way to the pool, she tries her best to keep up.
Come on in the water's fine.

Wheee!!!

Me too!!!

Wait for me!

I'm coming too!!!

everybody hang on mommy time.... here is the infamous frog...

hanging out on the big slide (it wasn't running at the time)

We went to Aberdeen yesterday and spent the night at the beloved 'frog-slide hotel' :0) We had appointments at the ENT bright and early this morning. Rachel checked out great, she was just doing her 6 month follow-up from getting her tubes, and unless we have a problem she doesn't have to go back for a year. Gabie's apt went pretty much how I suspected it would - she will be getting new tubes as well as her adnoids (sp?) out. There are two docs at this practice Rachel sees one and Gabie the other. Gabie's doc is moving though and so in order to get everything done we were given a choice of the 25th or 26th of November....well the 25th would be Gabie's 3rd birthday and the 26th is the day before Thanksgivng and a preschool day. I opted for the 26th and am trying to find a sub (or I'll just cancell). Although I'm not thrilled that she has to have surgery again, I am relieved that it will be taken care of - she had such success with her tubes the first time, so I'm hoping this provides some relief for her. She actually started crying when he was looking in her ear and said "NO-NO!!!" Apparently it hurts again. Poor kid! We are home and enjoying being in our warm house as we have snow and terrible wind outside again. Yuck - I guess winter came early to SD this year.