May Days

Tomorrow is Cara's last day of school for the year. She has loved going to school, and her teacher tells me she is so sweet and rarely misbehaves. She's always into mischief at home, but I love that she loves school so much! Nora still has a few weeks left, and then all 3 kids will be hanging out with me all summer. :)

Our house renovation went really well, and we are so happy with the new space! I have pictures, of course, of the house and of the kids!





The new living room




And the new playroom! The kids have been enjoying their room.

Fiona turned 2 just over a month ago, which is just insane to me. I can't believe our baby is 2! She had a wonderful birthday party with her friends:




The twins have been enjoying their very first sport this spring: soccer!


Cara's last week of gymnastics was this week, and soccer ends next week, so we signed the twins up for their very first ballet class at the local YMCA. It is a 6 week class during June, and they are very excited. They've been showing me all of their "ballet moves".

We are continuing to make changes to the house, and it's amazing how much more in love with this house I am now. It seems to fit us better, and I understand now why home designers say to only fill your home with things you really love. It's so true! That is my new quest when shopping and planning purchases for the house, and it is working out really well. Kirby recently built us a beautiful modern farmhouse table, so I will get a picture of that soon!

Spring Fever

Our spring fever this year is more of a flurry of activity, it seems! We started on a major house renovation - adding a playroom above our 2 story living room - and the kids are doing pretty well with it so far. We'll see how they feel after another 4 weeks of construction, ha! Here's the end of day 1:


We also went to a princess-themed birthday party this weekend, and Cinderella showed up! Nora was scared of her at first, but she eventually warmed to her. They are still talking about her today!

Jump Up and Get Down

I'm not too big on words when it comes to posts like these. This is just a photo dump of pictures of the girls on the trampoline. I love taking pictures of them catching a bunch of air :) Enjoy. -Kirby

Still Caught Up in Christmas

We're close to mid-January, and even though our Christmas decorations have been put away, the kids are still obsessed with Christmas. Nora in particular is a huge fan of Rudolph. That was all she wanted from Santa, and she asks me to read her Rudolph book every day. We checked one out of the library recently, too, and she's a huge fan of that one as well. Here's a video of Fiona checking out a Rudolph book. You can hear her say "ho ho ho" and "that's Rudolph."


Other than that, the older girls have been excited to be back in school this week. Getting back into routine is always helpful. We decided to let the girls sleep in the same room again since they have been asking to do so for a while, and tonight is the first night that they fell asleep with less than an hour of talking. We'll see if it gets better in the future! We have a really low lofted bed from Ikea, so Cara is sleeping on the top bunk and Nora is on the bottom. I'm glad they are such great friends!! 

Post-Christmas Clean-Up

I think we're drowning in new toys here! All of us were blessed with great gifts from family, and the kids have been having a blast playing with all of their new things. From Santa, Cara and Nora each received what they requested - a train track (C) and a reindeer toy (N). They were sad that they didn't get to see Santa and his reindeer, though. They were hoping he might stop in. ;) Santa brought Fiona several good books that all of the kids have been enjoying.

Cara and Nora have both been loving their new LeapPads from Mimi and Grandpa. Nora often calls hers an iPad, just like her iPad at school. Fiona isn't too jealous since she has so many other fun toys to play with. One of her favorite pastimes this week is stealing play money from Cara's new cash register. You can imagine how pleased this makes Cara!

We spent several days in Wichita Falls visiting family. The weather made us come home a little early, but the kids still had a lot of fun with their extended family. They are still asking to see them. I expected little terrors destroying Grandma's antiques and Christmas decorations, but they were surprisingly good. Cara and Nora also slept in their new sleeping bags for the first time and although the first night was a big sleepless fail, the next night was fine. Fiona isn't a huge fan of pack 'n plays, but I can't say I blame her! They don't look too comfy.

All in all, the kids have had a great couple of months between their birthdays in November, Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas festivities in December! They went to 4 different Christmas parties between each of the twins' schools and a couple of playgroups we are in.

Almost 4

It's hard to believe, just as every milestone is, but Cara and Nora turn 4 in less than a week! Yesterday they had a great birthday party at Gymboree. They both loved climbing and sliding, and Nora enjoyed the music and dancing their instructors provide. Cara got to chase a few favorite friends all over the place, and they both loved finally getting to eat one of the monster cupcakes they helped make. Kirby is still working on uploading pictures, so I will have to add those soon.

Last weekend I went to Houston to visit an old friend from high school, so Kirby got to spend lots of quality time with his 3 girls. Other than that, we've been busy with the usual things lately - school, therapy, gymnastics classes, church, and a little Christmas shopping, of course. I'm almost done shopping for everyone on our list, and I have most of the gifts wrapped already. December always seems to fly by far too fast, so hopefully shopping and wrapping ahead of time will help!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from our family to yours! The kids have enjoyed an extended Halloween season so far. Last Saturday, we went to a local church's Trunk or Treat. This is the church where Cara attends Mother's Day Out, so Cara got to see her teacher and a few classmates there. Her school also had a costume day on Tuesday, and my local playgroup had a Halloween party on Sunday afternoon that all of our family went to and enjoyed. That makes for lots of opportunities to wear their costumes and be photographed! The only problem now is all of this candy in the house that the kids keep begging to eat. And who am I kidding - I keep wanting to eat it, too!

The next few weeks should be very busy, too. Cara and Nora's birthday party is less than 3 weeks away, and they are already very excited and asking about it often. It's hard to believe they are almost 4! They are so grown up and opinionated already. They are very into cars, trains, dinosaurs, and Squinkies. Nora is a huge book lover, and Cara loves arts and crafts. They also love playing with their MegaBloks and Duplos, so maybe they're ready for a real Lego set or two. We'll see! :)

Now on to the part you all care about anyways - pictures!