Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas! Both kids were super excited for Santa to come. The night before we gave them new pajamas and a book. Then we acted out the nativity.



Here's a picture of Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus.

The kids loved opening their presents and stockings.



Lily loved this new dress that has a matching doll dress.



Ollie loved his nerf dart tag game.



Claire was oblivious to the whole event but she loves the bouncy chair Santa gave her.



Lily had fun crawling with her new baby that crawls.

We spent the afternoon with some friends and had a wonderful dinner with them. We enjoyed spending time together as a family!

Grandma Stirland's and Aunt Lizzy's visit

Grandma Stirland and Aunt Lizzy came for a visit during the first part of December. They came to help when the baby was born... unfortunately, Claire wasn't born until after they had to go home. They did help get things ready and make some freezer meals which we greatly appreciate! We had lots of fun while they were here. We went and had lunch at school with Ollie one day. He had fun getting extra attention. We also went and saw where Spencer works and met his work friends. Lily loves to go visit Papa at work so she especially enjoyed that. We went to story time at the library. We had fun playing at home. We had a wonderful "Thanksgiving" meal. They babysat for us while we went on a date and also during a doctors appointment. We also went to Chuck E'Cheese for Ollie's birthday. He got to invite a friend. We all had a great time playing games and eating Pizza. Here's a few pictures of their wonderful visit.




Lily and Papa riding the jet ski



Ollie and Cole playing air hockey



Grandma, Aunt Lizzy, and Ollie



Dog pile on Aunt Lizzy, who was cold the whole time she was here... the day after she left it warmed back up

Thanks for the wonderful visit!

Happy Birthday Ollie!

Ollie had his sixth birthday a few weeks ago. He had a fun day. He was so excited about all of his presents and his Toy Story cake. I can't believe that he is six already! How time flies. He is such a joy to our family. He is such a caring person. He loves and adores his little sisters. He and Lily are best friends. They love to play together! Ollie has a nurturing personality. He loves to take Lily and teach her things and explain things to her. He loves to learn new things and is always asking questions. We sure love our Ollie!

She here!

Announcing the birth of Claire Elizabeth














We are all home and doing well. The Kids love their Claire Bear. We are happy to finally have her here.

New House

Here's some pictures of our new house! We are enjoying having more room. We also love having a yard for the kiddos! We ended up painting every room in the house except for one bathroom. As we picked the colors we went with color. We have lived in places with white walls for so long that we picked lots of color. :)



This is the front of the house.



The baby's room. We painted it yellow and then did one accent wall of big squares. It turned out awesome!



The playroom... two purple walls and two blue walls. The kids picked out the colors for this room, with some guidance from mom.



Ollie's and Lily's room. Bright green walls with blue stripes at the top. They really like it. :)



The living room. Not really sure how to describe the color... I guess it's a brown but with yellow???
We painted the kitchen a light green color (a mistake) and where it meets with the living room walls it reminds me of easter. We will probably repaint at least the kitchen but it will be a while. We are all painted out! We are mostly moved in and unpacked. There are still just a few little things to unpack but mostly we are done. We also haven't hung the pictures yet. That's because of me... as we were getting the walls ready to paint I fixed tons of holes! The last people who lived here hung everything with screws and gaint nails. There were holes everywhere! I spent so much time fixing them all that I want to really know where I want to hang the pictures and not move them a dozen times which would create lots of holes. :)

We had lots of help with moving, cleaning, and painting. Thanks for all our wonderful friends who generously gave of their time to help us! We REALLY appreciate it! We are enjoying our new house. :)

Happy Halloween

Our traditional carving a pumpkin.



It's always fascinating to see inside and feel all the goo.



We always let the kids each draw a pumpkin face and then we decide which parts of which drawings to use. This year our pumpkin had the eyes that Lily drew (with help) and the mouth and nose that Ollie drew.



Little miss Snow White



Scary Darth Vader (or Dark Vader as Lily called him)

Lily's Third Birthday

Lily had her third birthday about two weeks ago. I've been meaning to post but... life get busy. The following is a letter that Spencer sent out to the family about Lily's birthday morning.

Today we woke Lily up to an arousing number of happy birthday. Ollie, Shreann and I
sang and watched Lily smile her approval. After that we got her out of her crib and asked her if she wanted to open her presents. She said YA!! Then she smiled and proudly told me that she gave me a present, as I picked her up I smelt what she meant.

After I changed her she ran into the living room, which my 33 week pregnant wife
decorated with balloons, streamers, and a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign. Again our efforts were rewarded with a huge smile.

She loved all of the presents. Ollie had Lily open his first. I so proud of him he spent his own money and really thought about what Lily would like. He bought her this foam play doh thing. What ever it was she really liked it. She then opened a present from Shree and I, a new hat and gloves. Next she opened a scrap book that Grandma and Grandpa Beck sent and was tickled that it was a book all about Lily.

She continued on and opened a gift from Grandma Stirland. As she took off the rapping paper she said "A baby! How did they get the baby in to the box?" She continued to open it and quickly asked me to get the baby out of that box!
While I was getting her new baby out of the box she opened another gift from her mom and dad, a Little People Nativity set. She is really in to Little People and we wanted her to have it before Christmas so she could play with it.
Last present she opened was a cowgirl dress up kit that she got from Aunt Lara, Uncle Rich and Madi. She put on the hat and worked on opening the book.
She is sure loved.
Thanks everyone!
Love,
Spencer Wm.

Here's a few pictures of the cake that evening. Lily loved that it was a mickey mouse cake. For many days before her birthday she talked all about how mom was going to make her a cake. She didn't know it was going to have mickey and friends on it so she was extra pleased.





Later in the week Lily had a birthday party with her friends and their families. As she was telling me the people that she wanted to invite she would name the child her age and then name all the other children in the family. So we decided to have a picnic birthday party at the park for her. The weather didn't cooperate so at the last minute we changed the party to our house. The kids all had fun playing while the adults visited and then we had an indoor picnic. She had a lot of fun being surrounded by people who care about her.



The kids all had fun eating the cupcakes and cookies under the table. Lily was very specific about wanting chocolate cupcakes.



Lily enjoyed opening the presents with a little bit of help from everyone. :) She sure had a GREAT birthday! We love our little Lily!