Play Date and Girl Stuff :)

Our neighbor Stacie had a couple of us over for a day to pamper Sarah before baby Yerke arrives! We got to participate in some of the pampering as well. :) It was so much fun to get all of the kids together and be able to talk to my awesome neighbors at the same time. Lena was tired so wasn't the best playmate.. mostly just did her own thing...but I think she was still glad to get out of the house and do something new.

Here are some pictures of the fun. :)

Ring-around-the-Rosie :) Lena caught on to the whole "falling down" thing on about the third try. :) THEN she took it to the extreme and laid on her tummy and started rolling around. :) It was cute.

Yay for getting all four of the kiddos in the picture. :) Now we just need to get one with the babies too! Oh and I am in love with Sunnies "smile" as of late. :)

Lena, Christopher, Sunnie and Jackson

Chris was totally into the whole holding-hands thing with the girls. :) It was adorable... after Ring-Around-The-Rosie broke up he kept holding Lena's hand for an additional couple of minutes. :)

Sunnie and Chris :)

Sporting our awesome face masks :) Sarah looks extra excited to have a picture taken of her with a mask :)

More mask pictures... Sarah still looks thrilled. ;) Oh and I pretty much love the flappage on Stacie's mask :)

Sarah getting her feet well taken care of by Stacie... she was sure to hit ALL of the pressure points that are supposed to induce labor. :)

First Pig Tails

Lena's hair is officially long enough for pig tails and I must say that they make her look so grown up. I couldn't believe how much like a big girl she looked with these. It's crazy to think that she is growing up so fast. Just two short months ago, 18-month-old pants were WAY long on her and now they aren't too far away from being "floods".

Chris Helping Lena

So our neighbors invited us over the other night for ice cream and cookies (what an awesome combination! Why didn't I think of that before?) and a game. It was so fun to be able to get out of the house, especially since Lena has been stir crazy with it being cold outside. I really want to start inviting people over more... especially in the winter when it seems like we run out of things to do with little ones so fast. I think I always just get self-conscious about my house... it isn't decorated perfectly how I want it yet, to tell you the truth, I don't know how I want it...but anyway that shouldn't be any reason to not invite people over. :)

So that evening Chris and Lena were running up and down the hallway chasing each other and after a while it smelled like someone (Chris or Lena) may have pooped so Craig asked Chris if he pooped and he said "No, Lena's poop" ha ha, and it was, so after chasing her down to get her diaper changed (Sarah was so nice to let me have one of Chris' diapers since of course we forgot to bring some) she popped up and ran away as soon as the diaper was on... onesie still hanging open and skirt still off... Anyway... the picture will say it all, but Chris found Lena's skirt and had her sit down so that he could put in on her... it was so funny to watch him try to get it on her squirming legs, not to mention it being upside down. :) It pretty much made us all laugh. AND, you won't believe it but I just happened to have my camera in my pocket!!! YAY!!! Talk about perfect timing that usually doesn't happen. :)

Asleep with Big Teddy

So we've been through phases and phases of different ways to put Lena to sleep... the first thing we found that really worked was bouncing with her on an exercise ball (when she was newborn), then that turned into jogging around with her (mostly when we were somewhere the exercise ball wasn't available), then walking around with her, and last but not least, rocking with her...although, at one point you could just lay her down and she would fall asleep... don't know why it couldn't be THAT phase that lasted... anyway, moral of the story is, I fell for the trick of letting her make me rock her, walk her or bounce her to sleep. So the other day I got her ready to start walking around the house to get her down for her nap and she kept trying to squirm out... "what do you want?" I asked her, "Bayo, bayo" (meaning "bear, bear")... so I laid her down by her bear and magic happen... she fell asleep BY HERSELF... I was amazed so had to get a picture. :)

With Big Teddy

So I've decided that I'm not creative at all when it comes to naming Lena's things... except for Ellie her little teddy bear I just name everything what it is... like "Baby" for her baby or "Kitty" for her kitty and "Big Teddy" for her big teddy bear... my family likes to give me a hard time about this. :P Anyway, I just thought these pictures were cute of her by her Big Teddy... might be fun to do more pictures by him in the future to see how she is growing in comparison.

There's that cute little tongue!

I caught her leaning against the wall in the corner drinking from her sippy... thought it was cute. :)

Where's Lena?

So Lena likes to play this game where she just DISAPPEARS from thin air. None of us know where she is... we call and call for her saying "Where's Lena?" and suddenly she REAPPEARS from thin air!!!... more specifically from the area closer to the curtains in our dining room. :) "THERE'S LENA" we yell in surprise. :) Fun times.

If you were to...

...scrunch up your face and squint your eyes and show all of your teeth in a BIG CHEESY smile to Lena... she would do it back: