Ward Christmas Party

We had a great time at our ward Christmas party last week. They had a photo shoot area so that you could get a nice picture with your family....this is what we got. Can you find Hannah? Oh, that's right, SHE was the uncooperative one this time. If nothing else, it is great blackmail for later in life, right?

Big girl Camille

This past week Miss Camille has been working on a new trick...she is learning how to sit up on her own! She is still practicing, but on Wednesday (Dec. 8) she sat up for a few minutes all by herself! She is getting so big and strong! Here is her new skill in action:

And Nate took this picture of Camille because she has this crazy patch of hair on the top of her head that likes to stick way up! She is such a happy, smiley little girl!

Breakfast with Santa

Last Saturday was "Breakfast with Santa" at church. The girls had a great time, but when it came time to see Santa they were a little worried! So here are the closest things we have to pictures with Santa. We didn't really get a "good" one, but I think I just need to accept the fact that most of the pictures of the girls will include SOMEBODY not cooperating!

After we were finished Hannah was all upset because she didn't get to tell Santa what she wanted (because she was being silly and pretending to be shy!) So Nate had to go and tell Santa that Hannah would love to have jewelry and a bike w/ no training wheels....we'll have to wait and see what Santa brings!

Big news!

Nate is officially an Accountant! Well technically not officially official, but he passed all 4 parts of the CPA exam and now it is just final paperwork stuff before he has an actual certificate in his hand. We are so proud of him for all of his hard work....and we are glad that silly test is behind us! We have had more daddy time lately and we are loving it!

Here are a few pictures from one of our adventures with daddy. Nate brought home some free $5 coupons to the arcade at a bowling alley in town, so we decided to check it out. We were there in the middle of the week in the early afternoon, so we had the place to ourselves! We had a blast...and it was FREE!

My cute girls

Lately Hannah and Allison are either playing great together or they are attacking each other. Here is one of the times that they decided to play nice! They like making "beds" around the house. This one happened to be on top of the washer and dryer. In order to make a bed, you must dress in pajamas, bring pillows, blankets, and your teddy. I keep hoping that one of these days they will both happen to fall asleep in one of their play beds.

And my baby! For a few weeks she was sucking her thumb, so I had to get a picture of it! She hasn't been doing it for the past few days, and that is OK with me. I know how to get rid of a pacifier when we need to be done with it, but a thumb it a bit more challenging!

Decorating our Tree

This past weekend we had fun decorating our house for Christmas. Daddy put up the lights outside and we all worked together on putting the ornaments on our Christmas tree. I love having the Christmas decorations up, listening to Christmas music, and enjoying the season to celebrate the birth of our Savior!

Another first

On November 23 Miss Camille tried her first bites of solid food. She is not quite 6 months, but she seemed like she really wanted to eat, so we decided to try it! She actually did a decent job eating her rice cereal. Mostly she was really excited about the spoon and chewing on it. We've only fed her cereal a few times since (because the whole baby food thing is not my favorite), but she still seems to think playing with a spoon is pretty fun!

I am Thankful For...

Hannah brought this home from school:

It says I am Thankful for...snuggling with my mom.

This is coming from a girl who rarely sits still long enough to even think about snuggling and who is definitely a Daddy's girl. It is hard for me not to think that she didn't just hear the kid next to her say this, but she seemed pretty sincere when she told me about it....I'm going to go with it! So I am thankful for my Hannah Bear and that she might actually think her mom is alright! :)

And I didn't get any pictures of the actual Thanksgiving festivities, but here are the turkey cupcakes that I made!

Arizona

My mom was super generous and bought me a plane ticket to AZ the weekend before Thanksgiving. She was driving to AZ with my brother for Thanksgiving and decided that all of the family in Arizona would love to see Miss Camille. We were able to see my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandmas on my mom's and dad's sides of the family. I did a terrible job of taking pictures, so I missed lots of the people we visited (including Uncle Greg!), but here is what I got! I will have to get some better ones from my mom!

Camille's first plane ride! It was super early, but she is GREAT on all of our flights.

Playing with Grandma

Meeting Aunt Kathy and Great Grandma Stahl

Playing with Great Grandma Bowen

We made it home! Daddy and the big girls has flowers waiting for us!

Thanks, Mom, for a great trip!

Halloween

Just a few quick pictures of the girls in their costumes! Allison and Camille were a cute pair of ladybugs...these might have been the best second hand store purchase ever as they keep getting used again and again! And Hannah was a 50s girl, but if you asked her she would have told you she was a poodle skirt! Hannah won the "best poodle skirt" award at our church trunk or treat and she thought that was pretty great. All of our pictures are from the trunk or treat because Camille slept through Trick or Treating...so she maybe never even put her costume on for the real day :)

Primary Program

October 23 was Hannah's very first chance to participate in the Primary Program at church. She did a great job and was so excited to sing! Her line was "All prophets testify of Jesus Christ" I was a little worried because the one time she was supposed to share a scripture in Primary she got in front of everybody and completely froze, even after lots of practice at home! She did a GREAT job in front of everybody this time. She spoke right into the microphone and spoke clearly. Way to go Hannah Bear! Right after her part the kids sang "I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ" which is her favorite! She was just beaming and super excited!

Here she is, all ready to go to church (minus the dress up shoes!)

And all the girlies!

4 months old!

Miss Camille is already 4 months old! It really is crazy how fast time goes by! Just for fun, I rounded up some similar pictures of the other girls at about 4 months old and compared their "stats" at 4 months. Who do you think she looks like?

Camille

24 inches, 13 lbs

Allison

26 inches, 15 lbs 14 oz.

Hannah

25.5 inches, 14 lbs

So, she seems to be the peanut of the bunch! Her personality reminds us a lot of Hannah....which could make things interesting! We sure do love having Camille in our family. She is such a good sleeper and she LOVES to smile! Her smile is contagious and her dimple is just adorable. She is a busy little girl. She started rolling over the week before her 4 month "birthday", a trick that the other girls didn't do until their 4th and 5th months. We love to hear her giggle and she thinks her big sisters are just hilarious! We love you Camille!

Birthdays

Nate recently celebrated a birthday....he's getting really close to being 30! Here is his gift....in a pink polka dot bag and all. That's what you get when you live in a house full of girls!

And the beautiful cake he got from my mom. YUM!

We also celebrated our niece Kiara's birthday with all of the family. Here are all of the kids!

Grace and Camille; Hannah showing off her hula-hoop skills (she is REALLY good!)

While we were at Tiff's house for the birthday get-together, Miss Camille rolled over, and then rolled over, and rolled over again. I think her grand total ended up being like 10 times....every time she was put on the ground! She had rolled once from her tummy to her back the week before, but it was by accident and she wasn't sure what she had done. This time she was rolling from her back to her tummy....and she certainly has it figured out. Seriously, this was the week before she turned 4 months old!

Pumpkin time!

Like we have done the past few years, we went to Deal's Orchard's Fall Festival. Surprisingly it was almost HOT that day (mid 80s!). Last year there was snow on the ground. So we enjoyed the warm fall weather to pick our pumpkins! Nate's family also went, but somehow I didn't end up with a group photo of everybody :(

Hay ride to pick out our pumpkins and posing with the ones we picked!

I want THAT one!

The hayride back with our perfect pumpkins.

We had to get a family picture in there!

More posing for pictures...

We painted the little pumpkins...we'll see if we get around to carving the big one before this weekend!