Valentine's Day

Last year for Valentine's day, I planned a small party for Makenzie and some of her friends from church. My friend Tamara and I made lunch for the kids and let them decorate cookies. Tamara and her family have since moved out of town, and with Valentine's day being on a Saturday this year, it made for a fun family day. Aaron and I spent the morning playing with the girls. We enjoyed decorating cookies with Makenzie and laughed several times as she licked more icing than she placed on the cookies and dumped large amounts of red and white heart sprinkles on top of the icing. Then we watched the girls open a gift from their grandparents and from us. Makenzie has been wanting another room for her dollhouse so her daddy made a special run to Toys R'Us since I was unsuccessful finding it at two other stores. We also had some time to play outside in the afternoon and Aaron took Makenzie for a stroll through our neighborhood bike trail. All in all, it was a great weekend spending family time together, especially since we don't get much daddy time these days with busy season in full force. Here are a few pictures from Saturday.

Ashlyn's 9 Month Milestones

Our baby girl turned 9 months on January 30th.  She has really started to develop a personality which is quite different from her sisters.  Ashlyn LOVES her big sister.  Her face just lights up when she sees Makenzie first thing in the morning and she almost always gives Makenzie a BIG kiss on her cheek when I take Ashlyn to her.  Some of the milestones Ashlyn has reached since she turned 9 months are:  waving bye-bye, signed "more" for the first time, pushing her walker, climbing stairs, and dancing.  I have yet to capture the dancing on video (soon to come), but Ashlyn loves to bop up and down to one particular song her daddy likes to play over and over (thanks Scott Keith for sharing the song ............).  Ashlyn also enjoys riding her "Music in Motion" rollercoaster and playing in the dogs' water bowls at the back door.  It has been fun watching all of the changes that have developed recently in our little girl.  This age is certainly much more enjoyable than seven months ago when I thought time could not go by fast enough.   We are extremely blessed to have our girls!