Miss Mattawa

It's really so fun to have a sister that's still in high school. So many fun things to go watch her do. A couple months ago Ashley was part of the Miss Mattawa program in my home town. I kept thinking she was doing so amazingly well, but I was questioning whether that was just my family bias or if she was really killing it. She ended up winning judges interview

, talent, getting second in every other category (fitness, self expression, scholastic) and then winning Miss Mattawa. So I guess the judges thought she was doing awesome too! 😀

She played (on the ukulele) and sang the Bruno Mars song You Can Count on Me

She looked so beautiful up there and she was so poised. Really the other girls were so beautiful and talented also, so of course at the end it's always hard to think of their possible disappointment. (I did this years ago and know how that feels.)

Hugs from Darcy and Sammi afterward

Whitney, Darcy, Ashley and Sam

With mom and dad

Pinewood Derby

Darcy turned eight and started going to Activity Days this year. She is loving it! In March she had her first Pinewood Derby. She searched online for ideas and decided on the look she wanted for her car. Drew helped her execute it and she was really happy with how it turned out. As far as speed goes, she ended up somewhere in the middle of the pack. I normally think of her as our slightly less competitive child, but I could see her itching to win her races. We had talked before about how to be a good sport and she really did great with that, but she told us afterward that she wants a faster car next year. :) They handed out all kind of other awards and she and a friend tied for "prettiest car" which seemed to be right up there next to winning in her mind. 

 When it was getting down to the last minute Darcy was kindly letting us off the hook for getting her initials on there. I managed to carve out a little extra time to get in on there for her and surprise her when she got home from school. Those two letters made that girl pretty darn happy.

I was amazed when I walked into the gym. Such a fun and fancy pinewood derby! 

First Birthday Cake

 Of course I took a thousand pictures of Shelby eating her first birthday cake. This was the best I could do to narrow it down.

We had a bit of a tricky time coordinating with family for Shelby's party time on the day of her birthday and we ended up trying to squeeze it in right before her nap. That did not work out so well. I thought that once she got a taste of her cake she wouldn't care about being tired, but apparently her need for sleep was stronger than I anticipated.

I don't know why, but I assumed she was going to love the birthday song. As we sang she looked around at the 20ish people there singing to her with a straight face, and then when the song ended she burst into tears. Just a little too tired I think.

She took a couple little tastes of the frosting with lots of cousins (and maybe parents...) egging her on, but that was all she could muster.

She cried until she got her binkie.

 So we called it and put her down for her nap. By the time she woke up mostly everyone had gone off to a basketball game. I decided to let her try again with a significantly smaller audience and she was much happier about it the second time around.

 She got a little help from her buddy Carrie.

 Cake and boogers. The perfect one year old combination.

 Grandpa Neil got her this fun little toy that was an instant hit and she still loves it a month later.

My parents got her this dress that I love so much. I just love the frilly (and I'm sure Shelby does too.) :)

Shelby is 1!

Well it happened. Our fourth baby turned one. It is amazing how time seems to be speeding up all the time. I'm pretty sure it will feel like the blink of an eye when I'm saying our fourth baby has gone off to college. Yikes. Anyways, back to that baby.

Things we want to remember about Shelby at one:

- 22 lbs. 12 oz. (87th %) 29.9 in. (77th %) head circumference - 18.2 in. (85th %)

- She is starting to walk more and more. She loves to be outside and has worn through a few different pairs of pants, so that will be handy for her pants at least. :)

- She says hi, mama, and dada. She waves bye and claps (but only if she feels like it.) I had been trying to get her to clap for a long time but she was not interested. Then one day in the car the "Hand Clap" song came on. It says, "I can make your hands clap" and then everyone in the car would join in for the clapping part and after a couple times through that Shelby decided to join in. So that was how she finally learned to clap.

- She loves high fives. She will just stick her hand out to one of us randomly expecting us to give her a nice solid high five and it always makes her smile.

- She eats pretty much everything we offer her. Gogurt might be her favorite thing.

- She is really terrible at getting her diaper changed (just like all our kids have been). So wiggly and not wanting to be held down!

- She is not especially friendly to people she doesn't know. It takes some real work and quality time to win her over.

- She loves music. She loves to dance like crazy every time music comes on and when we're all singing she joins in in her own language.

- She goes to bed at night around 7:30 or 8 and wakes up around 7. She has started going back and forth between one nap and two.

11 Months!

 Shelby will be one in a few days so I wanted to get her 11 month pictures posted before all the birthday pictures. At 11 months she had her first four teeth, two top and two bottom. She started pushing around a little baby walker and loved it, and also continued with lots of dancing. The big thing that was happening at 11 months was that she had started experimenting with throwing some fits. When they're this little, it's hard for me not to laugh at the fits. It's just a little bit funny to see that part of their personality coming out. I think we all have a little of that in us. (At least at our house we do.) So when it was time to take pictures she was demonstrating her new skills and didn't want to cooperate at all. I couldn't get her to lay down for more than an instant so we didn't get any of those pictures.

Christmas 2017

We took so many pictures this Christmas and I was not good at keeping track of them all. So now it's February and I'm giving up on having them organized. These are all out of order, but I guess that's just how it's gotta be this time.

All dressed up right after church at my mom's on Christmas Eve

The girls

 I ended up with a few pictures of me with Shelby this Christmas and since it's rare that I'm in a picture with my kids I'm going to post them all. :)

 Shelby

 Santa got Darcy roller skates and all of us umbrellas. Maybe he didn't know she would use them together in the house.

 Ezra got a remote control boat like he requested, but he had to wrestle with a little disappointment that it didn't have all the crazy bells and whistles (like going 100 miles/hr., having three propellers, and a boat trailer to go with it). He was mostly happy with it though.

 Parks got Optimus Prime since his first request for Santa was a transformer. By the time Christmas actually came he had changed his mind many times, but he accepted Optimus Prime happily anyway.

All four kids in the Christmas mess

 There was a Nativity showcase at our church building that we went to a couple weeks before Christmas. I was really amazed and impressed with how many different Nativities were there. There were some really amazing ones, and a few fun activities for the kids while we looked around. Parks was the kid that was the most interested in looking at the nativities which was a surprise. The other kids were just trying to hurry and get the scavenger hunt done, but he wanted to stop and look at them all. This rubber duck nativity was a hit.

 Our neighbor/Darcy's friend was at our house when it was time to go and we asked her if she wanted to come along. She was excited to come and we were glad we got to take her.

The nativity puzzle

 Darcy and Shelby at my mom's in their Christmas jammies

 We partied hard at the Rexius party and Shelby was ready to crash by the time we were done.

 Shelby got a doll from Santa and was pretty happy (and maybe a little shy at first) to meet her.

 It took us until a couple weeks after Christmas to get down to the river to let Ezra try out his boat. He had been begging us and was so happy to finally use it.

 Carrie and Shelby had a little fun with the singing/dancing Santa and the Christmas lights at Grandma's.

 I decided to try a gingerbread house with my kids for the first time this year. They liked it alright I think, but I could be happy if we never do that again. It was really messy and really hard for me to just let them loose to do it how they wanted. Parks was eating all the candy before we could get it done.

 For the last few years we have gone to Beaver Bark to see Santa and the reindeer. A nice lady there offered to take a family picture for us.

 We fully expected Shelby to cry when we put her on Santa's lap (and I admit I'm a little bit sad she didn't) but she just sat there like it was no problem at all. We were pretty amazed at how cooperative all four kids were for this picture.

 A friend of mine posted on Facebook that it was the last year for this big light show out on someone's farm. We had never heard of it before and of course had never been, so I decided we better go check it out. It was a bit farther away than I had expected, but it did not disappoint. No pictures could do it justice. We drove through three times.

 Shelby does not go to people besides Drew and me very easily, so this was a victory when she hung out on Aunt Sharee's lap for a while.

 The big group at the Rexius party

 G.G. and Grandpa Bill get all the kids pajamas every year and this year all the girls were in red.

 I loved Shelby's sweet little outfit this year. Maybe it shouldn't be, but putting together our Christmas church outfits (especially my girls) is one of my favorite things about Christmas.

 Sweet fancy sleeper

 Darcy is always wanting long skirts or dresses or sweaters, so I was excited to find this dress for her this year. She loved it too.

 Of course Shelby had to spend some time in the curtains. And you can see out the window the magical snow that we got on Christmas Eve so we got to have a white Christmas. It hasn't snowed since.

Drew made amazing omelets for Christmas breakfast.