So many fun & exciting things...

I am so proud to say that I am finally an AUNT on my side of the family. My sister Tiffanie & her husband Chad were blessed with a baby girl on Wednesday, March 4th. I was dying to see her so we drove up north on Friday to see the new family. They named her Taylie. She was 6 lbs. 10 oz. and 19 1/4 inches long. She is just darling. I am so excited to be a new aunt.

Taylie Childress

I am so excited to hold her for the first time, but she wants her mom & she wants food!

Jacey was sleeping or she would have been included on the family photo.

Jacey finally met Taylie after nap time. Jacey just looked at her... and as you can see, they are going to be great cousins.

Well, that was not all. My brother Garrett proposed to his girlfriend Courtney on Saturday. They are now engaged! It was fun being in on all the action. We are so excited to have her in the family. Congratulations!!!

Kylie and Nate pose for a picture right before they get their turn to ride the go carts.

Tyler was so funny to watch. He was super excited to drive his very own go cart. He could hardly stand to wait in line, but when he took off he was so serious. We couldn't get him to smile..until it was over. I think that will come in handy when he is older...at least I hope so.

Alexa and I had fun zipping around the track. It was very cold outside, so we were a little excited when it was over to go back inside the building.

This picture I took of Kylie I thought was adorable. She reminds me of a movie star. She is very photogenic. Kylie you are one in a million!

Here is what has been happening to our family in the past couple of months!

So, I have had a few things to share. But I just haven't made the time to blog about them. So finally today I am changing that. So since it is March and my blog background this moment is still Christmas...I have to do something. So, I just went and attached some pictures, they are not in any particular order, but at least I can show them. Enjoy!!

Kylie insisted that Jacey be placed in HER baby stroller. Kylie loved pushing her around and Jacey thought it was quite amusing too.

Jacey did the army crawl as well as get on her "haunches" and lunge forward to get to the decorations. She finally accomplished her goal in just enough time for Mom to take a picture and then remove her from the decorations.

This is Jacey up on her "haunches". We think it is so cute when babies finally feel like they are so big and can move somewhere on their own. However, we hate it too. She finds everything and puts everything in her mouth. We have to do a nightly vacuuming of the house to help Jacey not eat or choke on anything. Not fun!

This is Jacey being attacked to Tyler's stuffed dalmatian dog and his roboreptile. Brothers have their own way of playing with their baby sisters.

So, Alexa came to us out of the blue and told us she wanted to take her training wheels off and have a big kid bike like Tyler. She was amazing. Dad helped stay by her , but she didn't even need it. She just took off and didn't look back. She was so excited to show Tyler after school. He was shocked! For the first two days she didn't fall once...then she fell. But she got back up and rode off. Great job Alexa!!

Here is a picture of Donna's Birthday on March 3rd. We surprised her by decorating the house the night before. We baked a cake and had her open cards and presents. I think she had fun.

Jacey tried rice cereal for the first time in this picture. This was in January of 2009. She loved it and got it all over. As you can see from the picture. You are growing up too fast Jacey my Baby!!

....Jacey in Kylie's baby play pin....Kylie really thinks Jacey is her baby.

Kylie tried on my sister Shalie's boxing gloves and went to town. She had so much fun trying to box her brother. Tyler is such a good sport.

And this is ME!! By the end of most days, I am exhausted, tired, lost my mind, and completely helpless. Good thing I have such a great husband who takes great care of me. I love you BABE! Boy, that is SCARY.

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman...

It has been snowing so much that Tyler wanted to build a snowman. He recruited Grandpa Graf for help. Grandpa went and got real coal for the face. Ty thought that was really cool. Ty was really proud of his snowman.

Christmas Day!

Our kids let us sleep until 7:30 am, but I did get up with Jacey at 6:15 am for a feeding. We went upstairs to see what was waiting for us. Jacey woke up around 9 am about 5 minutes after we finished opening all of our Christmas gifts. She opened one present and then wanted to eat again. She left the rest of her presents for later. We enjoyed a nice breakfast, and then frantically packed to drive and stay the night at Santa Clara with my parents. We were expecting a huge snowstorm. It turns out that the storm wasn't bad a all. We are just glad we got to spend time with all of our family. It was so fun to have Grandpa & Grandma Graf with us celebrating Christmas. It was the first time they got to be with us for Christmas morning. Merry Christmas!

Traditions

In my family, we have always decorated homemade sugar cookies every year. I have so far been able to keep up the tradition. However, this year it literally got down to Chirstmas Eve. It was five pm when I finally got around to making the frosting to decorate the cookies I had baked early in the morning. I had such a busy day (loading, deleting, and loading over 100 pics. for a digital frame..one by one), Chirstmas stuff for kids, laundry, nap time, lets just state the fact that is was almost 6 pm before I got a shower. Yes, in the picture I have not gotten ready for the day. I begged Nate not to take my picture, but he wanted proof that I was around for decorating the cookies. I beg to differ, there would be no cookies, if I was around. Pixie( one of Santa's elves) showed up around 7:30 pm, just after I read a Christmas story to all the kids. I never want to cut it that close again. I didn't go to bed until 1 am. I really need to rethink how I go about trying to pull off the best Christmas' ever!

Lights, Camara, Action...

Alexa has been taking a dance class for the last 4 months. She loves it. We were a little nervous about her actually dancing in the recital. When she is put on the spot, she always shys away. But, she did an amazing job. It was so fun to watch her perform. I had a permanent grin plastered on my face, I was such a proud Mom. She wasn't fazed by the crowd of people. Great job Alexa! We are so proud of you!!

Oh No!!!

This says it all:

Jacey has found her thumb! NOOOOO!! She also thinks it is funny. I am constantly pulling her thumb out of her mouth and cramming a pacifier in. I really think I don't have a chance at winning the battle, but I have to try. It is 100 times harder to break a thumb than a pacifier. Oh NO!!!!