Colby's Baby Blessing

Colby was originally scheduled to be blessed on Jan. 8, but Andy got scheduled to work that Sunday, so we had to postpone to Jan. 15. That morning Andy had to go to ward council, so I had to get the kids ready myself. Kylee was SUPER helpful. It was great! Before church I took them out on the grass beside our house to take a couple of pictures.

After church we knocked on our neighbor's door and asked him if he would be willing to snap a few pictures of our whole family. They're not as great as they could have been if we weren't all hungry and rumpled after church (or if I had a better camera or if we used an actual photographer...), but the last picture we have of our whole family was when Ally was a baby, so this one was a great change from that! I promptly blew it up to 16x20 and slapped it up on our wall.

Skyler was really excited that Colby's bow tie was made from the same material as his tie (I actually did NOT do this on purpose - I got Skyler's tie months ago, and when I went to order Colby a bow tie this was the only one they had in his size...so it was total coincidence and it wasn't until after it arrived that I realized they matched!), so I had to take a picture of the brothers together being "matchy matchy" as Skyler and Ally put it.

Here's Colby with daddy out in front of our house.

I wanted to get some photos of JUST Colby, but he was super mad and they all turned out looking a little something like this:

Oh well. The others with our family and the kids turned out way better than I hoped, so I'll take what I can get!

Kylee Turns 9

I can't believe that Kylee is already 9. She is so smart, and is such a good helped with the other kids. Granted, she also riles them up and makes them mad a lot, too, but isn't that what kids do best?!

Here she is in the morning before school with her first present (it was a watch).

Ally and Skyler wanted to be in a picture with her as well, so she got Colby and had me take a picture with all four of them.

While she was at school I made her these pajama pants so that she'd have one more present to open.

We rotate having birthday parties with friends or just family every other year. This year was family year, so on her actual birthday she chose to have cupcakes instead of cake and we just invited over another family and had cupcakes and ice cream.

We agreed a long time ago that Kylee could get her ears pierced when she was 9. I remember making that deal with her when she was like 4, thinking I had a LOT of time. Suddenly she's 9. It's crazy. Where does the time go? Anyway, so that was her main gift for her birthday, and on the Saturday after her birthday I took her to the mall and got it done. Doesn't she look so grown up?! That night we went to Texas Roadhouse with our family for her "party."

Colby is 2 Months Old!

Ally always wants to have a turn holding Colby, so I figured out that the best way for her to do it is to just put the nursing pillow on her lap and put him on top of it. That way she thinks she is "holding" him, but the chances of him being injured are greatly reduced!

These photos were taken after church when Colby turned 8 weeks old. He was being really smiley and I was trying to get a picture of it, but I kept missing it!

These ones were taken on his 2 month birthday. He got his shots that morning and then went to his Dr. appointment that afternoon. He weighed in at 15 lbs. 1 oz., which is by far the biggest of any of our kids at 2 months! He's such a sweet baby, and we don't mind at all that he is humongous!

Beach

The day after Christmas we were super lucky and Andy had the day off. He got scheduled for a "library day" instead of regular clinicals, which means he was supposed to sit in the school library all day and study for Boards instead of working at the hospital. However, the school was closed the week between Christmas and New Year's, so he got to just take the day off.

This was Colby's first trip to the beach, and before he left he wasn't sure he was excited to go.

Ally pretty much spends all her time digging in the sand and going back and forth to the edge of the ocean to scoop up water to sprinkle on the sand she has piled up. She can do this for HOURS.

I love this picture of Skyler because it looks like he has a tiny-boy 6-pack and he's posing to show it off.

Kylee always says she is going to build something, but she has the attention span of a gnat, and if it's not looking as great as she wants it to after 5 minutes, she gives up. She loves to collect cool shells instead.

Colby lounged on a pile of towels under the umbrella the whole time. We were there for 3-4 hours, and he and I just basked in the shade the whole time!

Since Kylee and I built our Christmas "sand"man last year, Andy and Skyler were assigned that task this year. It turned out really good!

 At one point this guy came strolling down the beach right towards us. Unfortunately he ended up getting tangled up in the straps of someone's beach bag right by us, so someone had to untangle him and then they deposited him back into the reeds/bushes off of the beach.

Ally was convinced that he liked her because he was headed straight for us before he got tangled up!

Christmas 2016

Our tradition for Christmas Eve is that the kids always get new jammies and they open them up right before it is time to go to bed.

Here they are with their new jammies on after they opened them.

They wanted a picture with Colby in his jammies also (he didn't get new ones because he already has a lot and he doesn't know the difference).

Here they are on Christmas morning. Ally was so excited she mostly just ran around and looked at stuff while the other kids started opening their gifts. We had to tell her to sit down and open!

Here they are opening their Santa gifts. Ally got a 10-pack of tiny barbies; Skyler got this year's Hess truck; and Kylee got a spy kit that she's been wanting for a couple of months.

After we opened all the presents we still had a little time before we needed to get ready for church. Ally dragged her huge teddy bear out to the patio to swing with her.

Skyler went upstairs and brought down all his other Hess trucks (and plane) so he could line them all up.

After church we took a picture of ourselves out on the patio just so we'd have a photo of our family from Christmas Day. That night we went and ate dinner at our friends' house. Overall we had a very small and quiet Christmas, and it was nice.

Kylee's First 5k

This Fall Kylee participated in a program called "Girls on the Run". It's basically an after-school track program that is offered at all the Elementary Schools in our district. They spent 1.5 hours every T and Th getting in shape to run a 5k. On December 17th they had the official race (which is also open to members of the community to sign up and run in).

 The picture below is the group from Kylee's school. Each girl is required to have a "running buddy" for the race. I signed Andy up to be Kylee's running buddy for the Fall. (I'm slated to be her running buddy for the Spring...and my one and only goal is to at least TIE the time she got with dad...)

Ally and Skyler weren't super pleased about having to wake up early to go watch Andy and Kylee run.

When they did the practice 5k in November Kylee said she got like 35 minutes. I was thinking Andy would push her to be faster, but I was thinking maybe like 32 minutes. I was sitting with the little kids near the end, and had just looked at my clock to see they'd been out just about 28 minutes when suddenly...there they were!

Their official time was 28:40, and Kylee was the first one done from her school's team. She actually sprinted to the finish.

Here are the girls with their coach at the end of the race:

And here's the awesome medal they got.

Kylee loves to go running with me (even though I'm way slower than her!), so it's helping me get in shape now that Colby is 2 months old! Let's hope I can manage the 5k at a reasonable pace. We have until the end of April to get there...