Thanksgiving and Birthdays

We are lucky enough this year to be able to go to Preston to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families. Family is so important to us and the Holidays just aren't the same without spending it with them! We had Thanksgiving dinner with Tyson's family and Thanksgiving dessert with mine. We will switch next year if we are able to go down. The next day Tyson and I went Black Friday shopping in Logan while Juneane so graciously offered to watch our kiddos. We didn't have a ton of shopping to do since we had a lot of our Christmas shopping done already but we finished up what we didn't have done. Later that day we were able to attend a special baptism for Katia (a third cousin that lives up in Mountain Home by us) because they had her baptism in Preston while they were down there for Thanksgiving like us. After the baptism Tyson was able to go play basketball with his brothers which is his favorite past time. On Saturday we went Christmas tree hunting with my family up Strawberry Canyon, this was the first year we were able to go with them even though this is probably the tenth year they've done it all together and it was so fun! Not too cold, the snow not too deep and the hot chocolate and donuts afterward was a special bonus. That evening we went to the Festival of Lights in Preston which included a Christmas parade and fireworks which the kids loved!! We drove back to Mountain Home Sunday but all in all it was a successful and fun Holiday (even without much sleep because of sick kids)!!

Aurora turned five the following week and since we had a birthday party planned with her friends for the following Saturday we didn't do too much to celebrate on her birthday. We did have pancakes for breakfast and spaghetti for dinner (her favorites), we also went to the base and had "cheese rollups" with daddy for lunch. She also got to open her present from us which was a Polaroid camera or a camera that prints out pictures as she calls it and she loved it. We went to the creche at the church that evening and enjoyed all the beautiful nativities as well. On Saturday we had her Strawberry Shortcake party which was a big success! Seven of her friends were able to come and they played lots of fun games including pin the strawberry on strawberry shortcake, a strawberry relay race and a strawberry shortcake bean bag toss. They also got to play with some special strawberry shortcake play-dough that I made! As if that wasn't fun enough she got lots of gifts and the kids ate lots of cake and candy as well! It has been a Amazing five years with Aurora who has taught us so much about life and being parents.

 Last but not least AceLynn turned 1 Saturday the 7th as well! She loved digging into her cookie monster cake and ripping the wrapping paper off of her new Ybike. We had gotten her ears pierced the day before in anticipation of her first birthday! And she has only ripped them out once since she got them pierced...silly girl! It has been a Wonderful year with this precious little girl who makes us smile everyday and who we couldn't imagine life without!

We are so Blessed!

BABY BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My 20 week ultrasound was yesterday and we found out that its 100% a................. BOY! He is growing right on schedule and not ginormous like my past pregnancies. All my girls were measuring way ahead of schedule and all but Harper were LGA (large for gestational age), but this one may be a "normal" sized baby like his big sister Harp. That would be just fine with me because she was an easy delivery and a very easy baby as well! I can't wait to meet him, he's gonna be a momma's boy if I have anything to do about it=)

I also wanted to mention that Aurora and Harper (after watching the Croods one too many times) have decided that they are animals. Harper is a Kitty that likes to meow all the time and Aurora is the tiger that goes around growling at everyone! Although this was cute at first, I miss them being fine with just being people! Hehehehe

AceLynn still isn't quite walking but she is getting oh so good at standing. I was pretty sure she almost took a step today at playgroup but then decided not to (it's probably better her first step happens when daddy is around anyway). That darn sixth tooth still hasn't broke through either. I guess this motherhood thing will teach me patience one way or another=)

Baby # 4

So we found out we were pregnant with baby number 4 in July and are now 18 weeks along. Being that this pregnancy was unplanned and AceLynn is still so young it was hard to get excited about at first but as time goes on we are getting more and more excited to meet this new little one! We had an ultrasound at St. Lukes at almost 14 weeks and they told us they were 90% sure it's a boy which is exactly what we would have hoped for. Pregnancy gets harder every time and this being my fifth pregnancy my body feels like this might be the last pregnancy it can handle so we would be glad to welcome a son!

Since finding out we are pregnant with our fourth we have had to change several things in our lives to simplify and prepare for having four and having them all so close together. For one thing we realized that our truck wouldn't seat us all so we had to sell that. Since we most likely wouldn't even be able to take a new baby camping next summer and hardly used the trailer this past summer we decided the best thing to do would be to sell it. (There's no reason to make payments on something that we aren't using and wouldn't even have a truck to pull either). Also we made the hard decision to re-home our recently acquired family dog. He had some quirks that were, quite frankly, making our lives harder and with this baby on the way we thought it might be better for him and us to find a family that would have more time to train him and spend with him. We are at this point trying to figure out how to situate our bedrooms to accommodate three girls and a boy and possibly still have room for guests (good thing we have a while to figure it out since it has gone back and forth)! We feel like with some planning, we might actually be able to handle what God has planned for us with this fourth baby.

The girls are growing like weeds....

 Aurora- is going to be 5 in a couple months and she has gotten to the age where helping mommy maybe isn't so fun anymore. She loves to draw and do crafts and is quite an amazing little artist! One day she told her dad that she new how to say balloon in Spanish and when he asked what it was she said "water-balloon", it was so funny!

 Harper- is 3 1/2 and she loves to do whatever Aurora is doing. I will hear her reading books to herself and making up the words as she goes along or she will make up little stories about her barbies. It is so fun to watch her when she doesn't know I'm there! One day when we were walking around looking at Halloween decorations she said the funniest thing "is that skeleton holding a Skel-phone." We all died laughing!

AceLynn- is crawling pretty fast now and standing without holding onto anything (I predict she will be walking within a month). She is also working on her sixth tooth! She hates baby food now and wants to eat whatever everyone else is eating which can prove difficult since she doesn't have the molars to chew certain things but then again I am glad she isn't super picky! She won't say words on command but I swear she says words randomly. Like when I've given her a sippy-cup of juice she said as clear as day "juice" but since then I can't prompt her to say it again. I've also heard her say momma but only when she's crying and mad and at no other possible time!
 We love our girls!

TIME FLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought I was behind the last time I wrote but this time I actually haven't written in a year which is pretty pathetic. But I will try to catch ya'll up........

So we survived Tyson being gone for nearly 6 weeks to the NCO academy. Once he got home we had less than 6 weeks until AceLynn Andersen was born into our family at 8lbs15oz. My hardest delivery yet but we both survived to tell about it=)

Around that time Aurora turned 4 and instead of having a giant birthday party we just had a little party with her playgroup friends and took the girls to build-a-bear and a cupcakery in Boise instead (which Aurora and Harper both loved)!

Then after baby Ace came along we decided to have a small family Christmas and stayed here in Mountain Home. Both of our families had come to visit after she was born so we celebrated Holiday festivities with them while they were here. It was a really enjoyable Christmas and I am glad we chose to stay!

Tyson tested for Master this year as well but since they upped the needed score by 30 points he didn't make it, which we were both pretty bummed about (I mean an extra $500 a month would be awesome).

 Tyson and I both turned 29 earlier this year, which I am fine with but Tyson insists we are getting old=)

We blessed AceLynn in March and almost all of our family came up to support us! I just love them all!

Tyson and I both got new callings in the church which I think we are really enjoying. Tyson is ward clerk and I am 2nd counselor in the Young Womens presidency (over the Beehives)

In June Harper turned 3 and we did go all out on a birthday party for her this year which she absolutely loved (and everyone else had fun too).

We bought a camp trailer this summer so we could spend time camping as a family and have enjoyed a few camping trips so far. We are most excited to go to Yellowstone next week with my side of the family as our major vacation this year though!

AceLynn started crawling on July 14th and has gotten in her two bottom teeth in the last couple weeks.
Aurora also learned how to ride her bike without training wheels the same week. I absolutely cannot believe how time FLIES!