Our family zoo... Free admission

Our Lyvia is four months old today. She has grown quite a bit since she was born. She is 13 pounds and about 25 1/2 inches long. She is getting so fun. She smiles so much and is very happy. She is still sleeping 9-10 hours at night and takes 3 naps during the day. She has her routine down it only varies a half hour, meaning morning nap is always within thirty minutes of 10:30. Also we could set our alarm clocks by her (6 am most mornings), and bedtime at 8:30. She is such a good sleeper and can put herself to sleep in about 10 minutes or less if she has her elephant and mobile. She is grabbing at everything and promptly puts it in her mouth, still no teeth but they are there. She drools on everything and most days wears a bib so she isn't soaking wet. My favorite thing is that her personality is really starting to come through. She LOVES to pee on me and laugh about it, seriously she does it all the time! She also loves her sisters so much and gets so excited to see them. She is quite the gabber and is almost saying mama, I have heard an occasional mom though.She likes to spin in circles but won't roll over yet, she hates tummy time. I have seen her roll unintentionally a few times. She loves her rattles and any toy that makes noise. She is still a homebody and prefers to just stay at home with her routine, she is happiest then. She really wants to play with her sisters and you can see it, she just looks at them and gets so excited. She loves to sit up. I have to get her walker cleaned up so we can use it, I think she will love it. She also loves to stand and we have started "walking" her from person to person, she gets so excited. We really love having her around. She recognizes her name and all or our voices. She still doesn't care for the binky and will take her fingers any day!

Here are some cute pics of her.

This one is of her "talking" to us.

So about two weeks ago I did something most people would not agree with. We gave her rice cereal. I will admit we started early, earlier than I ever have before. However, her begging for food was so pathetic and it only got worse after Kami gave her a taste. Anyway, I figured we would try it and see how she did. Well she LOVES it, can't get enough. And she doesn't spit hardly any out like the other three did. I think we will stick with this for awhile before we introduce anything else, she is still young.

She opens up really wide for it.

And smiles the whole time.

She does get upset when I am done feeding her. I think she would live on the stuff if I let her. I hope this means she will be an awesome eater! And she loves to drink out of a sippy cup and water bottles. She is growing up too fast.

Okay so back in August the Washington group came down for over a week. Wow, what a week it was! We had fun with dinners, playing, and activities. However, most of that got hampered by the stomach flu. Yep we shared the stomach flu with everyone. It hasn't quite been long enough to be considered funny yet, not quite. The rest of the time was fun though. We ate good food, had fun swimming, playing volleyball, games at the barn, and had an interesting boating trip. The boat did not want to cooperate, turns out is was some emissions thing that was causing all sorts of trouble. It was an easy fix, if we had only known. Mar tried to break her leg, but the kids had fun swimming in the reservoir.

Mar will not be happy I posted this pic. Thankfully, just a huge really nasty bruise. I really thought she had at least cracked it.

 The kids swimming.

 

 One of my favorite things about getting the family together is listening to all the stories. Here is the siblings minus Diane, and Bonnie is in for Ron. Aunt Kay wasn't able to make it due to the fact that school was getting ready to start and she had all sorts of meetings with the faculty.

 

 Lyvi LOVED Aunt Bonnie. She seriously sat and gabbed for hours with her, multiple times. It is too bad we don't live closer I think we could have found a babysitter!

Unfortunately, that is all the pics I took. We were hit and miss and super busy with the bug. We passed it around our family in a matter of days and then all the Washington group (except a select few) got it right as they were headed home. The last day everyone was here I think half of the people at the barn (there were more than 30) had it, the rest of us went swimming. The girls had so much fun with their cousins. They have like 6 other girls their age. Kaite and Miriam were inseparable. Ash hit it off with Elizabeth and Mia, her and Mia still text. We sure are going to miss them and hope we can see them soon. We had a ton of fun!

After they left George flew in for a week and James drove down. We hit the pool and the cabin. It has been so long I can't remember everything that was done, but we had fun.

James showed up solo, too bad Amanda couldn't come. And he showed up with a rat on his face?!? What is that about James? He shaved it before he left.

This was taken with my cell and came out way blurry.

George with the girls.

Cooking smores' over the grill since there was a burn ban in effect.

Lyvi chillin.

Mar and Lyvi hiding from the mosquitoes.

The swing set was taken down with all the snow last year(?). So since everyone was there they decided to put it back up. This was a lot scarier than it sounds!

Ky and James carried the huge log up the ladder. All us girls stayed under the safety of the roof in case it did come down.

  James' side was really unstable.

Ky's side was last. I am just glad nobody got hurt, let's not do that again!

George came over and played some wii before he left.

Then Mahon and Cindy came up over Labor day weekend. They shared their happy news with us, which Ash picked up on the fastest of everyone. I am more than happy to unload all my baby stuff!! We spent a fun night hanging out with them and playing ticket to ride.

Then we had a BBQ at the in-laws and sang to Ash. The boys killed hornets, there are some funny pics of this! Me and Chantelle hit the mall and did some girly shopping for Ash's b-day.

Family photo; Lyvi was sleeping.

 

 That was pretty much August and the first part of September. I think we literally had a day or two between groups, it was kind of a crazy blur. We really had fun and it was nice to spend so much time with family. Hopefully, we don't have to wait too long to see everyone again, the holidays are coming. I will say it was a relief to get back into a routine when things settled down. 

I was originally going to make this 3 posts, but I don't think I ever would have gotten to that. I am already at least 2 more behind as of now.

A couple of weeks ago we went to the state fair. I love the fair. I loved going every year with my friends, then taking Ky, and now the girls. I think I passed on that gene to Ash. We let the girls skip a day of school and got there really early. Ky wasn't sure about this at first, but there wasn't hardly anyone there and we got to spend as much time looking at everything as we wanted. We also had our pick from tables and benches at lunch. The best part...no lines for the rides! The girls loved it and now Kami asks everyday "are we going to the fair today".
One of my favorite things to do is let the girls get their faces painted, it is so fun and they love it. They picked their own design and had them done in their favorite colors.

I didn't realize this pic was out of focus.

The girls got to pick 3 rides each. Kaite wanted to pick all grownup rides, typical Kaite! She was very disappointed that she was too short to ride most of them, especially the zipper! We had to really talk Ash into riding the swings. She ended up liking them.

Kaite loved every minute of it! Check her out with her arms out and grinning ear to ear. Then her and Ky rode this ride, she was still loving it.

Ash didn't want to ride this coaster either but loved it afterwards. She was good enough to ride all of the rides with Kami though. Lyvi chilled in her stroller. The day was a little overcast and at times windy. It is a good thing I have the giant diaper bag with everything in it! Lyvi ended up wearing almost everything I had! She didn't match but she stayed warm. She was so good the whole day.We watched the shark show. All the kids sat up front for this and loved it. It was a very cute show and seeing all the sharks was interesting. When we first got there Kaite was very worried about where the sharks were kept.
The girls all loved the horses and petting the other animals. We all agreed that the pigs stunk the most!

After a long day this is what the ride home was like!

One of the funniest things happened before we even went. I told the girls all about the food and said what we needed to eat when we were there. Well apparently I stressed Kami out because the day before she said she didn't want to go because she "didn't want to eat a tiger's ear"! I guess I should have explained that better! She loved the tiger ear btw.

fyi I am not liking this new blogging format they have now!

My baby girl (they are all my baby girls) turned 10 yesterday. 10, I can't believe it! She is a whole decade old. She is growing up so fast. I can't believe how tall she has gotten. Ashley is such a sweetheart and is so fun to have around. Ash is a big tease and especially loves to tease her dad! She is the best big sister and is always watching out for her younger sisters. I couldn't be more proud of her, she really is a good girl.
She was so excited for her birthday. I told her if she wanted to open presents she had to get up at 6:30. Well....she takes after her mom. Ash woke up at 2:00 somehow thinking it was 6:30. She woke up her sisters and they came up and sat on the couch and couldn't figure out where we were. She finally realized her mistake and then all of them slept with Ash!
Presents. She got a bunch of stuff from Justice her favorite store. She got a bunch of jewelry, hair towel, books, a game, and clothes from where else Justice. I got her the cute pants that she has been asking for.

She loves bootie shorts. Ky hates them!

Since we were rushed for school it was just cereal instead of the french toast she loves. Candles don't stand up well in cereal! It was funny!

A pic of all my girls.

She smiled after they left.

We took Ash out for dinner to Craigos. The cookie monster has sure gotten smaller over the past year! She had a good time though and we enjoyed visiting with the family.

Presents. Chantelle and I had fun shopping for Ash a couple of weekends ago. I think she was surprised at all the older girl stuff, she has awhile before she hits that stage.
She got some cute stuff, a journal, water bottle, clothes, books, and some makeup.

Lyvi does not like to have her pic taken. She won't smile, it takes three of us to get her to crack a little one, stinker! I told Ky to try and get one of her in her headband...well almost.

Cory and Mar

Grandma and Grandpa B came over on Monday night. Ash got some cute stuff from them too.

Look how tall she is getting. She almost wears the same size of shoe! I still can't believe it has been 10 years, how crazy. I think it really hit me when I was getting her presents. I was buying more clothes and jewelry and no toys, now the presents just get more pricey!

Happy Birthday Ashley we love you!