our first tree as a family of 5

last Christmas we were moving to denver, thus we did not put up a tree. so this is our first tree as a family of 5. daddy and townsend did a great job of picking a perfect one. i also had daddy get some poinsettias as they were on sale at home depot. i guess i should have had a longer talk with the kids about flowers. i was in the kitchen making dinner and the kids were in the living room. playing so nicely. no fighting. no whining. every once in awhile i would hear one of them say, "decorations." and i would just say, "we will put up the decorations after supper." well, when i finally went into the living room i saw that the kids had already "decorated" the tree. with poinsettia petals. it looked kinda pretty to be truthful. but what the kids didn't know was that the pretty red petals would very soon wilt and turn brown and crunchy. :)

lots of ornaments down low.

mary comes and thanksgiving 2009

i cannot believe i do not have one picture from our friend mary's visit. or thanksgiving at the rolfs. i will try to get pics from mary and ann and put them on.
mary flew in from austin early on the tuesday before thanksgiving. i was so excited to see her but of course we had the potty training going on so that put a bit of a damper on things. thankfully, she is the kind of friend who just likes to hang out so we did. at home. cleaning up marin's messes. :) after about two accidents mary was kindly suggesting that we go buy diapers but we held on another day. when marin stood in her chair at the table and peepeed into her booster seat and didn't think a thing about it, i finally concurred. but back to mary's arrival. actually, i think the first thing mary did was clean my kitchen. she is very thorough and everything looked so beautiful. then we started cooking and well...not so clean now. she brought some new coloring books and markers for the kids which scored big with them. now they always pray for mary at night. on thursday we went over to the rolfs early and had breakfast. the kids played and then after they went down for naps the adults had thanksgiving dinner. so yummy! the next morning norton and townsend went to home depot to get a tree which is where i finally got my camera out and started taking pictures. mary and i took the kids and did a little shopping but she had to head back to austin early that afternoon. come back soon mary!

pottytraining school dropout

well, we finally threw in the towel after 6 days. there were many many towels actually. to clean up the many many messes. on day 3 marin used the potty two or three times and i thought it was going to click. but days 4, 5 and 6 were disasters. and we had company, our friend mary, starting on day 5 so she had to endure it all too. sorry mary! we decided that we couldn't take marin to the rolfs for thanksgiving with her peeing all over the place so i had a talk with marin and we put her back in diapers. i felt so defeated. but much less stressed. : ) note to self-do not try to potty train within a month of any holiday.

potty training #3

after watching her big brother and sister use the potty since early july, marin has been following them into the bathroom every time they go. she has even pulled down her pants, pulled off her diaper and sat on the potty. the method that we used recommended starting potty training at 22 months. well, marin is about a week away so we decided to just do it. day 1-put all diapers in a bag to give to a "baby" who needs them. put big girl panties on marin and tell her to let us know when she has to pee. that's all! not so much.
see my princess panties?
mommy and daddy don't want me on the couch at this time. but i think i'll get on it anyway!
day 2-lots of fluids so i will go peepee. are they crazy? why not just stop and make a fun puddle right on the floor? i can even slide in it!
day 3-after going two whole days not getting even a drop of pee in the potty marin finally went three times. the last time she even went in the bathroom herself, pulled down her panties and went without telling anyone. i was helping ellory get ready for bed and all of a sudden heard the "sound" and assumed she was peeing in the hallway. don't get me wrong-she had plenty of accidents today. and i really wanted to go outside and scream at the top of my lungs. but instead i was just grumpy with all the kids. poor things. grumpy is probably putting it nicely. :) i tried to not have high expectations but we really really thought she was going to be the easiest to train. but i have confidence that she will eventually get this. and i will be able to get out into the world again. today while the kids were napping, i was going through a box that hadn't been unpacked yet. in one envelope were all of the ultrasounds that i had taken. the ones where the babies went to be with Jesus early on and the ones of marin that kept showing a baby getting bigger and bigger. i wept as i thanked God that marin was here for us to potty train. i guess i'll cut her a little slack. :) we love you marin.

elvis is in the house--again!

townsend has the funniest hair. sometimes when he wakes up it just sticks straight up. and it stays that way!


these were taken over a year ago. they are still my favorite. :)
i ain't nothin but a hound dog!

just beefing up the marin posts

she's really very entertaining to be around. love you mare bear.

pardon me-do you have the TIME?

or should i say, THYME???? marin loves opening the spice cabinet. unfortunately it's below the counter-right at her level. so far though, she has never actually opened any of the spices. but i guess there always has to be a first. it was the time for thyme. weird. i can see opening the cinnamon. or nutmeg. or pumpkin pie spice. but no, thyme it was. she even got some in her mouth and didn't make a face. i guess she's a savory type of girl.

no more babies- :(

we decided awhile ago that we were going to do the 3 day potty training much much sooner with marin than we did with the other 2. she always follows townsend and ellory into the bathroom and sits on the little potty anyway. but we knew that she needed to be able to get out of bed to go potty if needed and she was still in a crib. so our smart daddy made the nonconvertible crib into a convertible crib. :) now marin is not quite as compliant as the other 2 and we wondered if she would actually stay in the bed without the sides. but so far so good. (its been 3 nights as i write this.) now, onto potty training!

camping with daddy

on friday night, townsend and daddy went to check out chatfield state park for a little camping trip. the weather was pretty nice and about 20 other families thought that camping sounded good too.
norton said that they sat around the fire eating s'mores pop tarts until 7pm. then got in the tent, put on headlamps and read their books until about 7:45pm. then lights out. they woke up around 6am. sat around the fire eating s'mores poptarts. (do you see a pattern here?) then packed up and headed home.
the cutest camper. :)
drinking a hot beverage. spiced cider. townsend loves to drink from the REI camping mugs.

in the leaves

daddy made a big pile of leaves for the kids the other day.
townsend immediately forgo sliding in order to jump right in.
marin took it slow. sliding first.
"come on, marin. stand up and jump like a big kid!"
"hmmmm. ok. now what do i do again?"
"arms up?"
"or maybe i'll just slide. after all, i am the baby in the family."
"watch me, marin. get your arms up realllllllly high!"
"oh! i get it. my arms were obviously not up high enough last time. how does this look?"
" see everyone! my arms are perfectly positioned to fly off the slide into the leaves!"
"wait! did mommy just say snacktime? coming mommy!"

changes

we had one too many "mullet" comments so i whacked marins little tail off. i couldn't find a good "before" picture. probably because i avoided pictures of the back of her head. but she really did have some long curly locks in the back. and it did look like a mullet. bye-bye mullet.
the 80's are back. am i correct? for some reason, when i saw this picture my first thought was, "olivia newton-john."

fun times with daddy

halloween 2009

we started out halloween with a trip to colorado springs to see the cousins. and aunt ann. and to celebrate uncle jim's birthday. daddy stayed home to work on his sermon. aunt ann had lots of costumes so ellory and marin used some of hers. in case you can't tell, ellory is a dog and marin is a cow. towney stayed in his bear costume. also worn last year. :) james was a giraffe and julia was a pumpkin. it was the usual free for all. mostly playing nicely with a few arguments here and there. i continue to be so thankful that the rolf's live so close.
rrrowl!!!! how do you spell the sound that growling makes???
back at home ellory put on her tiger costume.
marin was a ladybug.

we went around the block. mostly to people we knew. but also to new houses in order to meet some of our "unmet" neighbors. that was fun. by the time we got home it was time for bed. we put the candy away and by the next morning the kids had forgotten all about their goodies. but daddy and mommy hadn't! we started right in on the chocolate. :)

another fun "fall" day-really

this first photo was taken on october 28th. about, oh, 12 days after the fall leaves pictures were taken. :) townsend and i were headed to the library to get some elmo and thomas videos. the rest of the pictures were taken the next day. it was a great snow!

the walkway to our house from the driveway.
the trees out front.
pathway down the driveway.
daddy and mare bear.
the kids seemed to like being out in the snow better this time than earlier this year after we moved.



every time we turned around, marin was putting her mitten in her mouth to eat the snow.
pretty girl.
eating again.
when we went inside, daddy made snow ice cream. yum!

of course marin licked her bowl clean. :)