4 Months Young

Sweet little Mia is 4 months old and is such a giggly little baby. She has been loving her exersaucer and loves to watch her sisters. Every time she sees her sisters she grins from ear to ear. They keep her quite entertained. She went for her 4 month appointment and weighed 11 lbs. 4 oz., which we were pretty happy about. Even though she is in the 2nd percentile, she is growing strong and for our babies being on the chart at this point is pretty good, as small babies are the norm for us. She was also 23 1/4 inches, which was the 5th percentile. So far she is following in Quinn's path for size. She loves to be held and carried around in her sling. She is always smiling and it is easy to make her giggle. She goes with the flow and as long as I carry her in her sling or the bjourn she is completely content when running errands and going on adventures with her sisters.
These next two months will be big months for little Mia. She has started solids and we have to work with her on not turning her head to the left so much. She loves to lay on her left side, so much so that it is affecting the shape of her head. She is pretty persistent in getting to that side even moving things I place there to stop her. We will be talking to a specialist to see what we can do physical therapy wise and then if there is not improvement in the next two months she could be wearing a helmet for a little bit. I would love for her to avoid a helmet, but the interventions we may need to take would be all for cosmetics as the doctor says there is nothing wrong with what is happening inside her head. :) Please be praying that our sweet Mia would continue to be healthy and that her sweet little head would get back to its sweet shape as soon as possible.

 Life With Sisters

 Growing Big!

 First Tastes of Cereal! She actually has done the best out of all 3 of our girls. The other girls cried and cereal was short lived. Mia has tolerated it for the most part.

Her sisters requested her presence at their sleep over!

'Tis the Season

This past week we got to decorating our little home. I did not put as much out as I usually do since we are in a smaller space and decorated a little later than usual. We had a good time decorating this year and Ben surprised me by helping decorate the tree with ornaments (He usually sets the tree up and does all the lights and I do all the ornaments.). Now that the older girls are getting bigger they wanted to help so we made it a fun family activity for the season.

 This mantle makes my heart happy! Now that our family is complete we have filled all our letters and ordered all our stockings! There is just something about knowing that this will be our completed mantle for many years to come!

 Ben turned the fireplace on the T.V. (HA!) and put on some Christmas music. We made some hot chocolate and got to decorating!

 Even Mia got in on the action and cheered us on!

 Finished tree minus our topper!

 My GrannyFranny sent all the grandkids some of the gold ornaments that her and my grandfather, PePaw, used on their tree. Each year they added to their collection and these were the ornaments they put on the tree that was at their house each year. I have many memories of sitting under their tree opening gifts each year and I am so happy and honored to have some of these ornaments on our tree now and pass them on to my girls in the years to come. All of my grandparents played a huge role in my life. It is like I had 6 parents and this set lived only two hours from us. I spent many days growing up with them guiding who I was becoming and those times played a huge role in making me the woman and mother I am today. 

This year we had a smaller tree due to our smaller space and could not put all of them on, but I made sure to put a few. I put on a train which is something that always reminds me of my grandfather and something that Ben loves. I also put on the snowflakes with the year 2009. 2009 was a year that brought lots of change for us. It was the year that Ellie was born, which brought us immense joy and sadly was the year my grandfather passed away. He passed away the summer before Ellie was born, but I am confident he is in Heaven and has watched over us for many years and through what he taught me is a part of my girls' lives daily.

Third Time's The Charm

This past weekend we went Christmas tree hunting. We have to admit we are a little spoiled by living near the Christmas tree capital of the U.S. in the past. We are used to a longer drive but a huge selection of awesome trees where they give you a pole to find the height you want and then they cut it down with a chainsaw, take it to be wrapped up and load it on your car. We were very excited to find tree farms here. Many months ago when moving here looked like a high probability Ben and I started looking for all the things we like to do here and going to a tree farm for our tree was one of those items we hoped we would find here. We found them here, just not the abundance of them we are used to. The positive was they were all about 45 minutes away instead of 2 1/2 hours. We ventured to our first tree farm and realized our standards may be a little high. At all the farms you pull up and they gave you a saw and tell you to cut down your tree and bring it up to them and they would shake it, wrap it and help put it on the car. At our first stop they gave us nothing to bring the tree up in and me wearing Mia and helping to carry a tree did not sound promising. We scoured the fields and found nothing in the limited supply. The next morning we ventured out again finding a great little farm that at least gave you a sled to bring back your tree on. We rode out on the wagon to find our tree, but after much searching, in every variety, found nothing that had not already been tagged or was being left for next year. We loaded up again and headed to Wisconsin, which is only 45 minutes from where we live. We pulled up and Ben felt this was the place. Mr. Snowman's Christmas Trees was going to be the winner! We grabbed our saw and headed out. About 15 feet from the front of the lot we found our tree! Ben likes to look around and make sure that is the one, but the girls and I knew it was. Ben started sawing and grabbed a tree cart and we took our little tree home. The people were great and super friendly. After all the adventure we have found our tree and have found the farm we will go to first next year!

 The First Lot

 The Second Lot

 Found our tree at Lot 3!

 Watching Daddy cut down the tree!

Thanksgiving Fun

This Thanksgiving we were blessed to have Ben's parents come to visit. It was a last minute decision as it worked with travel for them. We had a great time exploring new things in our new city and a great time showing them our new life here. It was freezing and snowed the day they flew in, which I am told is colder than normal for this time of year. ;) Mia was dedicated the first night they were here and the following days we enjoyed good food, fun shopping, and lots of laughs. It was relaxing and fun for our girls especially for family to see our new city and to celebrate Mia's first Thanksgiving. (Thanks to Gran for the pictures, she is always good at taking the pictures.)

 Wearing our new clothes from Geep and Gran

 Gran brought fun crafts to do!

 Ellie then did her own crafts!

 She even made a hat for Mia!

 Geep enjoying some cuddles with Mia and Quinn! Quinn loves her Mia!

 Ellie dressed up Mia!

 Even in our small space we made our favorites!

 And yes, we used paper plates. We have to work with what we have since most of our things are in storage. With a small sink and kitchen paper is what we needed to use for ease in clean up.

 Talking to Uncle Drew! This girl loves the phone!

 Doing a little shopping! I had to include this picture because Ellie is adorable!

 Shopping with these girls can get a little crazy!

 Gran and the girls!

 We went to Mall of America and enjoyed looking in some stores....

 riding some rides...

 eating at the Rainforest Cafe...

 and seeing the legos!

 Christmas Pictures with Geep and Gran at church!

 Picking up Mees, Gran got a sweet picture of Ellie taking care of Quinny! Ellie is the best big sister. She loves on Quinn and Mia so much with her sweet heart. She has moments she gets annoyed with Quinn and does not treat her the best, but that is part of being sisters, most times she really loves on her. Quinn is always heartbroken when she can not find Ellie or Ellie is not with her.

 We went downtown to Macy's to see their Christmas display. They have a walk through storybook on their 8th floor that tells the story of a day in the life of the elves. It was so cute and more than we expected. It was completely free and the girls loved it.

 Quinn even visited Santa while we were there!

 Ellie and her sweet heart helping Quinny get ready to go in the cold.

 We walked on the skyways as much as possible to get to the Holidazzle set up. It was freezing and in the single digits this night.

 We did get to see Santa's reindeer while we were there!

 Gran got this awesome picture of Maggie! Mags is a little stir crazy having to stay inside, but she has done great moving to a new place.

 On the last day of their visit Geep left in the morning for work and Gran got to spend the day with us before leaving that night. Unfortunately the cold weather gave her a bad cold, but we enjoyed playing with blocks and dress up at home before she left.

 Here are a few pictures of our preparations before they got here. Our schedule was a little crazy and we didn't carve a pumpkin this year, but I let the girls paint it.

 While they were here we checked out the indoor park. It was great! The playground was huge with lots of great slides. They were fast with huge drop offs that I did not expect. Quinn was a little small to go by herself and Ellie was a little nervous, so Geep, Ben and I had to venture in. Ben and Geep went first and then I ventured in. I enjoyed it as I like stuff like this, it was just a little tiring. Ben was a little tall for everything, but he will do anything for his girls, even if it is not the most comfortable.

 Mia enjoyed a nap while her sisters played.

 They also had a great play space with toys to ride and hula hoops and basketball as well as a bounce house.

We had a great time on all our adventures and are looking forward to many more!