May

With 3 kids settling in is a slower process, but we are taking our time as this season has been one of huge growth and challenge as we grow in who God desires us to be. God has been stretching us as individuals and as a couple and through this time we are becoming stronger individuals and stronger as a couple. We are continuing to be stretched and during this time the blog has taken a backseat. I am slowly trying to get back some of my routines. The blog is a place to update family and friends but also chronicle our life with our girls. It is like my own scrapbook and I enjoy writing and being creative and have missed that part of my life.

May was another busy month! We celebrated Mother's Day, Mia turned 9 months, Ellie graduated from Cubbies, we finished BSF, we went to visit my family in Tennessee (which I will post about separately) and we continued to settle in and explore new places and meet new friends.

 Since it is cold many months of the year there are tons of indoor activities. We met our friend Newton at this indoor playground one cold day.

 Ellie and Newton jumping.

 Cubbie Awards

 Ellie had an amazing Cubbie leader, Mrs. Linda. God knew exactly who Ellie needed during this time of transition for her. She loves Mrs. Linda! I am so proud of her. She started Cubbies late since we moved here in October and worked hard to catch up and finish her book with her group. She made some good friends and loved every minute of it.

 Since Daddy is the Family Pastor he shook all the kids' hands and Ellie got a special squeeze. Being a Pastor's child is a completely different experience. It makes the church experience different for them in many ways. Ben and I want our girls to be their own individuals separate from his role and any volunteering I may do. I volunteer with the children's ministry and Awanna but I stay clear of her group as well as the other girls' classes (once Mia moves out of the nursery). We want them to experience relationships and guidance from other adults that are not family and stand on their own.

 She can not wait to go to Sparks next year!

 Sweet Mia turned 9 months old. She is sitting up now and developing a real personality. She is just starting to say Dada and she says Nana. We are working on self feeding and trying to crawl. With two older sisters that feed her the practice is limited. She rolls like crazy to get what she wants, so crawling has not been her priority. We are still waiting on teeth! Our doctor has told me it is all hereditary. Our other girls were slow to get teeth, so she will be too. If one side of our family walks late then she might too. She is generally a happy baby, but loves her Mommy. When I do not snuggle her she lets her displeasure be known. If I come in the room and do not acknowledge her she lets me know she is not pleased. I am soaking in all the love. It won't be long before she is off and running and her sisters will become her favorites! :)

 Mommy Day with my 3 girls!!! Quinny is quite the character!

 Big girl seats! Quinn moved to a big girl seat and Mia got her seat! The baby seat is on the way out and we are getting some real big girls around here!

 Afternoon Trip to the Minnesota Zoo! This zoo is about 10 minutes from the house and has tons of indoor exhibits for those cold days. We got a season pass so we could really enjoy it! We went over one afternoon to explore half of the zoo!

 Being a Bear!

 Having Fun!

 We walked over to our neighborhood park one afternoon! It is a short walk from our house and is great for the girls!

 Ellie had another 6 month appointment at the dentist! She did great and had great teeth! She had her first x-rays! We took Quinn so she could see what it was like (at the dentist's recommendation) so she will be ready when she goes for the first time in November!

 Storytime at the Library!

 Indoor  Park! We got there early and they had the jumping area to themselves!

 Planting wildflowers on our back hill!

April

April was another busy month for us. We continued to settle in to our new home, we celebrated Easter, Mia turned 8 months old and our sweet Quinny turned 3 and it snowed on her birthday briefly! Ellie had her ballet recital, we made ice cream and explored some more of our new city.

 Ellie has wanted a long skirt like me for quite a while and she is so excited to have two now!

 I took their picture before church and Mia was in the spotlight!

 We take the shots we can get of these three at this age, at least one is looking at the camera. I have know idea what Quinn was looking at since I was the only other person in the room. :)

 Dyeing Easter Eggs! This event required princess dresses to be worn by the big girls apparently!

 Mia's First Time

 Made my last Easter Basket! Ellie and Quinn helped pick Mia's fabric. So excited to have my last one completed!

 Easter Baskets!

 Such a sweetheart!

 Easter Pics! Mia is wearing a dress that both Ellie and Quinn wore their first Easters! Our girls are tiny so no matter when they were born they were able to wear it!

 Because it is cold here on Easter Mia wore her bunny hat for hunting eggs!

 Hunting Eggs! Ben saw a great idea of using one color of eggs for each child. I have collected a ton of plastic eggs over the years of Easter hunts, so Quinn had purple and Ellie had blue-green and they each had 20 eggs to find. Having to only hunt for their color made it fair for hunting so one person did not get more eggs and I could hide them according to their ability. Ellie's could be hidden a little more challenging than Quinn's. Next year we will through in some yellow ones for Mia!

 Easter cookies! This year I went with easy as compared to making elaborate cookies as we moved in the weekend right before Easter.

 Our first birthday party in our new home!

 Starting at 2 we let them pick their theme or we pick one that is something they love. This year Quinn picked an Anna party. She is our Anna girl and so she was thrilled with her theme!

 We were blessed to be able to give her a dollhouse this year. It was given to Ben with all the furniture and we decided to give it to Quinn for her birthday. Around here we pretty much share all the gifts. With 3 girls they want to play with each others things and we encourage they share them all. The first few days we let Quinn play with the dollhouse when she wanted and explained to Ellie why and then the gifts become for all.

 I started this tradition when Ellie turned one and have stuck with it. They love waking up to streamers on their door to run through!

 Last night as a two year old!

 Birthday Breakfast with Daddy! Ben likes to take them to breakfast to start their morning. This morning when they went to breakfast Ben said the waitress came and said good morning and asked how they were and Quinn made sure to tell her it was her birthday, which then led to her getting a free cupcake to take home. Quinny is our little spitfire. Ellie and her are nothing alike and when you see them together you notice that they are very different. They like many of the same things but the way they interact with those things is very different. Ellie has got a lot of her Daddy in her in many ways and Quinn has a lot of me. She is a character for sure. She reminds me of my Grandmary as she has never met a stranger, she loves to sing as I did as a child and is extremely expressive. She is also kind, loves her sisters and loves to snuggle with her Mommy. Her imagination runs wild, much like her sister's and she loves to read and draw as well as build and play with her animals.

 Nana and PopPop one the best gift award this year! They got her a frozen sing a long microphone. It gets a little loud around here, but that is what being a kid is all about. She sings and sings with this thing. I have to confess it is super cute, but when the batteries died from so much use I was a little slow to change them out. ;)

 With all that has been going on right now Ben encouraged me to buy a cake for her birthday instead of making one. I love going all out and making their cakes for their birthdays, but it was also really easy to do it this way and made the night before a lot easier.

 Notice the microphone is in all these pics!

 Ben and I also got Quinn a beanbag for her room. She is wearing her new flip flops she got for her birthday too! I think she even slept in them! :)

 Reading of the traditional birthday book with Daddy!

 For Quinny's special outing for her birthday we went to one of the zoos here. We have two and have since been to both, but this was our first trip to this one. They have beautiful indoor gardens here too! The animals at this zoo are more confined, especially in the colder months. The other zoo has bigger spaces but does not have the traditional animals such as giraffes and zebras.

 Tulips!!!

 These two have their own rooms, but still sleep together in Ellie's. Every night Quinny asks to snuggle her sister and every night Ellie says it will be the last time, but it happens every night. We told them that when Ellie starts school on school nights Quinn has to sleep in her own room and we will be work on that this summer. They are not accepting of that right now! ;)

 Wearing Mommy's glasses!

 This girl never sleeps alone! :)

 We are sitting up!

 The girls and I went to see Cinderella! Mia stayed home and napped with Dad! Ellie is at the perfect age for movies and she even cried during the sad parts. Quinn is at the in between stage, but did pretty good. Ben thought she would be crushed to be left behind as she often thinks she is as big as Ellie, so we took her with us!

 Ellie's dance recital!

 She has recently informed us that ballet is not her thing. We will be doing swimming this summer and trying soccer. We are exposing her to many things and then letting her choose what she wants to pursue. She wants to try faster dance and we want her to try piano. Swimming is something she has really enjoyed, so it could be one we pursue. She also wants to try ice skating lessons. She also loves art. She has many interests and there are many opportunities here for her to try as many things as she wants.

 Ben got us an ice cream ball last year and we just used it. We had to kick or move this ball around for 30 minutes. It was hard and the girls were over it after about 5 minutes, but I kept at it. It did work and the girls liked the result!