Things have been pretty hectic for our little family this month, but we have found time to have some fun! Shea was eating and Rylee thought she would help!

What goof balls!

For my birthday, my mom gave me her 80's bread mixer. Here is my first attempt. They came out deformed, but still were nummy!

Rylee has found her toes.

Last Saturday, we decided to go sledding. PS, we will never take the dog again. I had to chase him through the woods when we were ready to leave!

Shea had a blast.

Rylee had fun even though she couldn't move!

Valentines Day

This Valentines Day all of us had work off. Wayne has been taking 1 Sunday a month off so that he can go to church. That Sunday just so happened to be Valentines Day. That was a nice little gift to have him home and help me get the kids ready for church. Here is our little Rylee being her usual self.

Big sister holding the baby.

Grandma Kathy gave Shea a Valentines dress. We also found sparkle shoes that were super duper on sale. Her is Shea just before we left for church.

Since money is tight, Wayne gave us a great Valentines present. He got up early and made us all breakfast. He even cut out the pancakes into hearts. Shea that is was the best!

Our little girls are growing up so fast. (And puppy) Mack, our golden retriever puppy, had his head placed on Rylee tummy and Rylee was playing with his ear. It was so cute, but by the time I got my camera he only had his paw on her. Don't worry, he is really gentle our her!

Rylee also has started baby food. She doesn't seem to mind the vegetable foods, which is strange to me. With Shea, I had to feed her only fruit! ha ha. If you can believe it, Shea actually took this picture. She is pretty darn good.

Shea is growing like a weed also. She had her second dentist appointment, and also had her 4 year doctor check up. Last year, the doctor had her do some things around the room like hop on one foot, walk in a straight line, tip toe, and walk on your heals. She remember all of it! The doctor didn't tell here to do any off it and she did it. She was so impressed on how good her memory is. (Which makes me a little nervous! ha ha)

She loves to sing, dance and color. She loves going to church and primary. I can't believe I have a 4 year old. Crazy.

Shea is 4 years old!

On February 3rd, our little Shea turned the big number 4! She was looking forward to her birthday for weeks, and when it finally came she was so excited. Through out the day she would yell "I'm so excited it's my birthday!" She made sure to tell everyone! She is in love with the Nightmare Before Christmas, so she insisted on that theme for her party. It was just us because I was worried about how the other mothers would feel about a Nightmare Before Christmas party! Turns out she isn't the only 4 year old who loves that movie. Oh well. I love how easily it is to please a child!

Here is the best I could do making a Jack cake. I put pudding and strawberries in the middle and when I frosted it, the pudding came out the sides. Another example of how easily children are to please because Shea loved it!

Here is our growing puppy Mack.

My two girls.

Rylee is growing up so fast. She is 4 1/2 months old and is so sweet. She is constantly smiling and loves to watch her big sister.

She is also rolling over - from her tummy to her back and her back to her tummy!

Here is a musical number from Shea.

Rylee is 4 months old!

It's amazing how time flies. Rylee is now 4 months old and is doing so many fun things. She is rolling over OFFICIALLY, and has recently started to laugh. Yesterday, Shea made her laugh really hard. It was the cutest thing in the world, and I wasn't able to catch it on camera! Dang! Today, she was able to do it again and I caught just a little bit of her adorable laugh. Rylee is at the 50 percentile in her weight and height exactly. She is a little smile bug and is a drooling machine. Shea and I are starting to call her Slimmer because she slims everything! We are so glad she is in our little family and we love her!

Rylee's Baby Blessing

Rylee was finally blessed on January 3rd by Wayne. We are so happy that Wayne was able to do such a special thing. He has really changed his life around and we are all really proud of him. Rylee did really well. I was worried about her screaming because she isn't a newborn anymore! She was awake the whole time and didn't make a sound. She is such a precious little angel, and we love her.

Christmas

We had a nice quite Christmas this year. I am not in the mood to type so this is mostly pictures. I'm sure no one minds. Here is Rylee just chillaksin. She is such a content baby when she isn't sleepy, hungry, poopy or gasy!

Shea reading the Night Before Christmas book on Christmas Eve.

It is tradition for us to open PJ's on Christmas Eve. Here is Shea showing off her new PJ's. Thanks Grandma Zollinger.

Rylee showing off her PJ's. She looks so excited!

Both my girls!

Shea got a guitar for Christmas. She is singing the "Deck the Halls", but to her it is the Jelly song.

Rylee rockin the bow that Aunt Mandie made for her.

Christmas dinner.

Our newest addition to the family. Santa brought us a Golden Retriever puppy. I heard he might be bringing us a puppy and I was really excited. What was I thinking. It really is a PUPPY, now I never sleep.

We named him Mack. Here he is greeting Shea. Teby still isn't so sure about him. If anyone has any advice for me about puppy's, please give it to me. The best way to potty train, teaching him not to chew on things...Anything!

We hope everyone else had a GREAT Christmas.

December

Thanksgiving this year was just the 4 of us. My parents were suppose to come up but cancelled at the last minute. This was going to be my first year making the entire thanksgiving dinner. The only thing I was worried about was getting all the nasty stuff out of the turkey. Wayne and I decided that would be a perfect job for Shea. So a day before Thanksgiving we started getting her really excited about helping mom with an important job for Thanksgiving. When it came time to start the turkey. She got up on the counter really excited, but still not knowing what her important job was to be. I got my camera ready and started to tell her to "Stick your hand in that hole and pull out the little bag." I took this picture. Then she said - "Are you kidding me, I am NOT doing that!"

It was a nice try on my part though. I ended up doing it with no problem. I guess that is only because I used some tongs! On Black Friday, Wayne and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. It has flown right by. We decided it was a perfect time to go and cut down our Christmas Tree. We had a lot of fun!

Rylee is almost 3 months old. She has already rolled over 7 times, but it is still a work in progress. I love seeing her interact with her toys. She has grown so much and it has only been 3 months! She is such a little stinker and makes us smile everyday. (She is also a mama's girl!)

Wayne has a friend that is the Sears Manager over in Jackson. He sold us a shed for only $50! So Wayne put up his very first shed all by himself. A bunch of curse words later, it is all up and he will never put up another one again! ha ha. I am really proud of him. Once he got going it only took him 2 days to do it. And I will mention again, it was all by himself!

Here is Rylee again. I love this picture! She really can't move any part of her body, and she is loving it!

Shea is such a character. She has such a personality! She is almost 4 years old and knows how to spell her name. She also almost knows how to write her name, we are still working on that. She hopefully will be starting preschool in the summer. My visiting teacher is starting a preschool and Shea is already signed up! That is one problem about this Valley is that all the preschools are Daycare and I don't like that. Shea's new favorite thing is The Nightmare Before Christmas. She watches it when she wakes up and when she goes to bed. She has all the songs memorized and sings them all the time. I will have to post a video of her singing one of the songs. It is really amazing! FYI: She has already blamed the dog for opening a present under the Christmas Tree. Such a sneak!

The Children's Christmas party at Wayne's work was last week. We had a lot of fun.

Story time

They had a blow up bouncing cage that Shea was on for 30 good minutes. She got really hot so we had to go outside to cool off.

Decorating cookies.

Story and movie time.

Santa Clause came to the party. On the way over to the party, I asked Shea what she was going to ask Santa for Christmas. She said "Small toys, big toys, all sorts of Toy." I love this age, they are happy with anything.