January 2014

 2014 is in full swing we've had a fun start. Here's a few pictures from the past month.

Allison turned two! She's growing up so fast. She's already potty trained, talks like crazy and does everything she can to keep up with the rest of the kids! What a blessing she's been to our family the last two years!

Amelia, Allison & I spent a little time on Pinterest and found a cute cake similar to this. I had everything in the house to make it and we had a birthday Owl for Allison in no time!

Anton likes me to take pictures of him. This is him smiling nice. :)

Like last year, we didn't waste any time dipping into the health savings account. This kids were doing a race around the house with a few obstacles. Elijah didn't make it on one and fell off our bed hitting his eye on the way down. We decided to have it glued instead of stitched so he would have less of a scar. This did bring back memories of the same eye being glued shut by the doctor a couple years ago. :) 

Staying warm this looong winter? We are, with a little extra heat from our wood burning stove. The kids and I helped Mark a few times to restock our wood supply. They love watching the wood splitter work.

Mark & I are entering a new phase in life - Out of Baby Phase/Middle Age. :) In the last couple months I've really noticed this. First Allison potty trained herself, woohoo no more diapers in our house, at least during awake hours. Then we attended our last Young Farmer Conference, after 35 your not considered "young farmers" anymore.  ;( Finally we moved Allison into a bunk beds with Amelia. No more crib. This is the first time we haven't had someone in a crib for 11 years! Now if we can get rid of diapers all together we'll be in business!

Amelia has a summer birthday but they celebrate half-birthdays in school. She is my "high-maintenance" treat girl. The boys are happy with a box of fruit snacks but Amelia enjoys something homemade and cute. Last year was little hedge hog cookies and this year we copied tractor cookies from a friends Facebook page. They turned out pretty good!

Elijah is really enjoying preschool this year. One evening this month we had Family Reading Night with the preschool students. Elijah was given an army hat to wear during this activity. He is in the brown track-hoe jammies second from the left.