Such good Care takers

The kids are such great care takers and have recently discovered the joy of taking care of things. My mom got the girls both a baby doll & stroller for Christmas & Alexa treats her baby doll as if it were real. She carries it around with her and wraps it in a blanket. She gives it toys to play with while she pushes it around in the stroller. She even takes it to bed with her and falls asleep with it in her arms. It's very sweet!

Awhile back while I was doing the dishes after breakfast one day, the kids were busy taking care of their stuffed animals. They each had placed one in a high chair, with a bib & tray. They gave each one a sippy cup and some blocks (for food). They did all this while I was doing the dishes. It was pretty amazing!

Forts & Big Messes

Since we spent quite a lot of time indoors in December (partly due to weather & mostly due to illness), we had to get creative in keeping the kids entertained. Eric is a master fort builder, so whenever Daddy was home that was the fun thing to do. The kids were also good at entertaining themselves. Unfortunately, that meant that they made extremely big messes. One of their favorite things to do is to bring every single one of their toys from inside the "play zone" to wherever in the house mommy happens to be (Awww...I feel so loved!).

Hanging Christmas Tree Lights with Auntie Renee

The kids had SO much with Auntie Renee when she came up to Conifer (Colorado) to help put up & decorate the Christmas tree. She was so patient with the process (which was quite time-consuming) & let the kids jump in and help. And they truly felt like they were helping, even when they got tangled in the cords. It was such a fun & relaxing day. The kids enjoyed hanging with Auntie Renee, Uncle Jeremy & Cousin Jake.

Unfortunately, our time in Colorado this year was a bit dreary, due to all 3 of the kids getting sick & coming down with pneumonia. But, we had a few highlights from the trip that made it all worth it and this was, definitely, one of them!

Sunglasses

I don't know what it is about sunglasses, but our kids LOVE them! Thy funny thing is, though, that no matter how many times we show them how to put them on right side up,they always end up putting them on upside down. I can't believe that they already think they know it all! Oh well! We did get some goofy pictures of them! Here is Alexa & Josiah showing off Daddy's sunglasses...

Merry Christmas

We finally just uploaded a ton of pictures that have been sitting on our camera for several months. And I know it has been ages since I have been able to post on a regular basis, so I will likely be doing a few posts with pictures taken over the last couple of months. Unfortunately, the last part of Nov & a good part of Dec were taken over by a super yucky bug that turned into 3 cases of pneumonia all at the same time...No fun! Anyway, all 3 of the kids (including parents) are all finally healthy and feeling well and excited to start the new year!

These pictures were taken on Christmas Day at our house:

The Happy Trio:


My sweet girls:

Alexa:

Family Portrait

I decided that it was finally time to have our family portrait taken by a professional photographer. We've had several casual pictures taken by family and friends, but we've never actually had our picture professionally taken. So, here it is:

My Little Helpers

These pictures were taken awhile back on our way home from our roadtrip. But, I just stumbled upon them and thought they showed really well how much the kids like to help. We had stopped at a produce market and had several bags of fruits & veggies to carry. The kids were more than willing to step in and offer to help carry!

Music Fun

We went to a 2 year old birthday party a couple of weeks ago (Happy Birthday, Liam!) and the kids had so much fun! There was a lady who played the guitar and sang songs while the kids played with little musical instruments. Josiah loved the huge drum (unfortunately, didn't get a picture of the huge drum) and the girls liked the shakers. It was such a great idea for a toddler birthday party and the kids had a blast!

Alana & the Apple Slices

Alana has recently decided that she likes to hold the bowl of whatever fruit I happen to be serving and divy them out to her brother & sister. Well, a few days ago I had given her the bowl to hold. A few minutes later, I noticed that she had not only emptied the entire bowl of apple slices onto her tray (definitely not sharing them with her siblings), but she had taken a bite out of every single slice! It was too funny! And she was so proud!



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2 Butterflies & a Monkey

We were fortunate to have a few different Halloween/Harvest parties to go to this year, so we decided it'd be fun to actually dress the kids up. Josiah was a monkey (a rather cute little fat monkey) and the girls were butterflies. They LOVED getting dressed up and, in fact, wore their costumes several times this past week. The girls were a little jealous of the monkey costume and so they each took their turns wearing the monkey costume around the house this week. Lots of fun!

Alana small & mighty

Alana never ceases to amaze us. She is all about organization. I'll never forget our first Sunday at Regen church. We were picking the kids up from the nursery and the helper told us the kids were sad most of the time but that Alana really perked up when it came time to clean up and put the toys away. She hopped into action putting toys in all their proper places. Her crib is pictured below. Note the organization of her stuffed animals, she clearly got this from her Mother.

Recently, we have gone up to the top of the backyard where there is a plastic slide from the previous owners on the top of the terrace. We had quite a rotation going, lifting a kid to the slide and then watching them slide down. Alana decided that she wanted to scale the wall. Sure enough, she was climbing a 5 foot stone wall all by herself after just two attempts.

Our first official "Jardine 5 Hike"

Eric & I used to love to go hiking. In fact, several of our first few dates were spent hiking. We have both always had a love for nature & the outdoors. However, when 3 little people came along our opportunities to get out and hike were very few, if any. So, we decided that the kids were finally old enough to go on their first hike. We found one of our local parks and set forth on our first official "Jardine 5 Hike". Believe it or not...the kids were awesome! Not only do they share our love for being outside and exploring, but they actually ended up walking/hiking much farther than I would've thought. Yeah, so our hiking days aren't over. In fact, they are just beginning! :)

The Fake Haircut

I had gone out to dinner with some of my girl friends one night while Eric's parents were visiting. I left before the kids went to bed and so Eric & his parents were both there to put the kids to bed. Well, when I got home later that evening, Eric showed me some pictures and said that all the kids had gotten haircuts. Immediately I thought, "Really, the girls didn't need haircuts!" Eric replied, "Well, we started off only giving Josiah a haircut with the hair clippers, but the girls really wanted one, too. So, we decided to go ahead and give them one with the clipper, also. See...look at the pictures!" He then showed me the pictures below, in which I just looked at with super huge eyes! After a few seconds of torture he says, "Naw, just kidding. We only pretended to cut the girls' hair so that they wouldn't feel left out." Hee hee. Big huge sigh of relief...