Is That You Santa Claus?

At our dance studio, the week before Christmas break parents get to come in and watch their kids dance. Skyli's class did a super cute Christmas tap routine I had to share. :) She HATED the adorable costume and kept messing with it constantly! She wouldn't even let me take her picture in it! But she did a great job and I thought she was so cute!

Happy December!

Happy December Everyone! It's absolutely my favorite month of the year and of course, this year it's even more amazing!! Here's a few new pictures of my sweet littlest angel - 13 days old today!! It's going way too fast! If I could rewind back to the second she was born and do it all again, I totally would! She is SO sweet and we are all loving her so much!
A lot has happened since my last post - we had to say goodbye to Grandma & Grandpa :( Bayli & I are actually sleeping at night - what a concept - she's had her first outing (not loving the carseat), her first bath, her first Christmas party, her first movie (Enchanted) and first family Christmas card picture. Due to a mold issue at our school, her sisters have not had school since November 17th, so we have been on a long vacation!! It's actually come at a great time and we are all enjoying the chance to sleep in and love on our new baby.

Smitten

Here's my sweet baby - she's one week old today!

Bayli Love!

It's official - we all have it! She's just the sweetest, most perfect little thing. :) I couldn't adore her more.

Bayli Isabella, Our Thanksgiving Miracle

I couldn't be more thrilled to be able to say that my sweet miracle baby has finally arrived!! What could be a more perfect birthday than Thanksgiving?? I was having contractions Wednesday night at 10:00 pm while I made the pumpkin pies, but they were really irregular so I really didn't think it was anything major. Obviously, I was wrong about that... Bayli decided to make up for lost time and showed up in a hurry - she was born at 4:44 am. The home birth went really well and I was lucky to have such a sweet husband and an incredible midwife to help me through a pretty intense couple of hours. :) Mike ran out and got the girls & my Mom as soon as Bayli was born and they all rushed in in a hurry. The midwife laid Bayli on my chest and she immediately started wiggling around and lifting up her head. She was so healthy & strong & perfect - I feel like the luckiest Mom in the whole world! She started nursing right away with no trouble at all and is doing wonderfully! Her big sisters are all so thrilled - I can hardly get a chance to hold her myself! She's a lucky girl... :) Mike, Bayli & I went back to bed and I woke up to a complete Thanksgiving dinner made by my sweet Momma. What an incredible day.

Here's a few pictures of our newest addition... I can't imagine a more perfect start to the holidays!

An Exercise in Patience, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo & a Bronco Win

We had a fun day yesterday, but at this point, every day has become quite an exercise in patience for me! I am ONE day from my due date, and since I have never gone more than 39 weeks, I really expected to be settling into life with a newborn by now! The thing is, I feel GREAT! I have totally enjoyed this pregnancy and really believe that it's so much better to wait 'til the baby's ready to come, so I don't understand what the big deal to me is. It must be the fact that I really don't have any control over this! That and the ache I feel to hold her and see her chubby little face! So I walked up & down all the hills at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo all afternoon and took the stairs instead of the elevator, started dinner as soon as I walked in the door at home and was on my feet all day. I feel great, so what do I have to complain about? :) I'm trying hard...

We did have a lot of fun at the zoo with Grandma & Grandpa. The girls wore them out running all over the place - all those hills don't slow them down a bit! They loved feeding the giraffes (both fascinated & disgusted by their super-long slimy tongues - thank goodness for hand sanitizer!), watching the four baby lions play & wrestle, riding on the carousel, petting the goats in the petting zoo, playing in the play area and seeing the baby orangutan & super cute baby gorilla.

We came home and I made Erika's recipe for white chicken chili (Mike's favorite), a great salad & brownies while we watched the Broncos beat the Titans on Monday Night Football on our 9 foot screen in the basement. It doesn't get much better than that! Patience is a virtue... :)

Skye's Thanksgiving Feast

We all had so much fun at Skye's big Thanksgiving Feast in Kindergarten today! She has been really excited and was SO cute singing the 15 songs that she learned just for today. :) It was really special that Grandma & Grandpa were able to be there too! After the little program, we had the best food - a complete homemade turkey dinner. I'm the Kindergarten Party Coordinator so it was my job to make sure we had enough of everything for 46 people. We have the best moms though so it made my job easy. :) It was a great day!

Ryann & Madi in Hairspray

Ryann & Madi were both in a little Musical Theater performance last weekend. They looked SO cute and really did great! They danced to "The Nicest Kids in Town" from the Hairspray musical. Here's a picture of them in costume.

Skyli's Monster Mash

Here's Skylar at dance the week before Halloween. The kids got to wear their costumes, but Skye's monkey costume was way too hot to dance in, so she's the one in the light blue ballet dress. :) She loves her dance class and I had so much fun watching her! Her baby sister loved it too and tried to dance along with her the whole time! :)

Happy Halloween!!

Here's my sweet girls ready to go Trick or Treating!! :) It was chilly, so Ryann wasn't up for wearing her thin Pirate costume and decided to go as an Eskimo instead. I think you gotta give her credit for being creative! :) Madi was a super-cute Hermione (complete with the bushy hair!) and Skye was adorable as a monkey. This was her best Halloween ever - she literally ran to every door! She was the first one there and waited for her sisters to catch up before she rang every doorbell! She had so much fun! All three girls had a ball and for the first time ever, their Halloween baskets weren't big enough!! We had to come home to empty them - Skye left a trail of candy the whole way! :)