Nathan and Ella a year ago

Can you believe how small they were a year ago? Happy Birthday Nathan and Ella...we love you so very much.

Love,

Mom and Dad

"Happy Birthday" Nathan and Ella

We celebrated Nathan and Ella's Birthday last night. What a party. Nathan and Ella got to open lots of fun gifts and they had fun eating (or at least playing with their cake)! Hard to believe a year has almost past. We feel so blessed to have them in our lives and we cannot imagine what life was like without them. We watch them now walking around, kissing dolls, throwing blocks, standing on chairs, eating "adult" food and we wonder where all the time went. We want to thank family and friends for all their love and support in this last year. We couldn't have done it without you. Have a blessed Christmas with family and friends!

A week before their 1st Birthday and Christmas

Our Christmas Picture

Ella "framing" herself

Ella didn't want her shirt on so here she is walking around with a bare belly and her hat that she loves to wear

Here is Ella taking off her shirt.

Nathan with bubbles on his head

Ella and Nathan laughing at each other with bubbles on their heads


Hard to believe that the babies will be one year old next year. They are walking all over the house and I tell myself I can no longer call them babies. We have been blessed for the most part with healthy babies, although this past week and a half, Ella was either fighting some new teeth coming in or had a viral bug. She ran a low grade fever, didn't want to eat, laid her head on your shoulder most of the time, had nasty diapers, and had several episodes of throwing up. Not fun. I think she has finally turned the corner and hopefully we will have our fun loving, carefree Ella back. We have been also going through a bad case of "mamma's babies." And although it is great to be loved, it can be tiring when your children have melt downs when you leave the room just to go to the bathroom. Nathan is probably worse than Ella, but they both can be clingy at times. They do fine when I am gone (of course) and then the moment I walk in the door, it is like they have been abused and neglected all day and just sit there and cry. We had their first year pictures taken the other day and so excited to see how they turned out. We ended up doing a quick Christmas picture outside this past Saturday. We took it ourselves and it turned out pretty good. We are planning a birthday party this coming Sunday. I have to work on their birthday and on Christmas, so Tim will spend that day by his family and then we are heading to Minneapolis for Christmas on New Year's with my family. We pray everyone has a blessed holiday and New Year.

Ella and her baby doll

Let it snow..Let it snow...Let it snow

The babies first time out in the snow and trying out their new sled. They couldn't decide if they liked it or thought it was scary. Ella looked so cute bundled up in her snowsuit and since Nathan doesn't have one yet, we double layered him up in warm pants and coats and of course socks for gloves! Hopefully there will be some warmer days that we can stay outside a little longer and do more sledding.

Literally food everywhere

Nathan and Ella after eating their own banana. Nathan would squeeze it between his fingers and then rub it in his hair. I am sure it will only get worse!

Thanksgiving in Minnesota 2008

Grandpa and Grandma with Ella and Nathan

Darin and Tricia, Brayden and Breanna
Dan, Laura, Bennet, Caleb, Kylie and Avery

You know who we are of course

Ella all excited opening her first present

Ella and Nathan opening their first gifts

Laura and Avery

Ella loved to give Avery kisses

Brayden loves pumpkin pie

Pheasant hunting success

Ella loves the being in the car

Grandma and Brayden filling up Ella's car

What a great Thanksgiving! We enjoyed our first Thanksgiving with the babies in Minnesota. The babies did so well on the trip down. They slept the whole way there. They were slightly overwhelmed with all the new people around them and became quite the Mommy's babies while we were there. Towards the end they were warming up quite nicely to Grandpa and Grandma Beckering, so hopefully they will remember them when we go back for Christmas during New Years. The whole crew, including 8 adults and 8 children stayed at my parents. You can imagine some chaos, but I have to admit, it actually went pretty well. We did of course resort to some TV/video time in order to have some piece and quiet when needed. We were able to see the Van Dyke and Beckering extended family and it was great to catch up with cousins and aunts and uncles. We feasted on Turkey and fixings and also ate a lot of everything in between. Tim was able to go pheasant hunting with my dad and brothers. Tim hit a pheasant at a very close range....so lets say, there was not much left of the pheasant to see. Ella fell absolutely in love with Avery and wanted to give her kisses all the time. We had to keep a close eye on her otherwise she would be smothering Avery! The week went fast and it is always hard to say goodbye. Luckily, we'll be back at New Years.

Eating Cheerios

Car Seat Fun

Ella and Nathan just love to play in their car seats. Who knew they would be a multi-sue item. Ella is also into books. Nathan likes them too, but Ella will just sit and play with them forever. She likes to read books in the car seat as you will see. They are standing on their own now (if they want to). They both took a couple steps by themselves on Saturday, but they haven't done it again. They walk by everything, so I am sure it will not be too long before they are wobbling around.

The Stuive Birthday party

We celebrated Megan, Ashley, Colten, and Elijah's birthdays!

Nathan and Grandma Stuive hanging out.

Ella loves Dakota the puppy, but does Dakota love Ella? Not so much!

Dad and Ella

Grandma and Ella watching the kids blow out candles

Grandpa Stuive and Nathan

Earlier that morning a picture of brotherly and sisterly love!

Ella falling asleep at the noon meal

Ella's new way to drink from her cup

Halloween 2008

We had a fun Halloween this year. We dressed Nathan and Ella up and headed out to a party with some friends from church. Nathan went as Tigger and Ella as a Leopard. They only wore them for 15 minutes, but actually didn't put up too much of a fuss while they wore them. It was quite something to take a picture of all the kids and their outfits. The bottom pictures shows a majority of the kids, but I think there were 3 missing from the picture. Tim went as a monk and I went as a nurse/doctor in my nursing uniform (due to the lack of creativity and time to think or make anything else)!