Jaylyn is 6!

Today we have had a great day celebrating our sweet first born, Jaylyn Anaye. She chose to go to Incredible Pizza for lunch and to the movies to see "The Princess and a Frog". Then home for cake and her present. She is certainly enjoying being 6 already. :-)

Decorating her new horse for her birthday.

Present before lunch!

Incredible Pizza Competition!

Adley on the carousel

Jaylyn on a ride

My view of Leighton in the stroller

A little "Deal or No Deal" She made a good deal!

After movie - more presents!

Just like Adley, a helmet and bike. Jaylyn's long legs have outgrown the other.

Her cake request was a horse cake.

6 candles!

Make a wish

This has been a big year for Jaylyn. She began homeschool Kindergarten this year and we continue to have a great time! She has tried t-ball, gymnastics and added a new baby sister. She is such a great big sister and enjoys being the oldest. She has great interest in music and art and has an amazing talent for making her baby sister giggle. One of our activities at the beginning of the school year was an "All About Me" book. Some of her favorites listed there were: *Favorite color - purple and rainbow *Favorite song - "Come to the River" by Parachute Band (song on video) *Favorite Book - The Bible. She is still quiet in public, but is gaining confidence as she grows. She is still very loud and silly at home. We are excited to see what God has in store for our special girl!

Happy Birthday Jaylyn

Today Jaylyn turned 6!

Here is a little picture video. The song is one that was a favorite of hers this year. The girls mostly like the beginning. :-)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Christmas Snapshots – Part One

Lots of Christmas fun went on here.  I just put pictures together in collages to give a glimpse into our Christmas adventures.  

First, we had our Christmas with my parents the weekend before Christmas.  We alternate each year and this was the year to spend Christmas day up here.  So, we went down to my parents for Friday through Sunday and had a great visit. 

Fun with presents

Dominoes!  And Leighton enjoyed wrapping paper!

Christmas Cookies – I will definitely have to make a note for next year that I should not make as many cookies as I tried this time.     :-)  The girls had a great time though rolling dough and mixing batter.  Although after rolling the dough for cutting cookies, Jaylyn decided she was “not a fan of rolling”.  

Cookie fun!

Sour Cream Cookies – I have lots of memories making these with my mom on Christmas Eve.

Way of Lights – We always make our way out to the Shrine to see the lights.  It was raining so we didn’t get to go so the animals or anything.  But, the lights are still fun to see.

Christmas Eve

We attended the church Candlelight service which was nice as usual and then headed over to invade the Goleaner Christmas Eve Party. 

Photo Fun

   Makenna put together an awesome Nativity play.  It was definitely the hit of the night.  It was complete with costumes and everything.  Makenna and Colby were Mary & Joseph.  Leighton was Baby Jesus, of course.  Sawyer played a dual role as a shepherd and King Herod.  Adley was our pink sheep, Mavery and Sage were the singing, I mean crying angels.  :-)  Malaine, Jaylyn and Dalayna were the Wise Girls or the Wise Divas.  It was a riot! 

All the kids and presents

Birthday cake for Jesus

Pre-Christmas Snapshots

Here are some random happenings before Christmas. . .

Playtime - What a BIG baby

Baby wants milk

I finally added to the other wall of our "message center" area.
The other side is the chalkboard/magnet wall we did.

I took two bulletin boards from the dollar section at Target,
painted the frames and added some burlap-like material.

Next, these home-made dry-erase calendars are big on blog tutorials now. Basically, I took two frames from a dollar store, painted the frames, drew a grid with permanent marker on the back, on the front you can add numbers and the month with a dry-erase marker to change each month and write in your activities. I used the same burlap-like material as a backdrop under the frame. It was fun to make and is very handy to have!

I did finally finish the Shepherd pouches mentioned in a previous post. These were a hit and I'm sure we will continue this next year instead of a stocking. Jaylyn and Adley worked through December to earn quarters for their pouch. Then, Christmas Eve, we placed our pouches by the manger as our gifts to Baby Jesus. The girls decided to put their money together to purchase mosquito nets through Samaritan's Purse. This is what their site says about the mosquito nets:

"Over a million people, most of them children under 5, die of malaria each year. A $10 bed net treated with a natural insecticide can kill disease-carrying mosquitoes, keeping little ones safe and healthy. We also train and equip church workers to educate their communities about how to properly prevent and treat malaria."

There are lots of gifts like that through Samaritan's Purse, if anyone is interested. Another great gift option if anyone is looking is to a family from our church that is raising funds to go and serve full time in Lima, Peru helping youth on the street. Ofr course, there were some items in their pouch on Christmas morning as a reminder of the blessing we can receive from giving.

Jaylyn and Malaine had a Christmas Party sleep over. They had lots of fun. Here is their Christmas cookie activity.

Gingerbread House

Craft: Puff Christmas pencil topper.

Annual decorating Grandpa and Grandma Geist's tree. We had a great visit with them.

Nana and the girls enjoying the night.

Leighton is Six Months Old

Leighton has made it halfway to her first birthday! Unbelievable! And she is as sweet as ever. :-)

This little girl continues to be super smiley and as content as the other two were. (If not more.) I really wish that you could all experience that gigantic smile she gives when you walk into her room after she has woken up. Her sisters continue to adore her and smother her with love. She certainly loves them in return. Jaylyn thinks it is extra funny now that Leighton gives "kisses". (You know, those open mouth baby kisses filled with slobber!) She seems on her way to the crawling stage. She is lifting her self up very high on her arms and wiggling. Soon there will be no stopping her. She is always chewing on everything she can get her hands on, including her bottom lip. You can feel a small bump on her bottom gums. It is just a matter of time and those first teeth seems like they can take forever. The other milestone that the girls are especially excited about is baby food! We have started her on cereal and she seems to like it. I have plenty of help feeding her. :-) If they can just get the spoon past her hands! As for her "stats", she is weighing in at 14lbs, 11oz (25%) and her height is 27.25 in (94%). (Why my children have to grow like crazy in the womb and then slow down on the outside is still baffling me. Hee hee!) I thought you might find interesting the fact that when she receives her vaccinations, Jaylyn NEVER wants to watch. She does not like to see poor Leighton getting those shots. But, Adley wants a front row seat and asks all kinds of questions about the needles. Maybe she will be a doctor one day. :-)

Happy Girl

Really Happy Girl

Still Happy

Checking it out

I think I will try it

Hmmm, I like the spoon AND the cereal

Snow White's turn to feed me

She made it in

Christmas Photos

Here are some of the pics from our annual Christmas photo shoot. Thankfully all the girls like to pose for pictures. (Most of the time). But, it is certainly difficult to get them to cooperate together, and keep Adley from wiggling so much.

Big Sister, Jaylyn

Silly, Adley


Little Sister, Leighton

Sweet Sisters


Merry Christmas!!!

I wanted to make some fun matching Christmas-y outfits. I really wanted to try out some fun patterns, but as I started to cut them and think about adjusting the patterns for different sizes, I realized I did not have time for that! So, I went with the basic pillowcase style dress/top for the older two girls and decided to do a onesie dress/top that I saw online. I think they turned out well and I did enjoy making them. Practice, practice practice! And Mitzi made some adorable hair accessories to match!