12 MONTHS!!!

My baby is a big girl now. She will always be my baby but she thinks that it's ok to grow up and I'm not so sure I'm ok with it. I love the different stages they go through and I can't wait until she's able to talk full sentences to me and actually tell me what she wants instead of crying but the babyness, if that's a word, is gone and I'm going to miss that. Oh well, she's still adorable. Here are some randomly picked pictures of her first 12 months of life.


between 0-1 month


between 1-2 months


between 2-3 months


between 3-4 months


between 4-5 months


between 5-6 months


between 6-7 months


between 7-8 months


between 8-9 months


between 9-10 months


between 10-11 months


between 11-12 months


One Year Old!!! What a year and boy did it fly by!

Alyssa through the years

Alyssa is five now so you know what that means. Yep she's in Kindergarten. I'm not sure how she got so big so fast though. Somebody needs to explain that to me. Here are pictures of her every year of her life in August or September.


Not even one yet. I know that most people think their kids are superkids or superbabies but I think, even though I'm partial to my own children, that Alyssa has always been a superbaby and a superkid. She was rolling over at 4 days old, she learned to walk around 10 months old, she learned to read when she just turned 4, she understands the Bible when she reads it, she learned to add small numbers before she was five, she is learning how to add bigger numbers super fast, she's really intelligent, and she's the most beautiful five year old I know. How did I have a child this incredible? I'm in awe of my "baby". I'm very proud of my Alyssa.


This is 2004 when we went to Mexico with Meemo and Old Grandpa. For being only 1 year and 3 months old she didn't complain much.


2005. This is when Meemo and Aunt Carla came to see us. She's still so small. She has always been a small kid though.


2006. We were at Mama Jay and Papa Oz's house in this picture. It was on Labor Day. Her hair was still really short, Samara's almost grown out of the shirt that Alyssa's wearing in this picture. Wow, how crazy is that.


2007. This is Alyssa's first day of Pre-K last year. I remember she was so nervous. She did an excellent job though. Her teacher really taught them a lot.


Here is the big girl getting ready to walk to her school for her first day which was on Wednesday. She did a stagger day on Wednesday and then she starts for good on Tuesday. Look at how big she is!! I just can't believe it. She picks out her own clothes now and gets upset if she gets something that doesn't match and I tell her she shouldn't wear it. She said that she liked her teacher and that she had fun on her first day. I am still nervous because she is doing so well I don't want her to regress or to not progress at all. I pray for her every day and I ask that you do the same for me.


This is her new teacher. She said that they don't do Pre-K news anymore and they don't do Kindergarten news either they do K news. It was so cute how she laughed and laughed because they do K news now. By the way she is reading chapter books now. They have about 4-5 chapters in them so not too big but they are full of words. Again I'm so proud of her.

Samara turns 3!!!

Samara is now 3!!! I can't believe it. Here are some pictures of each birthday.


The most important birthday!

Samara turning one.

Eating cake at her second birthday

Her third birthday. Here's the M and M cake that she wanted me to make. I decided to write Samara around the edge since Happy BDay Mara didn't fit on the top. Then I covered it with M and Ms to hide the mess I made trying to write Happy BDay Mara.

We had Mara's party at a park kind of close by... about 20 minutes away. This is Mara in one of the tubes at the park.

Syssa at the park.

Going down the slide with friends.

Nattie had a great time playing with some friends. Here one of her friends is sound asleep. Party Pooper. :-)

The kids made bug jars. I had forgotten glue but a friend of ours was gracious enough to go and buy some glue. Thanks for saving the day!

Getting ready to open up presents.

My little princess.

Micah took a video of the candles being blown out. Mommy helped a little.

Eating cake.

After the birthday party we went with some of our relatives to Wall-E. It was cute but afterwards the girls were all tuckered out. Here they are after we pulled into the garage at our house. Sound asleep. Nattie was the only one awake but she went right back to sleep.

All in all her party was a success she is definitely the cutest 3 year old on the face of this earth. I love her to death. She's getting so big and is going to do something great with her life. I know that because she's very determined and very strong-willed. She's a precious gift from God and I'm proud to call her my daughter.

Camping/Sesame Place

We had a fun weekend camping and going to Sesame Place. Sesame Place is Sesame Street characters theme park with little kid's rides. They had the blast off thing that takes you up and drops you but only from a little ways. They had a lot of spinny rides which I wasn't going to attempt many of because they make me sick. I did go on one and Syssa decided to start spinning a little and I told her she couldn't do that because Mommy gets sick. They also had quite a few water rides. By 5:00PM though it was too chilly to do any of them, well at least for us it was. Syssa and Mara found a small waterslide that they could do all by themselves. They loved being "big girls". Anyways my sister lives only 2 1/2 hours from us and only like 40 minutes away from Sesame Place now so she met us there. The campsite was a little different than what we expected since the original campsite we wanted nobody could give us directions to, even the people who worked at the pool there. Weird. Here are some of the highlights from our trip.


We took the two middle seats out of the van and packed it up middle and back. Here are the girls set and ready to go. So exciting.



We get there and start setting up the tent. Syssa and Samara dug a small hole next to the tent with their play shovels and Nattie stayed in her pack and play until we got the tent and the bug screen set up.


After we got things set up Nattie crawled over and got up into this chair. What a big girl.


They did so well with being good while we set up camp that I gave each of them a cookie. Alyssa and Samara did fine with theirs. What happened to Nattie? She made a huge mess. If you look closely the pack and play in front of her it's completely dark with chocolate. YEAH a mess for Daddy to clean up. ;-)


Nattie in my sister's sunglasses.


H-O-T This is my sister Angela. Don't we look hot?


The first thing Alyssa saw was a roller coaster from outside the park while standing in line. She kept saying I want to go on that over and over again. I thought it might be too big for her since it was a roller coaster and everything. Nope! Samara was able to go on it too. I was so nervous for them. They'd never been on a roller coaster before. I stayed behind with Nattie, she was too small, you had to be 42 inches and up or 36-42 inches could ride with an adult. So Micah, Angela, Syssa and Samara were off. Please don't cry girls


Up they go. They didn't cry they wanted to go more. They both loved it. Alyssa said she was scared but it was fun.


Mara on the carousel.


Syssa on the carousel.

Angela and Nattie on the carousel.

There were lines to see each Sesame Street character. The girls wanted to see Elmo really bad so we stood in this long line to see Abby Cadaby and Elmo. Well, as we rounded one of the queue corners we looked over at Abby Cadaby's spot and BIG BIRD was there! That made us happy because out of all the Sesame Street characters there are Alyssa and Samara's favorite are Elmo and Big Bird. Only one line for both!!! YEAH!!

We are a cute family.

Samara decided to pose in this one. Angela wanted to get in the spotlight too.

Here's the blast off ride. Samara was a little scared and almost didn't go on the ride but I talked her into it and she had a lot of fun.

We changed into our swimsuits after lunch and came back in and watched the parade. Well, we changed in the car so we could put some stuff in there that we weren't going to use and I left my camera in the car... so no pictures of the parade. Sorry.

This was one of the spinny rides I wasn't going on. While Angela and I were on one of the water rides we put our shoes in one of the shoe cubbys. When we came back after going down the slide we came back and her shoes were gone! They were flip flops so no big deal they are replaceable but who steals flip flops? Also right after the parade since I left my camera in the car Micah ran out to get it. So Angela and I took the girls into one of the pools to let them play and cool off. Micah came back and we wanted to start going on waterslides and Nattie to take a nap so I picked her up to take her to the stroller and set her on my arm. She had a swim diaper on but that didn't hold the explosion of diarhea that plopped into the water. I was so embarassed but oh well she's one what can ya do.

Back to the campsite.

We had to pack up camp pretty quick because we started to hear thunder and lightning. We made it out just in the nick of time. The girls are again set and ready for another 3 hour trip.

This road was the weirdest road ever. It was a two lane road that over this one bridge turned into a one lane road. I mean one car at a time. The speed limit on this road is 45 MPH. Kind of scary.

We are home at last.

All three girls wanted to watch the Mouse Detective on the TV in our front room but Nattie around 6:30PM couldn't handle it anymore. She fell asleep and was out until around 7:15 this morning. Poor baby.