My Sweet Baby Jane is ONE!

I just can't believe that time could be going so fast. This past year has been the fastest of my life. My baby Janie is one, I can't believe it. Sometimes you get excited for a baby to get older, but not my Janie, I don't want her to grow up. She has been the best baby ever. She has such a clam nature and is so easy going. She has made me want to have 5 more babies, she has been so good, although I think I will still just stick with two more.

I can still so vividly remember every single thing about the moment that she was placed in my arms. She was born with all this cute curly dark hair, which I was surprised about, I thought she would be a tow head. She had these darling chipmunk cheeks that I still just can't get over. And of course she had her daddy's crazy long toes just like her sisters.

We brought her home and after about two weeks everything was just great. She was such a good baby and she just fit in so well, that it wasn't a very difficult adjustment. Lizzy absolutely adored her and wanted to suffocate her with her hugs and love. Nellie loved her too, but more from a distance. Janie was and still is a great sleeper, she was sleeping until 4 am pretty much from the beginning, and was sleeping a solid 12-13 hours at night from about 5 months on.
What a blessing she has been to our family, who would have known we would have had three little girls, and how amazing they all are. I cannot imagine having a boy instead of our amazing beautiful Jane.

I took Janie to her one year appointment and she was 17lbs. 6 oz. hovering just about at the 4th percentile. I love having petite little girls though. You would never guess that she is that small though because she eats so much. There is not one thing that this little babe won't eat, she eats everything, I love it!

Jane is such a little water bug. She has always loved her baths so much, she will just play forever, and she never ever cries when water gets in her eyes. She is my little water baby.

If she sees me coming to get her, or she thinks I am bringing her something like her bottle or a treat, she lifts up her head and gets this huge silly grin on her face, with her eyes all squinted it is really cute. She is really busy right now and one of her favorite things to do is to go over to the bookcase and pull every book she possible can off the shelf, she just loves to do that, and I am putting books back on the shelf about 20 times a day because I can't handle the mess. She loves to follow me into the kitchen and be just right under my feet playing, I have stepped on her too many times, so finally we got a gate to keep her out of the kitchen, and when she sees me pull it out she starts whining, it is funny. When Jane gets really excited she starts flapping her arms a lot, it looks like she is trying to fly away. She is just the most peaceful happy baby, she just hangs out and doesn't make much commotion. If I have been in the kitchen and I haven't heard from her in a bit I will go and find her and she will be in her room playing with toys or something. We got her a little stuffed rocking horse and she will go over to in and just hug it and say aww.

Janie is a total mama's girl right now, which of course I love. She loves to give me kisses and hugs and when she gives hugs she always says, Awww when she does it. I just want to eat her up. We just love her little cheekies, they are so cute and chubby still.

I could just go on and on about my Janie. She is so special and I just adore her so much. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father knows better than we do or else I wouldn't have this amazing little girl that my life wouldn't be complete without. I love you my little baby lady.

Janie the day she was born, such a little beauty.

I just can't get over her cheeks, I love them!


Her blessing day, she looked like such a little angel.

Janie big eyes, her eyes have always been so bright.

I love the little hand up by her face.

In her pretty pink dress that Kevy's grandma made her.

Kevy and Janie sleeping, both are very talented in this department.

There are those big eyes again.

She would get so tired after we would go swimming, she loved it though and would chill in her floaty forever.

The three little monkeys in the tub, she loved when she got to start bathing with her sisters

Pancakes and blueberries, two of her favorites. She really knows how to make a mess when she eats, I have to be careful and watch her because when she decides she is done she will start painting her hair with food and then I have to bathe her, I think she does it on purpose for that very reason.

I just love that little face.

Look at those cute bunny cakes, as the girlies call them.

We think she looks just like her Grammie, Kevy's mom, just with blue eyes

What a joy this little baby is. We love her so much!

Baby Jane's Birthday Party

We had a little birthday party for our little Janie girl. It is always so fun to have their first birthday party, even if they don't understand. Janie got this darling little outfit from Grandma and Grandpa. I love yellow and she looks so darling in it. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Kevin's parents and Kelli and Lance came up for the party. It was really nice of them to come.

Janie was really not interested in opening the presents. I tried to show her how to tear the paper, but she just sat there.

The other kids were much more into the presents then she was and it was hard to keep them from opening the presents for her.

As you can see I just ended up giving up and letting the other kids open the presents because she just didn't care about it.

This was the cake I made for Janie. I wanted to make a lady bug cake for her but I baked one in a large bowl and it took so long for the middle to bake that the outside was burnt, so I just decided to make a sheet cake and put some little lady bugs on top.

She enjoyed the cake but true to Jane's relaxed nature, she never went full force on it. She did make a mess, but nothing like my other two did on their first cakes.

It was a fun little party and we are so glad out little Janie was born a year ago.

December Wrap-up

We had our annual Branch Christmas party and it was a good thing that Santa came because we didn't go see him any other time this year. My girls LOVE Santa, which is kind of strange. Most kids their ages won't sit on Santa's lap, but I can't think of a time that my girls wouldn't. I was really surprised that even Janie sat there. She had a strange look on her face, but she never cried. I just love this picture because she is looking at him like "I just don't know how I feel about you."

Nellie was excited to sit with Santa and tell him she wanted a Diego toy. Everyone is shocked I know.

Lizzy told Santa that she wanted a snowflake ring, which I am glad that Santa found because finding a snowflake ring sounded like a hard thing to me.

We dressed up some of the Primary kids who wanted to, as the Nativity. It was very makeshift, but that was okay the kids looked cute. Lizzy of course wanted to be an angel, because angels got to wear sparkly stuff.

Nellie was a trusty shepherd. She doesn't care about sparkly stuff, she cared more that the towel she wore was green. I brought Janie's lamb costume for her to wear and I would have to say she was the cutest little lamb ever. She still has that funny face like she isn't thrilled, but she didn't cry.

The girls had a little Christmas program at their preschool. The lighting was really bad, so it was hard to get good pictures. Lizzy was really into all the songs and actions as usual. She is such a performer. It will really be interesting to see how she is when she is older.

I was proud of Nellie, for her age group she did really well. I am just so used to Lizzy and how Lizzy has always been, so I have to make sure I never compare them with things like this. Nellie was funny because her little class sang jingle bells and her teacher handed out red and green jingle bells to all the kids. The kids were asking for certain colors and the teacher kept saying "It doesn't matter which color you get." But I was really hoping that Nellie would get a green because we all know with Nellie that it does matter. Good thing she did get a green.

That day the girls got to open their presents from Grammie and Papi, and they were just thrilled with the outfits and scarfs, gloves and hats they got. Thanks Grammie and Papi!

Christmas Eve the girls got to wear the new pajamas that I made them. I was thrilled with the pattern that I found. I was able to get each set of jammies done in about an hour and a half, it rocked. I think I am going to make that pattern again next year.

I just had to throw this picture in because the girls were being so silly. Nellie put a bow on like a bow tie, and Lizzy put on a long bridesmaid dress, and they pretended like they were getting married. Nellie got down on one knee and slipped the ring on Lizzy's finger and then they kissed and said, we are married, and danced around. It was really funny. I sure get a kick out of them. It is funny too how Nellie is always the boy and she doesn't care. She is such a tomboy.

For Christmas we had some special guests. Jarom and Kristen and their baby Jerry drove here from Kentucky and stayed with us for Christmas. It was so much fun to have them around. They were such great guests and helped out so much and were so easy to have around we didn't want them to leave. It was also great to really get to spend time with Kristen and get to know her better. We moved to Kansas soon after they were married and I haven't spent much time with her, so it has been so fun to really get to know her. I wish we lived closer.

Here are the girls with baby Jerry. They just loved having him around, especially Lizzy, she loves babies. You can't really tell but Janie is almost a year here and Jerry is four months, they are about the same size, Janie is just really tiny.

They boys hanging out. Kevin gets along so well with all my brothers, I love it.

Nellie opening her presents Christmas morning. We had a great Christmas. The girls got a bunch of good stuff, but w spent a lot less then we usually do, it was great.

We got the girls stuff they could actually use. We got them a couple of board games, because they love to play them. We got them some craft stuff and other things they could create.

We got the girlies play laptops that have ABC's and number games. They love to play on them, plus they are learning a lot with them.

The girlies coloring Nellie's stuff she got from Grandma and Grandpa. She got this cool my little pony set with pages to color and markers and crayons. My girls LOVE to color. Lizzy got a jewelry box that she can decorate with special stickers from Grandma and Grandpa. It was a perfect gift because Lizzy loves to decorate, and she is really into jewelry. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

The girls got the really cute headbands and bows from Aunt Kristen. She made them for them, and they loves them. She taught me how to make them too, but I don't know if I can make them as good as she can. Thanks Kristen!

We had a great Christmas, it was just really sad to see it end, I always hate when Christmas is over and the new year starts, with January, and all the endless freezing days. Spring cannot come soon enough for me.

The Gingerbread House Incident

I have a tendency to have a certain bad word that starts with an S, pop out of my mouth when I am not meaning for it to. Well we decided to decorate a gingerbread house just like we do every year, and Lizzy wanted me to spread frosting on the roof and cover it with red sprinkles. So I started doing this and I guess that the roof hadn't set yet because it started collapsing. Immediately Lizzy said Sh**, sh**, sh**! Kevin thought it was pretty funny, but I felt awful because I know she picked that up from me. So I told her that I was naughty and that we shouldn't say that word. I have been trying very hard ever since to really watch my mouth at all times! Needless to say, we had to throw out the gingerbread house because it just wouldn't stay together and kept collapsing.

This is about as good as it ever looked.

The girls have so much fun doing stuff like this. I love having little girls.