Baby's First Birthday

Jenna in April at 4 months

Jenna at 1

We have had an extremely busy week. So I am going to try to get caught up with some pictures. On Wednesday, Jenna turned one. I cannot believe my baby is already one. First thing in the morning, I got Jenna dressed in her Birthday Girl shirt and fixed her hair. At Marie's, she had a little party. Marie made cupcakes and Jenna got to eat one on her own. She then gave Jenna a present to unwrap. I am sure Jenna loved this and I am so thankful Marie takes the time to make our girl's day so special. I got off work at 12:30 and we hurried home. Jenna took a nap while I cleaned the house, baked two cakes, and wrapped her presents. She woke up just in time for the fun to begin. We had a lot of visitors (thanks to Thanksgiving). All of David's siblings were in town so we had quite the housefull. It was a lot of fun though. Jenna got a lot of presents and is having so much fun playing with them.

She actually didn't get very messy eating her cake.

One of Jenna's new toys

At one year Jenna: is able to walk (but she won't go very far before she drops down to crawl), started calling me "Mommy and Meemy" when she wants to cuddle, has been given the nicknames "Sugar Cookie" and "Cuddle Kitten" from Mom and Dad, gets excited to see her brothers, and has said "brothers" a couple times, and she loves to dance! If she hears Cowboy Cassanova, or Need You Now she will start dancing like crazy, she has a funny face she makes and will show you her pretty teeth. She is learning new tricks everyday. I love this age! Her personality is really starting to come out! She is still a little love and pretty easy going, but will squeal at other kids if they infringe upon "her" space.

Reflecting back on the year, David and I cannot believe how much happiness this little girl has brought to us. We were happy before we had Jenna, we had our boys, and everything seemed as good as they could get. Then we had Jenna, and what was great got even better. She has really brought our family closer. The boys love their little sister and it has really brought out their softer side. I never knew how much we needed Jenna. I will forever be grateful for the love and tenderness she has brought into our lives. She already has her Daddy wrapped around her finger. It is so funny to watch David with her. He is in total awe of his baby girl. He has always been a great Daddy and is very active with our kids (he gets just as loud and obnoxious as the boys:), but he is so gentle and tender with Jenna. We know our lives will just keep getting better! We love being parents to our three wonderful children!

Cold weather fun

It was actually warm here the last couple weeks, but of course I am behind on blogging so this is from a few weeks ago. There are some things I really hate about cold weather so here they are:

*the mess from coats, hats, gloves...
*the extra laundry (long johns, David's outer work wear, kid's coats..)

*My kids being cooped up without being able to ride bikes and play outside

* Having to layer up to leave the house

*Being cold (I am always cold!)

*The short days, it seems it is always dark!

*Driving on bad roads

But there are a few things I love to.

*David gets Saturdays off (this of course hasn't started yet.)

*The smell of fireplaces

*Fall and winter scents
*The coziness that comes with the season

*The extra family time

So with the cold weather upon us we have tried to be creative on ways to keep the kids busy. (As you know I have a couple hyper boys and one hyper husband) So we purchased one card table and a couple of puzzles and the boys have been very busy. David spent a lot of time putting puzzles together with Grandma Dori so he loves to do this.

I was "dejunking" the pantry one day, and I was tired of storing these cups, so I was thinking of ways to get rid of them. The boys took care of it for me. They spent all afternoon building different towers and Jenna loved to knock them down. Thank goodness she took a long nap this afternoon:)

Their final product

video

I have one independent little girl. She now likes to feed herself. This is her going from naughty to nice in a matter of seconds. The video is fuzzy cause it was on the wrong setting, but you still can get the idea of what I am in for. Good thing she is so dang cute!

Pumpkin time

I have a million pictures on my camera so I need to do some major back blogging. On Friday night, we carved pumpkins. This is what happened. The boys started gutting their pumpkins (I think this is their favorite part.)

Then they decided sister could help. We sat her on the table so she could watch them.

That lasted a little while then she thought, "I want to try"

"Let me eat it!" "

So fun!

Proud baby girl!

The hard workers

What a fun time!