Catch up time...

So much for posting every month. Here is what we've been up to the last year!

Ryann's fettish with socks! She would hold onto anyone's socks anyway she could while crawling around. She'd usually hold them in her mouth, so we made sure to keep our dirty socks picked up! She hit the jackpot when she found her own sock drawer!

Ryann's 1st birthday!

Ryann's first real experience with snow! She wasn't too sure about the cold and lots of layers of clothes!

Emily's 4th birthday! She wanted a heart and unicorn cake. It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but there is a unicorn in the middle of the cake.

Mike took Brooke and Emily fishing. This is the first fish Emily has ever caught!

Emily's swimming lessons. When she first started her lessons, she would barely go in the water. When we finished with her lessons for the summer, she'd put her face in the water. Progress in Emily's hydrophobic world!

Brooke played slow pitch softball this year. She did a great job hitting the ball!

Brooke turned 7-years-old this year and had a beach-themed party with her friends.

Brooke also played soccer during the summer. This is her third year playing soccer and she really enjoys it.

Brooke's first day of second grade!

Brooke just finished playing her first year of basketball. It was a lot of fun to see the improvement made in their short season!

We had a family reunion at my mom and dad's place.
During our reunion, we went to the sand dunes and had lots of fun burying each other and jumping and sliding down the hills.

We made a visit to the state fair. The girls enjoy going to the fair each fall.

Girls in their halloween costumes. Brooke was an angel, Emily was a fairy, and Ryann was a rabbit.

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During the summer we went on a family trip to Colorado. While there...

We stayed at my brother Jaren's house for a couple of days. While there, the girls played in the backyard sprinklers and had a blast. Even little Ryann got in on the fun!

We met up with Mike's brother, Gary, and his family. We went to an animal museum and watched an I-Max movie there. Afterwards, we went to eat at a restaurant that had an indoor waterfall and divers and lots of entertainment!

While visiting Mike's parents, we went to an aligator farm. This is a real baby aligator that Brooke, Emily, and Mike are holding. In the back is Mike's sister, Paula, and his mom.

We went swimming at a hot springs pool in Hooper, Colorado. This was Ryann's first experience with water in a pool. She loved it! Mike could dunk her completely under and she'd come up smiling!

We went on a little hike to Zapata Falls, a waterfall back inside of a cave. There was ice at the bottom of the falls that can stay there all year long!

The girls look forward to visiting the Great National Sand Dunes each time we go and visit Grandpa and Grandma Stoeber. As usual, we built a great sand castle from the wet sand by the river that runs along the bottom of the dunes.

We also went to Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah, with my sister Jill and her family. We went to the zoo in Idaho Falls, this summer, too. We love zoos! Emily keeps asking when we'll go to the zoo again.

That about wraps up most of the year for us. We hope everyone has had a great year and good luck in the new year!

Brace Yourselves...

So, since its the last day of January, and I've (yet again) made a goal to post at least once a month, I better do it today, otherwise I've started the year off on a bad note! Most of this post will be pictures, so you'll see what we've done through them.

To begin with, is Ryann. She will be nine months in two days. I can't believe how quickly she is growing and learning new skills. She is now crawling all over and is pulling herself up to everything. Ryann has been a big mommy's girl or daddy's girl since she was born. She rarely goes to other people. However, that is changing lately. She still is unsure when there are a lot of people around and usually wants either mom or dad. We were (pleasantly) surprised the other night, though. My mom came over to watch the girls while Mike and I went to the temple. When we got home, Ryann was very excited to see us, but after we had held her for a few minutes, she reached her arms out to Grandma! She wanted Grandma to hold her again! We are still working on sleeping through the night. Sometimes I think we've finally succeeded, and then wham-oh, she's up every two hours again! She just got her first tooth, though, so I think a lot of the waking through the night was because she was teething. Ryann still absolutely loves her sisters. Now that she is crawling, she'll crawl down the hall to their bedroom to go play with them. But as soon as she gets there, the girls shut their door (they know Ryann can't be in their room if they have toys on the floor--choking hazards). Poor Ryann! But the girls do play really well with her. They include her in their play a lot of the time. She is either the monster or the baby (usually the baby animal of whatever game they are playing). We are so glad to have Ryann in our family. She is such a joy to be around!

Ryann's first attempt with solids (baby cereal). She wasn't big on it. It took me a few weeks before she'd eat the stuff!

Ryann loves to jump. She definitely has frog legs. She likes to spend some time in her exersaucer. For me, it was a big relief, because this began the time where I didn't literally have to carry her with me every where I went! Yay for babies getting mobile!

Ryann's first Halloween. My sister lent us this giraffe costume.

One day after I'd put Ryann down for her nap, I peeked into her room to see she had scooted herself to the corner and was playing with an elephant toy (the kind where you pull the tail and music plays). It was really cute.

A good picture of Ryann's pretty blue eyes!

Ryann crawling.

Next is Emily. Emily will be turning four-years-old in February. She is such a character! She has a funny personality, but yet is very tender at the core. She likes to be held and coddled but also likes to be able to come and go as she pleases. She is also a movie/treats junkie...she could snack all day on "treats" and watch movies all day (if I let her, which I don't to her dislike!). Emily is already starting to sound out words-usually unsuccessfully, but at least she's trying. She is a smart little cookie! Bedtime routine for Emily is still drawn out. She will go to bed, but then she usually won't go to sleep until Mike and I do. Very frequently, we'll go into the room and find her bed literally over flowing with books and toys. No wonder she's so content to stay in bed! Emily has been great with a new sister, too. She loves to play with Ryann, especially when Brooke is in school. She loves to hear how big she is getting, too. Emily's personality complements Brooke's personality so well. They are great playmates!

This picture was taken this summer at one of Brooke's soccer games, but it shows Emily's personality. She is continually making funny faces and noises.

Emily was a witch for Halloween. She loved it (what kid wouldn't with all the candy she got!)

Emily is not a big fan of the snow. Frequently, she will wake up and look out the window and sigh, "There is still snow outside. When is it going to be summer?" Nine days out of ten, she will don herself in shorts and a t-shirt or a dress. She hates wearing pants. And if she HAS to wear pants, they have to be pretty pants or she won't wear them--regular blue jeans won't cut it. Her pants have to have "pretty" things on them, or be a pretty color. She also likes things to match. Definitely girl. This picture is of her wanting to go outside and play. I told her she needed a coat on. She even put a stocking cap and boots on. I guess I forgot to mention pants, because when I looked out the window, she was playing like this.

Brooke has really enjoyed first grade. She is excelling in her reading. She is such a big help around the house, especially with Ryann. Brooke is a very considerate person. When she gets candy at school, she brings some home to share with Emily. Whenever she goes to a friend's house, she lets Emily tag along. Brooke and Emily play really well together and it is nice to watch them interact. Yesterday at church, Emily ran into the door and got a big goose egg on her forehead. I was buckling Ryann into her car seat and looked over to where Brooke and Emily were waiting and Brooke leaned over and gave Emily a kiss on the forehead (to which Emily said, "Not there, here." She pointed to another spot on her forehead and Brooke leaned over and kissed that spot, too! What a nice big sister!

Brooke really wanted to be a mermaid for Halloween. Luckily we found a costume she really liked. She wanted her make-up done and wanted sparkly polish on her toe and finer nails.

Apparently, being a mermaid was the popular thing this year. In Brooke's class, two other girls were dressed like mermaids, too!

Brooke has stated to like playing dress-up (for the first five years of her life, it was nothing but playing one animal or another, so this is something new for us). She saved up money and bought her a chap stick set and every other Friday at school, they have treats and trinkety-things to buy and she usually will buy bracelets instead of candy. She got a couple of necklaces for Christmas and wears them almost every day.

Mike and the girls, along with my brother-in-law Josh and nephew Adam, went to Harriman State Park a couple of weeks ago and stayed in a yurt. They cross-country skied in and then stayed the night and came home the next day. Here are a couple of pictures to highlight their adventure!

That's all for now, folks! I need to spend some time with the kiddos! (and get dinner going and clean up the house and laundry and yada yada yada...hence the reason for few posts!). ;0)