Good bye 2012 and Hello 2013

We all ate our Black-eyed peas for good luck in 2013.  The girls are NOT fans at all! (Emma looks like a little Indian in the picture, but it really was a Happy New Years hat!) ;)

Welcome Emma Kay!

The biggest event which helped bring 2012 to an end was the welcoming of Emma Kay into our family of 4. She made a grand entrance by weighing 9 lb 9 oz.  It was a tough delivery, but she is here and healthy which makes it all so worth it!  Many of you knew all of my issues during this pregnancy.  I am so happy to share that ALL of that quickly disappeared as soon as she was born.  Some people LOVE being pregnant and have this special, beautiful glow….(ummmm….that would DEFINITELY not be me!)

The girls are adjusting better than expected to Emma. They are extremely gentle with her and love to just watch her sleep.  Hanna is into pointing to all of her body parts and saying them.  Both Mya and Hanna have really enjoyed playing “mommy” with their dolls and helping me and Heikki take care of Emma.

Of course Emma spends most of her days sleeping and eating, but she is sleeping a lot at night too.  Now that we figured (or think we figured) that she doesn’t do well with dairy, her nights are getting even a little better and a little less chaotic!

She has had a few outings this month.  She visited Santa, drove around and slept through Christmas light looking, Omi and Pops house, cousins Morgan and Austin’s house, few restaurants, and a little bit of Christmas shopping.  (**Now that I really think about it, she slept through all of these outings!)

Another fun event that wrapped up 2012 for us, was that Hanna turned 2! We chose to not have a big party for her due to Emma’s arrival, but all in all that was probably a good thing due to Hanna being sick on her birthday.  Omi and Pops came over to help celebrate by bringing gifts and having some pizza. (And we did take her to the Grapevine Polar Express…guess we are bad parents doing that, however Dr said she wasn’t contagious, and this little girl is a trooper when she is not 100%…so we thought, why not!) ;) Hopefully her next bday she will be feeling great and we won’t be welcoming another baby and she can have a very memorable 3rd bday!

Christmas Time!

After Hanna’s bday we focused on Christmas! We started the month off by having a visit from “Purple” the Elf. Mya was WAY into him this year, so we threw in some better hiding spots than last year. 

Another fun Christmas tradition that we started last year is we read a Christmas book each night before bed.  Heikki and I wrapped 25 books and the girls would take turns opening the books.  They enjoyed this nightly event a lot. 

A new tradition that we started this year is that we took the girls shopping for a child less fortunate.  This worked out a LOT better than expected.  I thought FOR SURE Hanna (being 2) would not understand that she got to pick out a toy and would have to put it in a box and never see it again!  But they both did great!

Christmas Eve was just as exciting as all the years in the past!  The whole family (the girls, Heikki and I, Brent and Leslie, and Morgan and Austin) all went to Omi and Pops for dinner, games, drinks, presents, and Dad’s remake of Twas the Night Before Christmas (Dad takes all the memorable events of the year and puts them into the “tune” of Twas the Night Before Christmas….an event that I look forward to every year!) And right before his reading he always makes everyone a Brandy Ice. (I ordered a double this year!)

Another tradition that I look forward to is mom and dad come up with a new game each year.  This year was “Let’s Make a Deal”.  Super fun times!

 

And of course, what’s Christmas Eve without a family pic! As the family grows it gets a little harder and harder to get everyone smiling and looking in the right direction, but we sure gave it a go!

The girls enjoyed a white Christmas this year!

We ended 2012 by going to a New Year’s Eve party.  (This was with the 3 kids and let me throw in the big girls had no nap during the day).  Therefore, we did not make it to 2013, but we had fun while we were there!

We’re looking forward to see what month 2 has in store for Emma Kay! And what 2013 has in store for the whole family!

**Had to end the blog with this picture of Hanna.  She is into everything right now….including CHOCOLATE:

She climbed with a stool to the pan that I had made for our New Years Eve party.  Sneaky little girl!! **Note to self: move all desserts away from stove!

Wishing everyone a very happy and healthy 2013!