Photo shoot

I know I am way behind on the blog so here is a photo shoot we had taken back at the end of April. I will be posting more tonight as soon as my camera is charged. Also there will be little text and mostly pictures because I am so far behind but everyone mostly looks at the pictures anyways!!

 Brooke with cousin Ashley's hugh rabbit!

 Brooke losing it!

 Kate wasn't feeling well that day and you can totally tell in the pictures...not a lot of happy faces!

 Natalie is so beautiful!!

 No more baby face for Kate... just a very pretty little girl!

The camera just eats Brooke up...she is so dang cute!

before and afters

 This is what the rooms looked like before I started. Tan ceilings, tan closets, tan, tan and more tan!

 This is Brooke's room. I went with grey walls, black, white and light pink decor and I love the way it turned out. The part I hated the most was painting the ceiling and the closets....blah!

 As for Katelyn and Natalie's room....I wanted to go away from the purple and the pink because the girls are getting older. The only thing is I just bought their bedding a couple of years ago and it was expensive so I wasn't about to buy new stuff. Instead I just played up the green. The girls the love new room and they love that they get to have the love sac in there. The only thing that is missing is a desk and I will be driving to Portland at the end of this month to pick it up.

This wall is called the "firework wall". Natalie told me that she loves to go to bed and watch the firework show in her room. I love how they turned out and I am so glad I am finished with them. Next month the master bedroom!!!

Brooke's 1st b-day

 Brooke turned 1!!!!! We did a small party and it was about a week and a half late. With Paul traveling for work holidays and birthdays don't always get celebrated on those days. Also we had a lot going on this last month so we decided that it was just us and a really simple party.

 Natalie wanted Brooke to wear the hat so bad but she wanted nothing to do with it. She wouldn't even leave it on for a second so I had Natalie hold the hat above her head. Even with that I got only this one picture.

 This girl loved her cake. She dove right in and didn't stop until she was covered in it.....she also managed to cover the floor, some of the walls and her chair was a disaster.

 She loves her baths. She is such a fun baby and I am loving every min with her. I just can't believe that my baby is one!!

Grandpa and Grandma Sherry's birthday

 Grandpa and Grandma turn 60 and 61. We took them out to eat and then back to my house for cake and presents. I think it doesn't matter how old the grandchildren are the want to help open any gift. Don't worry Grandpa didn't get diapers...haha! Grandpa loved his biker vest and Grandma loved all the magnets for the fridge with all the grandkids pictures. It was a great day and I loved getting together with family.

Grandpa Martin

 Grandpa

 Grandma and Grandpa's wedding day

Today was the funeral service for Paul's grandpa. He past away on the 24th and has been missed every second he has been gone. Family is very important to the Martin's and Grandpa was a big presence in the family. He had a special place in my heart because he always treated me like one of his own grand kids. The service was nice but small. The family was commenting on how big grandma's service was 20 years ago and that grandpa had out lived most of their friends and a lot of their extended family. For the most part it wasn't a sad day more like a celebration of his life. Paul got the honor of being one of the pallbearers along with the other grandsons. At the graveside service when the Pasteur was done each of the pallbearers placed a rose on the casket. That was the moment I lost it; it was a very heartfelt moment and made it real for me that grandpa was gone. We got to see him about a week and a half before he past and he seemed at peace and ready to go. He was 92 when he died. The first Christmas I was married to Paul grandpa gave me grandma's pearl necklace and bracelet for a gift. I wore those today and I am so glad that I have something to remind me of Paul's grandparents. Grandpa will be missed but I am sure he is happy to finally be next to his wife again.

Grandpa and grandma loved to travel

oh Christmas tree....

 The girls running around looking for the perfect tree.

 I let the girls decorate the tree and I didn't even "fix" it when they were finished. So I am learning to let go and my husband when say that it is about time too. haha

What a pretty tree and they got it all done while Brooke was taking her nap so there was no one ripping anything off.

Oh the things we learn at school. Trust me I didn't teach them this...weirdos!

Working for retirement

So Paul and I have been talking about our retirement the last few years and what it is we want to do when we retire. As you can gather from the picture we would like to buy a sailboat and learn to sail so we can travel by boat around the world. The reason for posting about this now is that we have to take some steps to make this dream a reality. So this Christmas we have toned it down a lot from the past years when it comes to the presents. I had a goal to only buy the girls 4 gifts a piece and I came really close. Also Paul and I have decided to not buy presents for each other. But with this being our first year of doing this we cheated and bought 1 small gift for each other (I am talking under $30). The amazing thing about this is that Christmas really doesn't feel any different. We are still making the treats, seeing the Christmas lights and all the other fun activities that we have done in years past. I am glad to know that our Christmas spirit hasn't changed with limited amount of money that we are willing to spend this year.
Well cutting back on Christmas is only one small step. We have cut back on our living expenses, limiting all the extras. We will not be buying a new car anytime soon, we shop with a grocery list (it is amazing the difference in the price when you shop with a list rather then just going through and buying whatever looks good!) and we are looking into some investments that will help secure our future. There are times when this is hard and I want to buy things that aren't on sale or name brand things but I need to force myself to keep thinking about our future. Don't get me wrong this is something that we have been talking about for years but haven't really started doing until this last year. Also I love being able to stay home with Brooke but I have decided that the sooner I get back to work the better for our retirement and the sooner we can retire. So I will be looking for something that I can do and still have Brooke with me. Once Brooke starts school then I will get back into the work force full time. I know there will be sacrifices that will be hard for me but it will be well worth it to have years of Paul and I just enjoying our time together. I will also love the freedom of going to see my kids and their families and not worry about taking time off work. This is our current plan for our future and I am hoping with the steps that we have taken so far and the steps we are going to take that our dreams do indeed be come our realities.

The little nugget....

 My Brooke is such a happy, busy and full of fun baby. We had her 9 month dr. appointment and she was 95% in height and 90% in weight...so she is healthy!

 She loves blankets and pillows. For fun I cover the living room floor with blankets and pillows and put Brooke in the middle of it. Every time I do this she gets the biggest smile on her face and just rolls around wrapping and unwrapping herself in the blankets.

 We have started eating as a family now. Depending on the meal of course Brooke is now eating real food. She loves it and it is helping her sleep through the night.
 I know this isn't probably very good for her but this is how Brooke watches TV when she really likes what is on. She loves Super Why on PBS and will stand like this for the full half hour. I have tried to sit with her on the floor but she won't have anything to do with that. Oh well.

Right now Brooke is crawling all over and is getting ready to start walking. The last couple of days she has started to stand up from a sitting position all by herself. We only understand a couple of her words but she loves to talk and she jibber jabbers all the time. She loves to follow her sisters around and gets really mad when they close their doors so she can't get in their rooms. At the same time Natalie tends to treat Brooke like her baby and that she knows what is best for. I do love that Natalie is so involved with Brooke that it is very helpful to me at times. Katelyn just loves to play with her and get her going. Brooke will scream and then Kate will scream and Brooke sees this as a game and keeps screaming and Kate would not be Kate if she didn't keep yelling back. This could happen at any time in the day. We love this little nugget and are so glad that she is a member of our family.

School pictures

 These are the girl's school pictures and for some reason I can't get Kate's picture to rotate the right way. Its not in this position on my camera but it turns it this way when I upload it....oh well. I think they turned out OK. I told Natalie that she doesn't have her glasses on and she told me that's OK mom I will have lots of pictures with glasses on. haha Yes you will....at least until you can get contacts. Kate's hair is a little bit of a disaster but I didn't expect anything less. She is such a ball of energy that I am sure when she gets around her friends they just run all over. We have our parent teacher conferences next week and I am excited to see how the girls are doing.

Ready for earrings

 Natalie was so excited to get her ears pierced that she jumped in the chair and never once looked at me with a look of being nervous. She wanted to get Hello Kitty earrings but I wasn't set on having those for six weeks so she got blue balls instead. I told her after the six weeks is up and she can change out her earrings then we will come back and get a pair of Hello Kitty ones.

We went will Natalie's cousin Taylor but she got scared and didn't get hers done. We tried to have Natalie go first and I told Natalie that she needed to be brave to make it easier for Taylor but it didn't work....Taylor just wasn't ready. I went up to Natalie after it was done and I asked her if she was OK and her reply was funny. She said "Mom I wanted to cry a little bit but I didn't, I just sucked it up." Then later she told me that it was that bad and didn't hardly hurt at all. No drama with this kid...yet!

The witch, the cat and the pumpkin....

 We had a great Halloween this year. Natalie wanted to be a scary witch and wanted the makeup for it. I gave it my best try and she seemed to be pleased with it (even though it looks nothing like witch makeup). Katelyn wanted to be Natalie's black cat so naturally Brooke was a pumpkin.

 The girls were so excited to get going that they took off and I couldn't keep up and take pictures at the same time. haha

 This is the girls entering a haunted house that was just up the street from us. The house that put it on went all out on decorating their yard and trying to make this fun for our neighborhood. As the kids go through they are suppose to say chicken out loud so the people inside the haunted house won't jump out and scare the kids. Well when Paul took our kids in there was a mix up and a bunch of people got clumped together. Some were older kids that wanted to be scared and some were younger that didn't. So they ended up scaring the whole group. When ever someone would jump out and scare Natalie she would yell in their face "STOP SCARING ME!". Katelyn of course did pretty good but lost it at the end and came out crying.

Brooke and I only went to a couple houses and then headed home to hand out candy. It was pretty chilly out so I was happy to go home. Brooke loved crawling to the front door every time the bell rang. She would just sit at the door at look at the people in their costumes.