Year Wrap Up

In between visiting with all of Jake's siblings out at the farm who have come from out of state for the holiday we've been doing a lot of this. It is what I call a cuddle puddle. Basically you get lots of blankets and pillows and throw them on the floor in front of the tv and watch movies. The kids have been recovering from colds, Kate from a double ear infection, and just the run around from all the time away from home and holidays and well we are still recovering from the move in general. So a cuddle puddle has been on our family room floor for days on end.

And yes, that baby's is even fatter than the last time you saw her. Every time I get her up from a nap she seems to have added a few ounces to her cheeks. She had a well check apt last week and was just under 15 lbs. Then eight days later we went for this cold. She was over 15 1/2 lb. 1/2 a week. That is a lot of chub.
This is my sweet M getting some medicine to get over her bronchitis. She is suppose to do this 10 minutes four times a day, and she has only screamed once about it, and that was mostly because she wanted to go to sleep and she couldn't get the thumb she likes to suck on in her mouth because the mask was in the way. Speaking of thumb, she is also now sleeping on a special pillow to help shape her head correctly because she is always sucking that same left thumb all night long. Marianne sure has more little silly health things than any other baby. Jaundice, sugars,not passing her hearing test, strep, ear infections, strep again, more ear infections, and now flat head therapy and a nebulizer. Some how she is still the best eater, best sleeper and happiest one of the crew.
Yesterday was New Year's Eve.

I'm old and not any fun anymore because I figured our plans were the night were putting the kids down and going to bed ourselves. Jake felt some celebration was in order, so he rounded up ice cream, lots of fun toppings and some party whistles for the kids while I got them ready for bed. We did our countdown at 8:00 pm. Kate thought it was awesome though she totally did not understand what it was for. She had us do the count down like ten times because she liked blowing the whistle when we finished counting. We talked about resolutions. Her 1st resolution was to eat ice cream on her birthday. Hmmm. Try again. She decided it was to get a bigger bike. We helped her make that into learn to ride a bike without training wheels. Of course Jake and I discussed more serious resolutions for ourselves and family over the ice cream covered in sprinkles.
M liked sucking on her party whistle and starred at the ice cream like it was for her.
Kate kept getting more ice cream and decorating it.
Happy New Year Sammy! He was asleep even before our early count down, but in the morning Kate showed him his party whistle and he shouted "happy birthday".

What an eventful year it has been for the Freeman Family.

We started the year with two kids living in Heber, UT and ended it with three kids living in Clovis, CA. With a very difficult pregnancy, and a stressful move it has been a long year. Of course we are very blessed to have spent so much time with our awesome kids. This year the saying "the days are long, but the years are short" seems very accurate. The days of being pregnant and caring for a newborn at the same time packing a house and moving were long days. But the year went by too fast. I keep telling those kids "No Growing Up" but they never listen.

We are looking forward to what 2012 has to offer us. So much will be new and we can't wait to share all the new experiences with our little family.