Same Day.

Matt and Nate have been blessed with a great year at Same Day. They continue to grow and do well! It has truly been such a gift that we are so thankful for! Matt loves what he does and because he works so hard, I get to stay home and do what I love! I am very proud of him and we are blessed!!

They just did a rebranding of Same Day Delivery and the new design looks great! He stopped home with a truck the other day, so I snapped a few pictures!

Old Look...

New Look...

Lauren's Soccer...

My niece Lauren played soccer this fall and did great! Her team was undefeated! It was fun to watch her games and cheer her on! My girls adore Lauren. She's a great big cousin! She has a sweet heart, is so loving, kind and beautiful!! Lauren we are so proud of you!!! :)

17 Months...

"I know, I don't know, who is that?, what is it?, where Shae Shae?, Where Ro Ro?, Hey Turtle,ABCD, Mom, this, that, yes, no, books, hi, buh bye, M, S, L, A, E " are just a few of the common sayings, words and letters that fill my days thanks to McLleyton!

He is talking... and talking some more! He really never stops now ... unless he's running away, climbing or filling the toilet with random objects :). I am amazed at all the new words he is now learning each day. He's staring to put words together on a more regular basis and can now really communicate a lot of different thoughts pretty well. It's fun to see!!

Shaelyn has been learning how to spell and read a bit for school and Monreau has been working on learning her letters, so on a regular basis we are talking about letters and it seems that McLleyton is picking them up. When ever he picks up a book he'll point to the title and start telling me different letter names. He obviously isn't' linking the actual letter with it's name, but it's amazing to see all the different ones he is retaining! I now sit him down next to Monreau when we do flash cards because he thinks it's fun to call out letter names :). Maybe I can teach 2 at once and be done :).

How blessed I am to have this sweet boy!!

Off to find trouble :)...

Chicago Trip...

This past weekend we took the kids to Chicago! We left Saturday morning and came home Sunday night. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun! The kids (while the girls :)) loved all the new experiences and really enjoyed it! McLleyton did well. He wasn't a big fan of the long car rides and didn't take the good naps I had hoped he would, but he was pretty good!

The adventure of all sleeping in a hotel room was fun! We got a suite so we did have two rooms with a door in between, which was very helpful! McLleyton thought it was very funny that he could stand up and look at his sisters! We ended up having to take him into our room in the middle of the night, because he continually would just stand up and call "Ro Ro, Shae Shae" over and over again!

On Sunday, we spent the day at the Shedd Aquarium. McLleyton definitely enjoyed seeing all the turtles and the girls enjoyed being back again and remembering different things from when we went last spring.

I love watching them learn through new experiences ... it makes all the work worth it :).

Ready for bed...

I made them little surprise baskets for the morning ...a little extra motivation to obey and go right to bed ... and a few things to occupy them when they woke up extra early!
Monreau at the hotel breakfast buffet...
Check out what McLleyton got to try (only when you're third born and go on vacation!)
Day at the Shedd (McLleyton did not want to take this picture!)



Love this picture...
Matt and the girls at the dolphin show...
He loved the turtles!

Turtles...

Last spring we had a pet turtle for a few weeks. It was one of McLleyton's first words and he was in love with the turtle! We eventually let the turtle go (and enjoy his well earned freedom!), but McLleyton's LOVE for turtles has not faded. He talks about turtles, "reads" about turtle and probably dreams about turtles! He knows every book in our house that has a picture of a turtle in it. He will randomly talk about them all day long!

So, we thought it would be fun to take the kids to Chicago this weekend and go to the Shedd Aquarium and see some turtles!! :)

Here's a quick clip of McLleyton watching a turtle on youtube!

Tooth #2..

I promise I won't do an update when Shaelyn looses her 11th tooth, but when it's your second tooth it's still a big deal! :)

She came running upstairs from playing in her room with Monreau and had a huge, goofy smile on her face. She walked right up to me and immediately I noticed and she held up her little tooth! She then turned to show McLleyton and said "look buddy you're getting new teeth and mine are falling out." :) How quickly you go from one phase to the next!

I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures right after it fell out. She was so excited and immediately tried calling all her cousins, aunts, grandparents (non of who answered :)) that she had lost her second tooth! I just keep praying that her new ones will be MUCH stronger than her weak baby teeth!! When she's smiles I'm still amazed at how grown up she looks!!

For those of you who know Matt, you know he does a motion with his hands when he's excited... in this picture you can see that Shae has one of her own! It makes me laugh :)

Halloween Take 1 & 2

We had our fill of Halloween fun this year! We did two different nights of it! A church right by our house puts on a very impressive night! They do "trunk or treat" where each car is a different theme and passes out candy! The kids get way to much candy in a very short time :). They also have jumpers, dinner, music... it's a lot of fun! For this night Shaelyn was a USA cheerleader, McLleyton was a monkey and Monreau came up with her very own idea! She decided to be a "bath time/bed time girl". She wore her pajamas, slippers, her "Monreau" robe and curlers in her hair. I'll admit I suggest the curlers and I had the set of curlers I used to wear growing up to use :). They are VERY old school :). She was positively adorable and she got A LOT of compliments on her creativity!

On Halloween we went trick or treating in our neighborhood and stopped by a friends. It was fun because Matt's parents, his sister Emily & boyfriend and my brother John & Kelly all came over and went trick or treating with us! Shaelyn was Little Bo Peep, Monreau was Minny Mouse and McLleyton stuck with his warm Monkey costume!

All three had so much fun and I'm pretty sure this went down as one of McLleyton's favorite nights ever! He loved it! Loved walking around. Loved saying "trick or treat" (which he had down pretty well by the end of the night :)). He loved all the people and he really loved all the suckers :).

Halloween Take 1.... Trunk or Treat night

We are so blessed to have these 3 :)
Got to love his smile!
A cute family picture (a rare, fun thing :))

Showing off her fun curls after taking out the curlers...
Halloween take 2...

How much fun to have your cousin & best friends right next door!

This is a sweet picture of them!

Left to Right...McLleyton, Shaelyn, Lauren, Jacob, Monreau & Sophia

My cute Minni Mouse... I think she's thinking "really mom another picture... I'm missing out"
McLleyton LOVED it!
I love how this picture shows that there were more adults than kids :)
I love this picture! Shaelyn had ran ahead of her brother and sister, but than decided to wait for them to walk up to the door. Shaelyn has such a kind, thoughtful heart!

One last house...
Fun Picture with Aunt Emy, her boyfriend Matt, Grandpa and Grandma