My baby is 1!

Emily (or Emy as we often call her) turned one on November 24, 2013!  I know I always said Jacob was a dream baby (and he was), but Emily has him beat.  That may be hard for you to believe if you knew Jacob (...or maybe his 3's are just clouding my memories).  Emily is so content to just go with the flow.  I suppose, as the 4th, she has no other choice.  She is so sweet and full of cute faces!  She sleeps well and is quite the charmer.  We all love her more than anything.  Here are some pictures from her big day!  We'll keep her!  

 

Family Pictures November 2013

A huge thanks to my neighbor, Stacy Ward for taking our family pictures this year and catering to David's schedule!  One of my absolute favorite things are pictures of my kids!  As you can see, I have a hard time narrowing them down.  

EMILY!

JACOB!

KATE!

BEN!

GROUP SHOTS!

Ben turns 9!

Ben had a great 9th birthday celebration (11/14/13).  It was a BUSY few days.  Ben's birthday was on a Thursday.  He requested muffins and scrambled eggs for breakfast before he headed off to school.  That night we had dinner at Red Robin and opened a few presents.

There was no school on Friday so we decided to plan a party for Ben that day.  David took the day off to help me.  (As if birthday parties aren't stressful enough, we crammed in another stressful event that morning...family pictures!  It wasn't ideal, but you do what you have to do when you know Dad will actually be home.)  We gave in to Ben's longtime request for a laser tag Red zone birthday party.  The kids had a great time and it made things doable for me.

Ben is a great kid!  I am so thankful for him.  He continues to be an amazing helper to me in what has been one of my busiest and most stressful years.  He and Kate fight as most siblings do, but Jacob and Emily continue to do no wrong in Ben's eyes.  He has naturally stepped into the role of man of the house when David is gone.  Without being asked he gathers the trash and recycling, picks up the little kids toys nightly, reads bedtime stories to everyone and gathers everyone for nightly scripture study and prayer.  I don't think he realizes how much his help means to me.  He is a good friend, is sensitive to others, does well in school and loves sports.  (And I love watching him play those sports).  He is good company!      

On Saturday (16th), David and I flew to Idaho Falls for one of David's job interviews.  It took a lot of planning, but somehow it all worked out!  We are SO thankful to Alison and Steve Christian for watching the oldest 3 kids for us for 4 days so that I could go with David.

Halloween 2013

Dennis Pitta (Ben), Ariel (Kate), a spider (Jacob) and a shark (Emily) joined us for Halloween.  Ben had his Pitta costume planned for months.  He was clever enough to realize that he would have a better chance of convincing us to buy him a new Ravens jersey for Baltimore's purple Fridays if it also doubled as his Halloween costume.  Dad gave in.  Kate wanted to be a Disney Princess and figured it would be fun to have red hair for a day, despite my attempts to convince her that it would look more real if she picked a blond princess.  I did however convince her that she did not need to wear real sea shells or tape her legs together.  Jacob and Emily were easy to please.....you may or may not recognize their recycled Behrmann Halloween costumes!  The Halloween festivities began with Jacob's preschool Halloween party.  Emily and I joined him.  Sometimes its fun to be with just these two...Jacob adores his little sister!

I couldn't have planned for Emily to act like a better shark.  The preschool kids thought she was so funny biting her stroller the entire time!  

Next we ventured to the ward Halloween party.  It was much more relaxing this year, given I wasn't in charge and 8 months pregnant!  

Last, but not least the kids enjoyed every second of trick or treating.