Almost There!!!

Oh so CLOSE!!!  That silly little arm is still in the way.  I just had to post this, because I found it pretty cute she was waving hi to me at the end of the video:).

4 months!!

Wow, yesterday she turned 4 months already!!  This is definitely the fastest any of my kids have grown up to me.  I am really enjoying this stage, this time around.  Usually I am anxious for them to grow up and be on the move, but not this time.  She is the most perfect baby.  She rarely ever cries, she is always happy, she is full of smiles(just look at her and she will give you a grin), and she sleeps and eats like a champ.

She weighs a whopping 12 lbs!!!  I know, what a peanut.  She is ONLY 24 inches long which her new cousin Jacki was born at 22inches so Jacki will soon pass her up I am sure.  I really love this dress that she got from a good friend Mindy but it is just swimming on her.  I went ahead and took pictures in it anyways and hopefully when the cool months come I can find a little white sweater to go with it so she can wear this dress to the fullest.  And I got this cute flower for her hair from a good friend Stacy.  Oh and just for the record...she got 2 shots today and she still gave me smiles for her mini shoot:)!! What a miracle baby I have!!

Thank you Jesus for this very calm, sweet baby girl you gave to us!!  We are so VERY BLESSED!!

Niece #7

This past saturday we took a little drive to Ft. Wayne to see our newest little niece on my side.  Its hard to believe this makes 7 nieces for us and only 1 nephew on the Gutwein side(I'm the one who has all the boys:)!!

MEET  Jacki Loretta Huber.  She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz(just like Ellie), and was 22inches long!!  (thats long folks:).  I think she looks alot like her uncle Andrew Huber thru the eyes.  But I do think she has Joy's forehead.    We all had to take turns holding her of course.

 Caden was the first to jump up on the couch and hold her.  But this didnt surprise me, as he is the first to take notice to his sister too.

 Elijah was holding her, but she wasn't very happy in his arms sadly.

 This was as close as Liam got to holding her.

 Of course we then had Ellie do her "holding".  I just LOVE this picture.  Ellie thinks she is big stuff, and well....Jacki isn't sure she feels safe in her arms.  Oh they will be great friends.....only a little less than 4 months apart!!

 We are so happy for you Jason and Joy and Jayla.  You have a keeper and we are so thankful everything went well for joy and the delivery.  I just have to say she did great.  No epideral, got to the hospital and had her water broke.  She was 7 cm dialated and was NOT in PAIN!!!!  1 hour later she started having contractions and in 45 minutes Jacki was born.  AMAZING!!!  (we just love our delivering baby genes:))

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies??

So about a month ago, we went to visit Joy and Jason in Leo.  After done touring Gateway Woods, Nicole Weigand was so kind to share some wonderful cookies with us.  They were the normal mini sized cookies and were so yummy.  I asked her for her recipe and she informed me that this was what she followed PLUS added 2 T. of flax seed.  Yeah, now they were even healthier.  So today Elijah and I set out to make what we invisioned some mini chocolate chip cookies.

As we were making them we thought it interesting how small of an amount of dough sat in our bowl??  And it says it makes 48 mini cookies??  How was that ever going to happen with this tiny amount of dough??

When we got down to the final instructions of putting the dough on the cookie sheet we realized exactly why they could get 48 mini cookies out of it........

.....it called for 1/2 TEASPOON of dough per cookie.....huh???  1/2 TEASPOON???  Was I reading that correctly?  Never heard of such a thing.  I then noticed that this was a Weight Watchers recipe as well.  Which then made this all alot more funny.  Elijah and I were rolling in laughter as we kept throwing out funny comments over these tiny little morsels!!

"Don't choke on these!" "Don't eat it all in one bite!" " Be careful, you might only get one chip in each cookie", "OR maybe each cookie will just consist of one chip and no dough". "there are many mini chocolate chip cookies on this tray(48 in be exact).  Anyways, it got to be so funny I was almost in tears laughing so hard. 

 Yes, we actually used a 1/2 teaspoon to measure out the cookies.  It took a LONG time, when really we could have used a normal mini scoop cookie scoop and been done in 3 cookies:).

 Now tell me weight watcher fans out there......how in the world do you eat just ONE of these coookies??  One cookie = one point!!  Guess I just ate myself 4 points in cookies.

Yep, I even had to get out the quarter to show the size of them.  I think the recipe should say Barely There Chocolate Chip Cookies.

PS....they were so good.  Soft and yummy!  Next time I plan to triple the recipe and actually make mini chocolate chip cookies!  (They were NO WHERE near as good as Nicole Weigands though).  Gotta ask her what else she did to hers.

Ellie's and Elijah's Room

So when we moved into this house back in 2009 this was Liam's room that was already painted light blue and light yellow.  We left it and he continued to have this room until we knew of the arrival of our 4th child. (take note to the picture leaning against the wall on the floor..its blue and it had pictures of a horse and bear on it)

Before our 4th child arrived, we painted the room a neutral tan color and figured whatever the sex of the baby would determine the additional color we would add to this room. (yes I expected a boy and yes thats a blue sheet on the crib mattress).

At last,  we got our baby girl and so pink was quickly painted onto the walls:).  The next several pictures are of Ellie's room as it is today.  Im not sure what else, if anything, will be added yet.  Im pretty satisfied with it. (I did my very first DIY project and its that picture that was in the above photo with blue on it, that now sits in Ellie's room....its pink and now has flowers on it).

 These are just close ups, so it can be seen a bit better.

 Of course Elijah was very ready to move over to his very own room.  I had previously painted this gray and orange as the guest room.  I told Elijah he could have his own room, IF I didn't have to repaint it(since I loved the colors of it).  He gladly agree'd and made it his very own Basketball themed room.  It has turned out very nicely and he has made his bed everyday since!!:)  I was so thrilled to find this comforter that had gray and orange in it.  Very boyish looking for sure.

Now that we have everyone settled into their rooms, we are hopefully set for many years to come.

RAIN

Yesterday was a beautiful day of rainfall!  After a summer of nearly no rain, we were blessed with a cool day that rained off and on most of the day.  Here are several pictures of the boys playing in the rain yesterday evening.  They had so much fun.

Camping #2

This past weekend we had the privilege of using my parents camper once again.  Oh it was so much fun!!  We asked Lance and Erica to come with us and so the kids not only enjoyed having friends along, but us adults enjoyed the company too.  Here Liam is posing for us infront of our sites.  Decent sites, but not the best.  We went to France Park and we were a bit disappointed in the managment but did enjoy the things they had to do(minus putt putt).

 We went on trails and came to this waterfall.  Im sure it was pretty minimal to what it could be after a nice amount of rain.  Kids enjoyed throwing rocks into it and climbing on this ledge.

 We walked the trail that took us around the entire lake.  It was long and kids were tired!!  Here we are as a family with a neat little lake in the background.

                                                Open prairie = Run Wild

 Enjoying the lunch after the LONG hike.  Kids were ready to go swimming next.  Erica and I were talking how we felt like we just never sat down(except to gobble down lunch).

 Caden looking like a little stud!  Love this picture of him:)

 Time to go back to the camper.  I think the kids could have played longer, but we were ready to go.

 Landon and Elijah found themselves both riding Landon's bike at one point.  I think they both were having great fun.

Great time had by us all!!  We look forward to our next camping adventure.  Thanks Gutwein's for coming with us:)