Happy Birthday Harper!!

Our sweet little niece Harper turned 1 today!  She sure has grown a lot in the past year!

We love Harpityhoo and it has been so fun watching her and Greta interact more and more the bigger they get.  Harper started crawling now too so her and Greta can now get into trouble together:).

Souvenirs

My dad and Joyce got home a bit ago from a trip to the Netherlands and Paris and brought home some souvenirs for the kids.  I thought it'd be goot to document some of this type of stuff so that the kids some day will know where these items came from.  Her dress is from Paris and the little Dutch kids are obviously from the Netherlands:).  They each got little Eiffle Tower keychains and Greta got a little Holland bear (the shirt the bear is wearing looks similar to Gibs').  I thought they looked pretty cute in their new clothes:).

Couldn't Resist

I found a few Disney costumes the other day for 90% off so I couldn't resist.

 

Layla loved hers and then wanted Greta to wear a Minnie costume too (Greta was borrowing it from Maddy when I had thought of having her be Minnie for Halloween).

 Woody and Minnie!

 And although I sold almost all of Elv's costumes at the garage sale last year (sorry, but now that we have kids, our dog doesn't really need a new costume every year.  Sorry Elv), I couldn't resist this one since it was so cheap...

Late Summer Pics

We did family pictures with my side of the family in early September.  Again, You By Julie did a great job:). 

 

Hopefully you can tell by who is in each family based on their shirt color:).  We almost had an issue with two families wearing the same color, that would have been a bit confusing:). 

 

 Worked out well that Greta had just turned 9 months, so we quick snuck a few "9 month" pics in...

  

 Not the greatest, but it'll work as our Christmas card pic this year...

And one of Grampy and Gigi...

Summer Pics

You By Julie also did a great job on these pics!  These were for Greta and Harper's 6 month pics (Layla had just turned 4, Gibs was almost 2 1/2 and Gavin was almost 5).

Spring Pics

I never post the kids professional pics, so I thought I'd so that now.  Better late than never, right? :)

You By Julie always does a great job!!  These are Greta's 4 month, Gibs' 2 year and Layla's 4 year.

November Randoms

 

I think it's cute now, as Greta gets older, to see her play with the big kids.  It's cute to see how she plays with Gibs vs how she plays with Layla.  Gibs and her like to play kitchen together whereas Layla would more often play nursery or something and Layla then pretends that Greta is a baby in the nursery that day (and Layla is the helper or checker).  When Gibs plays with Greta, he doesn't play that she's the "baby", he plays with her like she's a playmate.

 

Gibs, Greta, Gavin and Layla playing with their Mickey/Minnie/Goofy cars the other day...

 My dad makes around 50 boxes each year for Samaritan's Purse's Operation Christmas Child so he has quite the set up of toys in a section of their storage room for making boxes.  The kids like to help make the boxes (and they notice every time he goes in there since the storage room is right off of our current family room).  It's a good way for them to learn about giving to others, although they definitely at times get distracted and are more interested in playing with the toys. :)

 This puzzle is an example of one of the gifts from his toy collection...Layla loves puzzles!

 Greta thinks she is big stuff playing with the train table with Gibs...(Layla likes it sometimes, but not nearly as much as Gibs does)

 Greta also thinks she's big stuff riding on this little car.  She just learned to get on it herself.   She also just started saying "uh-oh" and "amen" after we pray which I find so cute:). 

 Sisters!!