Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Christmas fun!

We had a busy but very fun Christmas with lots of time spent with family. We also were able to ride on the Lodi Firetruck around town as it took Santa to see lots of local kiddos! What fun!

Christmas 2011 and Firetruck ride

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Thursday, June 16, 2011

May 2011 Family Photos

Thought we'd share these with you all! There isn't an individual one of Lorelei because she has already had her 4 year and in about three months she'll have her 5 year photo! It was perfect timing for Ellie's 6 month and Charlotte's 3 year photo in May!

Family photos May 2011

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7 month old Ellie!

Here are some (or a LOT) of photos of our 16 pound 5 oz, 7 month old bundle of smiles: Ellie Kate! She is learning to clap, loves to eat mashed peas, pumpkin, squash and cheerios, plays peek-a-boo and has started babbling "ma-ma-ma" when she wants me or to eat! She is so much fun!

Ellie Kate 7 months


Ellie 7 months old


Ellie shy of 7 months

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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

A (White) Memorial Day Weekend to remember!

We spent Memorial Day weekend up in Tahoe (Incline Village) and stayed with my parents at a time-share condo there. It was beautiful and SNOWING! Who would have thought that a Holiday weekend known for water sports and summer-kick-off BBQ's would be dominated by massive snow flakes and freezing temperatures this year! It was even darn cold in the valley! Oh well...we had a blast anyway. And more importantly it was Charlotte's Third Birthday weekend as well! We celebrated with both sides of our family the week before as well. Is it really true that our little Charlotte is now three? When did that happen? She went from my baby to another one of my "big girls" overnight! *sniff, sniff* Since the weather was so un-summerish, we hunkered down in the condo for a few days of game playing, yummy food, drinks and naps whenever we wanted! The girls had a blast playing on the stairs in the condo and Ellie was her usual easy-going self (except for the fact that she has to have me in view at ALL TIMES!) We ventured out several times for meals and some shopping but we mostly hung out and it was wonderful. Not having the chores from home staring you in the face is quite liberating! Charlotte's Birthday (our second day there) was low-key and nice. She helped Grandma frost her cake and we all had fun playing with her new toys. She was one happy camper! It does not take a whole lot to please this little gal! We even fit in some time for a snow ball fight (the girls ate their snow balls) and some mini snowman building! What an unexpected treat for Memorial Day weekend!

Memorial Day weekend 2011 in Tahoe


Charlotte's 3rd B-Day

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Monday, May 9, 2011

The best Mother's Day Ever!

What could be better than spending Mother's Day with the little beauties who gave me that title and the guy who made my "Mommy dreams" come true. San Francisco with our little family was a blast! We had lunch in North Beach with my college roommate Brandie (AKA: Auntie Brandie); drove over to the Marina District then had some fun at Crissy Field; took a drive through the Presidio; checked out Golden Gate Park; hit the beach at Ocean Beach on the Pacific and explored the Palace of Fine Arts! The day was topped off with a kid-friendly meal at the Rainforest Cafe at Fisherman's Warf! What awesome memories from this day. I love you girls and thanks so much Matt!

Mother's Day San Fran 2011

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Thursday, May 5, 2011

iPhone protege!

Lorelei giving Ellie an iPhone lesson

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A special day at Preschool...

Officer (Uncle) Kyle comes to Preschool!

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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

A lot of fun with a box

Fort with the girls, May 4, 2011

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More photos of the "big sisters" and Ellie Kate sitting at the beginning of May!

big girls beginnin of May 2011 and Ellie sitting

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Monday, May 2, 2011

Ellie's playdates!

We have two close family friends who have little baby boys that are around Ellie's age: Cruz Espinosa is 2 weeks younger than Ellie and Travis Harbin is 8 weeks older. Here are some photos of Ellie enjoying some time with each of her little buddies this weekend as well as some adorable photos of our big girls playing too!

Ellie and Cruz 6 months, May 1, 2011
Ellie playing with Travis...6 months old, April 31 2011

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Easter-palooza!

We had a wonderfully busy Easter weekend! Ellie enjoyed her "first Easter" and the girls loved everything about it! The bunny didn't even scare them this year! We had a great weekend of family and friends and the rain even held out so that we could do some Easter-egg hunts! Fun, fun, fun!

Easter, April 24, 2011, Ellie almost 6 months


Easter MORE 2011

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Friday, April 22, 2011

Ellie is "sittin' pretty"!

Well, Ellie beat the clock and decided that she would sit by herself before her 6 month birthday! She does pretty darn well considering how much cloth diaper fluff she is trying to balance upon! She topples over every few minutes which is both sad and hilarious all at the same time...she never seems to mind it. Instead she just grins and uses the opportunity of lying prone to soak up a new view of the room and to just"chill". She is such an easy going little girl! And boy oh boy does she look like her Daddy in these photos!

Uncle Kyle stopped by today while on duty. He was working our "beat" this shift and came by for the girls to play with his cool police car and all of the noisy buttons! We love you Uncle Kaka!

The big girls are in pre-Easter-excitement mode and are looking forward to a weekend filled with egg hunts, family and wonderful food...and one of our favorite things about Easter weekend: Fr. Kelly's song and guitar playing during the Homily on Sunday. We'll be sure to post photos and updates after the craziness of the weekend subsides. We hope you all have a joyous and blessed Easter weekend.

April pre-easter 2011

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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Dirt is always better than good clean fun!

I think that these photos will explain themselves...the big girls had a blast tonight playing in Daddy's freshly tilled dirt in the backyard! First they were digging with shovels, then their shoes came off and the next thing we knew they were diving in the dirt! What fun! And what a lot of work for Mommy at bathtime!

Dirt play mid april 2011

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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Mid-April sunny weather!

There was finally a break in the rain over the last week so we were able to spend some much needed time outside with the kids! The walls were closing in on them so to have some time to stretch their legs outside was GREAT! Ellie Kate enjoyed some time in the sun and her first feel of grass and Daddy tackled the "ivy sticks" in our front yard (dead birch trees with ivy covering them) and yanked them out with the family tractor. Everything is more fun with a tractor, right? With the help of Grandpa Chad, Uncle Kyle and our neighbors, the four trees were chopped up and hauled to the backyard for future firewood in NO time! Thanks guys! The girls sure enjoyed watching Daddy work on the tractor and loved climbing on it while it was parked in front of our house. We spent some fun times with our friends the Morenos and Daddy and his buddy Mando hauled 5 yards of compost to our back yard...the start of changing our back yard from a barren waste-land to a green escape (hopefully). (Mommy and Chrissy escaped during the dirt work for a shopping trip!) We know the backyard-makeover process will take some time but it was nice to get a start on it! Ellie is now five and a half months and is growing and changing by leaps and bounds! She cut her first bottom tooth the other day and is working hard to get the second one through. Soon she'll be sitting on her own! Spring is in the air and Easter is right around the corner! Where is 2011 going??

Mid April 2011

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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Ellie Collage at 5 months!

5 month Ellie collage

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Friday, April 1, 2011

More Baptism Photos from talented Larry!

Ellie Baptism Larry photos

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Ellie's Baptism!

Ellie Kate Baker was welcomed into the Catholic Church this past weekend! Here are photos of her special day and all of the wonderful friends and family who were there to be a part of it. Auntie Alice and Uncle Brad are her adoring Godparents. Lucky little girl.

Ellie's Baptism March 26th 2011

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Our little Ellie Kate is 5 months old today!

Time goes by so quickly. Ellie is FIVE months today. Wow. We love her to pieces and each day she shows us more of her sweet little personality. Here are some photos of her and her sisters over the last week and on the day she turned 5 months old!

Late March 2011 Ellie 5 months!

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Sunday, March 27, 2011

20 week Ellie; Brandie's visit and more girlie fun!

Ellie is changing so fast and is turning into quite a little chub (much to our delight since we always had bean-pole babies before!). She's so expressive (especially with her eyebrows) and talkative! She especially likes to hear her own voice when it is quiet in church! She has started using her exer-saucer and loves all of the simulation of the toys that surround her! Ellie's back is becoming a lot stronger and she can sit if we prop her up on her own arms out in front of her! On the downside, she is teething hard-core! She always has her hands/fist/finger in her mouth and seems be experiencing a bit more discomfort with the teething than the other girls did. Hopefully we will only have about one more month before those first pearly whites pop through and offer some relief. She loves her bathtime and her big sisters and continues to be a joy to our whole family!
"Auntie Brandie" also came for Ellie's Baptism at the end of this month (photos to follow shortly) and the girls enjoyed playing and cuddling with her...and Matt and I enjoyed some quality time with one of our favorite people in the world. Brandie, you rock!

Late March 2011 girls

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Mid March photos of the girls and G-Gma!

The girls had been so excited about "G-Gma's" visit in the Spring. "G-Gma" is my (Dana's) Grandma on my Mom's side from Kansas City. The girls had last seen her two summers ago and though I am pretty sure that Lorelei remembered her I am pretty sure that Charlotte only remembered her from photos and from Lorelei "talking her up". The girls LOVE her and we are sad to be seeing her go tomorrow.

Here are some other photos of the girls from the past two weeks...Ellie was about 19 weeks here.

Enjoy!

Mid March 2011 Ellie 4.5 months and GGma visit

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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Our Humbold Trip!

We spent a WONDERFUL long weekend (March 11-15) in Eureka visiting our ol' "Gang" of friends and their offspring! We did all of the things that we missed about Humboldt: favorite shops, favorite restaurants, Sequoia Park, the beach, the Cookhouse for breakfast and even the mall (because it was pouring outside and the kids were antsy!) What a great time we all had catching up with old friends and showing the girls the place where Mommy and Daddy first called "home". The kids did a fabulous job tolerating both the hours in the car and the winding road on 299. Thank goodness we had a DVD player! Even little Ellie was a trooper! When can we go back???

Humboldt trip March 2011 Ellie 4.5 months

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Monday, March 7, 2011

Ellie in cloth diapers...17 week update!

The cloth diapering of Ellie has been easy as pie and we wish we would have done it with the other two kiddos as well! Here are some photos of her in her various cloth diapers, happy as a clam! The diapers are so cute and she has only had 1 diaper rash despite popular belief that cloth diapers cause more of them. We have loved the experience and we think she has too!

March 2011 cloth diapers

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I now hate the color Pink...

"Pink" eye STINKS! Happy Birthday week to me! A double dose of a childhood infection! Nope, the girls did not give it to me. I picked it up all on my own. Curse you bacteria!

pink eye March 2011

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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The three sisters and more photos of Ellie in her cloth diapers!

Miracle, oh miracle! I managed to snap some shots of the three girls that are actually good of all of them! I thought I'd share this monumental accomplishment! Also some photos of Ellie at 15 weeks old modeling her cloth diapers again for her fans!

Three girls and Ellie 15 weeks Feb 2011

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A few more of Ellie...

Ellie is now 15 weeks old...almost 16 weeks and almost 4 months! Here are a few more photos from the last week and several random ones of the big girls and my Punkiboo shirts!

Ellie almost 4 months, Feb 2011

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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Some snow time over the long weekend!

Over the past weekend we spent a lot of time in the car! On Saturday we took a drive up to Davis for Matt to check out some "handy-man" work he'll be doing for a friend and on Sunday we headed up to the Roach cabin with Brandon, Laurie, Brenden and Travis Harbin for some snow play! Pam and Ted Roach are always wonderful hosts and we had a LOT of fun. It was the perfect situation for snow-time: the snow was three feet deep around the cabin, ready for sled-run grooming and the toasty-warm cabin was just steps away to defrost little baby toes and cheeks! Charlotte did not really remember her last trip to the snow and was cautiously optimistic when it came to sledding but she DID not like her hands getting cold. She opted to head into the cabin after about an hour in the snow and hang out with Pam, Mommy, Laurie and the babies. On the other hand, Lorelei and Brenden (along with the other "Big Kids": Matt, Brandon and Ted) spent an additional two hours in the powder perfecting the sledding run, having snow ball fights (thanks Ted for allowing the kids to make you their target!) and snow-eating! Needless to say, the kiddos slept well on the way home! What a great day spent in beautiful weather with good friends in a picture-perfect setting!

Check out photos from our snow day, an evening with the Harbins and some photos of Ellie being a good little baby and taking Pedialite to try to get over some diarrhea last week!

February 2011 snow with Harbins etc

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Friday, February 18, 2011

Photo Collages of the girls!

Girls Collages

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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

February cuteness from Ellie (3.5 months), Charlotte (33 months) and Lorelei (4.5 years)!

Time for another batch of photos to share! These girls are growing like weeds and make us smile every day. Ellie is now 3 and a half months old and is perfecting her social interaction: smiles, coos and almost giggles. She is now in the 13 pound range (the largest of my girls for this age) and is an absolute sweetie pie- and so EASY! Lorelei is loving her second "semester" (haha) of Preschool and is quite the social butterfly. She has a very best friend named Peyton and lots of other little buddies (girls and boys alike). She continues to be a very articulate, curious and loving little girl who has a mind of her own! Charlotte has been enjoying jumping into the preschool activities when we take and pick up Lorelei. She'll be starting Preschool in September too! She loves her time with Mommy and Ellie on the days Lorelei is at school and she continues to make everyone laugh with her quirky personality and antics! So, things are busy around here but that's the way we like it!

February 2011


Ellie February 2011

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Eleven and Twelve week old Ellie Kate!

Our little Ellie is 12 weeks old now! She is an angel. So sweet, so happy, so mellow! She has carved out her spot in our family and in our hearts. She "talks" a lot to us now and gives BIG smiles to her sisters! She is a strong little gal and has discovered how fun kicking her legs can be! Ellie has had several colds over the past month but is a real trooper through the nasal suctioning and temperature-taking. She is doing much longer stretches of sleep at night now (AMEN!) and is a go-with-the-flow baby on mornings when I am racing to get Lorelei to preschool on time. We love her and are so blessed! Here are some recent photos for you!

January 2011 Ellie month three

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Sunday, January 9, 2011

There's something wrong with this picture...

Our crazy dogs amuse us every day. Take a peek at their recent antics...we blame this all on Bailey!

Queen Bailey

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Saturday, January 8, 2011

Some great photos of the girls!

Matt was asked to take a new Nikon camera home for the weekend from his work to "figure it out". We took the opportunity to take some great photos of the kiddos! Here they are!

Random photos of the girls

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Friday, January 7, 2011

Some more Ellie!

Here are some more shots of Ellie at 9.5 weeks old on her changing table (her favorite place) in a cute onesie made by our friend Sara!

more Ellie smiles and Dronkers shirt Jan 2011

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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Awake

The other night Ellie decided to be awake for an hour and a half: from 3:45-5:15am. She was content but wide-eyed. I was trying to kill some time and so I snapped a few low quality photos on my iphone! Here they are!

awake

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Better late than never! Christmas 2010 photos

Sorry it took me so long to put these up! Here are photos from our wonderful Holidays! We hope you all have a very happy and blessed New Year!

Christmas 2010 Ellie 8 weeks

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Smiles from Ellie Kate

Ellie is 9 weeks old now but has been smiling for over a week. I finally captured a few on camera and wanted to share them with you! We just love this little girl!

Ellie 9 week smiles!

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Monday, January 3, 2011

Ellie is 2 months old!

Sorry for not being better about posting updates on Ellie! She is now 2 months old (where does the time go?) and is 10 lbs 4 oz, 22" long. She has great chubby cheeks and is a sweet, easy baby! She sleeps fairly well at night and Mommy's biggest success is that ALL THREE GIRLS NAP AT THE SAME TIME IN THE AFTERNOON! I am totally giddy about this. We are in love with our Ellie Kate and she has fit into our family perfectly. The "big girls" love their little sister and are a huge help to Mommy. Ellie coasted through the holidays totally un-phased by the chaos around her. She was able to meet lots of family and was hardly ever put down! Now if we could just get rid of her nasty little cold! Poor baby. Our whole family has passed it around. I'll try to be better about posting photos of her- she is growing and changing so fast!


Ellie 2 months

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