Kitchen is 90% done!

I am a very happy girl after this busy weekend!  Joel did an amazing job (as usual) installing our kitchen cabinets.  We have temporary countertops until we can decide what we want, but we have a functioning dishwasher (best. day. ever.), fridge, and range.  We have the cabinet pulls and will put those on sometime soon, and floors will come in a little bit too.  Getting so much closer to being done, but for now, I am thrilled to finally be living much more normally!

I absolutely LOVE our new range!

Looking from dining room through kitchen

 to back family room.

(the color is not quite as orangy as it looks in the picture!)

Christmas #5 (finally, the finale to Christmases!)

Yay! My new kitchen! Thank goodness it's pretend food

because I have "eaten" so many yummy meals

prepared by Lydia! :)

It only took 5 Christmases for Makayla to figure out

it is fun ripping presents open!

Uncle Dougie and Moira meeting Makayla finally!

Uncle Steve loves her too! ;-)

Christmas #4

On New Year's Eve the girls and I celebrated Christmas with my dad, sisters, nephews (Logan, 13 & Joey, 8), and niece (Ellie, 6).  And once again, the girls got spoiled by big cousins! This is definately the advantage to having the younger ones! 

Lydia really loves Logan, she just doesn't want to let you know it! :)

Teaching Lydia how to play games on Aunt Corrie's iPhone!

So sweet! :)

Christmas #3 (The Oele's)

The Oele celebrations are always a fun time!  All 27 of us in one place...how could it not provide entertainment! :)  We added Makayla, and Joel's sister, Janet, added our niece, Dylan, to the family this past year.  We are so happy our girls finally have a cousin their age to play with (when the babies are old enough to play!), until then, being spoiled by the "big" girls will have to do!

Back row: Taylor 17, Kelsey 13, Emily 14, Lydia 2, Katie 16, Cassidy 14

Front row: Nathan 12, Jonathan 11, Megan 9, Sarah 11, Dawson 7, Dylan 1.5m, Jack 10, Jamie 6, Makayla 4.5m 

The 5 Ballerinas in their new ballet sweatshirts

 (and Dawson...who is not a ballerina!)

Goof balls

I think Jerry liked his Christmas present!

 Passing around the baby...definately nice having big cousins! :)

Funny way to sleep...I guess the lights were too bright!

The 4 younger girls playing (minus the infants!)

Watchin some youtube.......

Christmas #2 (Our family of 4!)

Christmas morning was much more exciting and magical than previous years! Lydia was a lot of fun, and we had a lot of fun watching her! Makayla was pretty pumped too, however, her excitement was directed more towards food than presents!

Lydia totally lucked out this year because

not only did she get to open her presents,

she got to assist Makayla with her presents too!

"What is all this fuss about?"

The majority of time, Lydia really loves her sister! :)

Mommy's new personal favorite!

Sweet Lydia slept over 4 hours right here!

It was a late night on Christmas Eve,

 and clearly a very busy morning! She was wiped out!

I love sleeping baby pictures, there is something too precious about a sleeping baby!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Love,

The Oele's

Christmas #1 (Emily's Mom's)

We had a nice time Christmas Eve at my mom's house.  Gary's daughter, her boyfriend, and their 2 girls (Ava 6, and Lucy 14m) were visiting from Colorado.  Lydia and Ava had a blast together, and Lydia thought Lucy was great as well!

Great Grandpa with Makayla!

Ava, Lucy, Lydia & Makayla

Lydia finally got another tiara!

If anyone is watching......

Hi All,

We recently found time to work on our kitchen, and that means the drywall is almost done and ready to be primed (which also means I need to pick a paint color), and the wood plank ceiling is half way done, and we are so much closer to having a kitchen!  We are very excited.  I think getting my dishwasher may rival the day my kids were born as my favorite day ever!!!!!

Pictures will come when we are closer to being to done :)