Happy New Year!

He walks down the grey, smokey hallway.  As he passes one door, he hears a high pitched scream.  He passes another and hears whimpering and groaning.  He gets to his room and is told to strip down and wear a paper gown and wait.  He sits on the cold metal table in his paper gown and shivers.  On the walls are chains, rusty saws, and clamps.  A rat scampers across the floor.  He waits for 50 minutes.  Finally he hears loud footsteps coming down the hallway and the doorknob turns.  In walks a seven foot giant doctor with the biggest hands he has ever seen!  His first words to him were in a deep voice, "SO YOU WANT A VASECTOMY??"

Muahahaha.  None of it is true.  Except for waiting for the doctor for 50 minutes part.  One of Adam's goals for 2013 was to finalize the Mark Family number at 5.  His first appointment was today and I've taken great joy in trying to scare him or make him think it was going to be the worst thing he'll ever experience.  But after watching me have 3 c-sections and watching me recover from all 3, he says it is the least he can do.  What a great guy. (The story was approved by Adam, fyi)

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while.  Adam has had 2 weeks off of work and we've enjoyed having him around.  Aubrie and Emilie both had ear infections.  We have Kyle sleeping from 8 pm to 4 am and he has started eating Oatmeal.  We'll probably start him on vegetables soon.  He really loves it. 

Aubrie still gets up every chance she gets.  One night she was up 3 times in the night.  Once was to use the bathroom.  She'll pass her bathroom and come all the way downstairs to use our bathroom.  First she walks to my side of the bed and announces she has to go.  Then she goes and returns upstairs without turning the light off.  So Adam has to get up and turn the light off.  Then she was back downstairs and wanted a drink.  THEN she was back downstairs and said, "Mommy, my eyes forgot how to sleep."

Both girls were fighting over a toy in my closet while we were getting ready for church so I started counting them.  Well, sure enough they got to 3 which results to a timeout and I sent them both upstairs to their rooms.  They were both crying and stomping up the stairs and Aubrie went to her room and Emilie tried to follow, but Adam re-directed her to her own room.  Then she started crying and reciting her favorite book, Llama Llama, Red Pajama.  (In the book the llama throws a fit and stomps and cries because his mom is downstairs on the phone and he's upstairs in bed and wants a drink of water)  So Emilie's in her room crying and in between cries she'd say, "Llama llama stomp and pout!!  Waaaaa!!! Llama llama jump and shout!! waaaaaa!!!

Emilie has started talking plain as day.  She says some of the cutest things.  She'll say, "let me go get Aubrie Jane."  One of my favorite words, that she uses a lot, is help.  But her help has two syllables.  Hey-elp!  Very country.

decorating Christmas cookies

Tonight Adam asked the girls during supper if they wanted to play upstairs and Emilie held her hand up and said, "No daddy.  Not yet.  I'm eating rice and beans first, thank you.  Ok??"

Poor Adam can't catch a break with her.  When he goes in her room to get her up after nap or in the morning she'll yell, "No daddy!  You can't come in!  Shut the door!!"  And if he goes in and tries to get her up anyway, she'll flop down and swing at him if he comes near.  She's so rotten.  Instead, he's been sending Aubrie in there to get her out of bed.  She really does wake up a fire breathing dragon.  Her hair will be wuzzled and she'll have her socks on her hands.  She keeps us laughing.

I know it's been awhile since I've blogged and I'm relying on the pictures on my phone and camera to help me recall what's happened in the past couple of days.  I'll let the pictures help tell the stories.

The kids were plenty spoiled.  Josie's mom, Joan, hooked the girls up with some Christmas pillowcases that turned into an instant hit!  They began to fight over them as I was putting them on Emilie's bed.

 We enjoyed many play dates including a play date at the Kindred house.  The Kindred boys always treat my girls good.

Sweet Marcie putting Kyle to sleep.  So sweet.

Kyle likes going to the Kindreds because of all the boy toys.  We've just got to learn how to not catch the ball with our face.

It's also a different kind of dress up over there.  No princess shoes and dresses.  But we can priss up a fireman costume.

And then poor Kyle goes home and gets prissed up by his sisters.  He's so patient.  He has no choice.

Kyle and I were laying on the couch, him acting as my personal heated blanket, and Adam walked past and couldn't believe how much room he took up on me.  Four months ago, this big guy was in my belly!!

 

Aubrie and I went on a date to go see the Rockettes at Opryland.  She loved it!  She did really good sitting still and watching the show.  I bought her some popcorn and candy from the concession stand and she was in heaven.  She called them the Rompettes.  When we got home, she and Emilie would do their kicks for us just like the Rockettes.

Kyle got a Crocodile in his stocking.  Here he is modeling a new outfit from Gram.  It's 12 months. 

Adam got a 12 foot tree for our living room this year.  We have a 2 story living room and it was beautiful.  We had to get on a ladder to assemble it and hang ornaments.  It sure was pretty.  When we took it down this past week, Emilie woke up from her nap and shouted, "Oh no!  Christmas is gone!!!"

Here's the fam on Christmas Eve.  We went to Christmas Eve service at church and put the girls in the nursery.  When it was time for lighting candles and singing Silent Night, we got the girls and brought them back in.  Emilie sat on her dad's lap and almost burned off his eyebrows.  They really enjoyed it.  Just this past Sunday, we were singing Angels We Have Heard On High and I was holding Emilie.  It was the end and we were singing the Gloooooorrrria part and I was singing in a fake opera voice to be silly with her and as soon as the song and organ stopped, she yelled, "NO MOMMY!!!  NO SING OOOOOO!!!!" and everyone turned and laughed. 

I wanted a picture of them in their matching pajamas from Lana and it was right before bed.  It's usually chaos in our house at that time.  I told them to sit in front of the tree, so Aubrie sat down, Emilie went and sat IN Aubrie's lap, and I quick plopped Kyle down and grabbed the camera.  What cute kids.

Our loot.  All Christmas Aubrie asked Santa to bring her a purple toothbrush.  Well, he got one and put it in her stocking, but also got the kids a red wagon and the girls both got a Curious George doll.  But when someone would ask if Santa came and what he brought, she was most excited about her purple toothbrush.  Christmas morning worked out perfectly.  Each kid woke up at different times and so we got to film their reaction when they saw the loot.  Aubrie just talked our ears off and tried to touch EVERYTHING.  Emilie said, "LOOK!  LOOK!  IT'S A MONKEY!! (I'm caps locked because she is so loud.  Always.  Not just when excited.  Always.) MONKEEEEY!  I COMING!!!  LOOK!  LOOK!  OH!  IT'S CHRISTMAS, DADDY!!"  And Kyle just stared, he didn't care.

One of my favorite ornaments.  My brother made it and painted it to look like our first house.  The  back looks like the back of the house.  It was so sweet and thoughtful!

One of Adam's favorite ornaments is one that Jese gave him in college.  We were walking back to our apartments and ran into him.  He gave it to Adam and said he got it for him as a Christmas gift but we later found out he got it at an ornament exchange or something like that.  It's really hideous.  It's a purple ball covered in peacock feathers.  But it's special because it came from Jese (a.k.a. brother) and it makes us think of him and his precious family every year at this time.

One of my favorite things we did was have Mike & Brooke over with their new baby boy, Jackson, who was born a week after Kyle, and Dan and Jenny came over with four week old Hayden.  Mike and Dan played basketball at Belmont with Adam and their wives played basketball there as well.  Mike is now Dr. Modlin and has a practice in NC and we were happy to host them all for breakfast and get the boys together.  They are so precious!!  Baby Jackson on the left has the longest legs!!  Baby Hayden on the right looks JUST like his daddy.  He liked to hold Kyle's hand.  So sweet.

The dad's and their boys.  My dad and I were laughing at how tired the dads looked in this photo.  :)  Parenthood does that to you!!

We had New Years breakfast at the Burtner house.  It's always fun to catch up with them and their sweet kids.  Max is their oldest and he's enjoying his first year in Kindergarten and their middle is Reese, she's 10 weeks younger than Aubrie and TOWERS over her!!  They have one more little one, Grace, but she and Kyle didn't make the group hug/photo.

Baby Kyle had his 4 month check up before Christmas.  He's 97th percentile in everything.  He weighs 18 lbs 12 oz...Emilie weighs 26 pounds as a 2 year old just to put that in perspective.  He rolled over from back to tummy the day after Christmas.  He's growing so fast and is such a sweetie.  I'm going to miss having Adam around because he is the one who carried his car seat around these past two weeks. 

Well, hopefully that catches you up.  Sorry it took so long.  Hopefully I'll have time to post more these next couple of weeks.  I hope everyone had a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Love to all!
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