Another photo dump!

Okay, so I don't have much time to write explanations, but I know that the only thing people really care about are the pics anyway! :)

 Sophia at our friend, Ayden's, 5th birthday party

 Our friend from the barn, Hayden (Hayden's parents own the farm and we met Ayden's family at the barn... they also board a horse there!)

Soph and Ayden in the foam pit

 After the party we all went to Ayden's place for some more socializing!

 This is what Travis and Kaia do all morning while I'm at work...

 A fashion statement! The girl has some attitude lately!

 Beautiful morning at our new home

 Sophia's Thanksgiving performance at school!

 After the performace they have a "feast"

 Baby faces :)

 Thanksgiving at Snooki and Cash's place! Cousins Jaylin and Ava were so sweet with Kaia!

 Grandpa Ralph :)

 The always beautiful Aunt Lindsey!

 Sophia and Hayden hanging out during a recent barn visit... with the chilly weather we end up just hanging out in their house quite a bit!

Sorry for the occasional upside down photo! (in this case, sideways)

 Sister faces :)

 So we just had her 2 mo appt... Kaia weighs 3 lbs 11oz! She's in the 50th percentile for length and 95th (!!!) for weight! CHUNKER!

 Haha

Prairie sunrises... sigh... I LOVE our new home!!!

On Dec 7 we had our annual office Christmas party/ Volunteer appreciation event! Here is a pic of our volunteers... they are amazing!

Kaia got passed around a LOT at the party. She was REALLY good about it!

Weird pic of Sophia, but I had to include an (almost) family photo!

Sophia was getting tired. She was a good helper though! She helped me distribute gift bags and draw names for door prizes... I cried during my speech. I thanked the volunteers for being like my "MN family"... every one of them gave Kaia a gift when she was born (and Sophia got lots of presents too)... enough said.

Okay this is a BRAVE picture! Here is my current stomach. I wanted to post a pic because I wanted to share a note about how emotional I am about my tummy! The first time I looked at my tummy after the birth I cried... it just looks so sad and empty to me after the taut fullness of pregnancy. The line down my tummy (which is fading fast and is pigmentation from pregnancy) really gets to me... one of the last reminders of a pretty wonderful pregnancy. I was getting uncomfortable for sure, but I really did love being pregnant much of the time! Anyhow, the pic above isn't pretty... but that stomach did an amazing thing. It grew two amazing girls!

We love our bird friends :)

We have a gazillion sparrows that live in the bushes in front of our screened porch... really close to the tree in front of Sophia's window that has two bird feeders on it!

Sophia made me take this pic. She spends hours styling the hair on her horses that have hair.

Aaaannnddd... everyone's been begging for pictures of the house! We have lots of work (mostly painting) to do and a lot of it is still chaos so I'm a *bit* embarrassed, but here are the pics anyway! This is our family room! This is facing the northwest corner.

The family room is a bit sunken and above you can see the little hallway to the laundry room... which is about the only thing architecturally interesting about our big boxy house! Facing west.

There's the laundry room at the end of the little hall. This is facing east.

Laundry room!

Our massive and insanely chaotic basement

Sophia's playroom in the basement... we have lots of work to do to make it more cheerful, but she already loves it!

Facing South... this is our kitchen (sadly in need of updating) and dining area. All those doors are for the huge pantry space!

1980's kitchen. Bleh.

Dining area with beautiful sliding doors that lead to the deck and look out over the barn and pastures!

My FAVORITE room! The "reading room." This is on the other side of our kitchen, and has big picture windows and a door leading to our screened porch and overlooking the prairie.

The hallway to all the bedrooms. First door on the right is a closet, next door is the bathroom, next door is our bedroom (which has it's own bathroom), door on the end is Sophia's room, next door (left) is a linen closet and next door is Kaia's room.

Main bathroom

A picture of the skylight in the bathroom... I'm a dork! I just love all the windows and skylights in this place!

Kaia's room... we're using it as a guest room until Kaia moves out of our room. Sorry that's the worst room in the house! total disaster!

Oh wait... Sophia's room is the real disaster. :)

Our room. Bathroom door is back there on the right. This is facing west.

Facing south.

Our little bathroom :)

I took this pic so you could see one of our 3 outdoor christmas trees through the window! :)

Kaia sleeping in the reading room!

I LOVE the sweet stockings that my grandma Carole made for the girls!

Outside. You can see where the tracks go off to the right (north)... our garage is over there.

Ok the garage is a TOTAL disaster BUT I loooove it! It's an oversized 4 stall... we have 3 cars, 2 motorcycles, a riding lawnmower, tons of junk and a cord of wood in there with room to spare! I wish it was attached but we're pretty spoiled!

Sophia is REALLY into hair lately. Here's a last pic for you to give you a laugh!

I hope nobody minds me gushing about our house too much... I am falling in love with the place more and more everyday. From the space in the house to the land to the deer herd I saw in our backyard at 2 in the morning recently it just feels so wonderful. Life has been a little crazy and stressful lately but I also feel so incredibly blessed!

Coming up: Pics from VT!!! I head there on Sunday with the girls... can't wait! :)