There was a little girl who had a little curl....

Do you know the rest? It's not the sweetest nursery rhyme you'll ever hear but sometimes with Miss Charlie it seems to fit! Here are a couple pictures of her curls, mama tried a little gel to get them to hold better but there's no gel out there to get the child herself to hold better....seems to fit the rhyme!

New Kids on the Block

What a wonderful and magical Christmas we had at the Welch house! We spent lots and lots of quality time with family and friends, ate our weight in Christmas cookies, and did Advent Acts of Kindness all month long to remind us of the reason for the season. Our celebration was topped off in the most awesome way on Christmas morning when Santa left 2 small bundles for Eli and Henry. We are happy to introduce our two new brothers, Shadow and Scratch :) Aren't they about the cutest little furry ones you've seen?

Shadow (left) and his little brother Scratch

 

The boys have been having a blast with them ever since. They are playful and huggable, just the right mix of snuggling and activity for a 4 and 6 year old. Santa was kind enough to bring them already litter trained and they settled right in. We can't imagine our house without them now!

 Henry's kitty is Scratch

 

Eli with his buddy Shadow

Cookie Decorating Fun!

 

The Welch boys got a gingerbread decorating kit in their shoes from St. Nick last week. They had fun decorating, they had more fun eating the candy, and they had the most fun trying the (gross) cookie! We'll pretend that we did it first thing in the morning and that's why HK is in his pajamas... I don't know what to pretend to make Eli's shirtless-ness okay, believe whatever charitable story you'd like that puts my parenting in a positive light!

They're the 3 best friends that anyone could have....

Look at this trio of little ladies! My sister and my best friend and I were all blessed with daughters within months of each other. My Charlie came first in November, quickly followed by miss Isla in January and finally little Piper in June. Even with a span of 5 months between the oldest and the youngest, these gals will all be in the same class in school! This will finish out the third set of kids that my sister and I have managed to deliver close enough together to be in the same grade. Awesome planning? Crazy serendipity? Whatever it was, we'll take it. How lucky are we all to get to watch these three gorgeous girls grow up together?!

Piper (5 months)

Charlie (1yr)

Isla (11 months)

Charlie Turns 1!

Happy Birthday to our sweet little pumpkin! She had an awesome day celebrating her birthday with friends and family on Thanksgiving. I was excited that the food was an absolute no-brainer! Here are a couple of pictures of her enjoying her pumpkin cake!

Climbing the Wall

We recently joined the YMCA and it has an amazing climbing wall. My oldest was instantly ready to tackle it and my middle eventually came around as well! The little monkeys make it look easy, maybe old mom will try it one of these days!

Full Circle

Since my last post before I disappeared from the blog-sphere was all about Halloween, I'll do a quick Halloween post to give our hiatus some closure! We had a wonderful week in Disney World with the whole Piper family the week before Halloween. That being said, the evening of costumes and trick-or-treating was complicated by an early morning wake up call (4am) to catch a plane home, freezing temperatures with howling winds, and above all a baby girl who was DONE! Enjoy the pictures, not many were taken because of the aforementioned complications! :)

 

We have a dolphin trainer, two skeletons, a strawberry, a mad scientist and Spiderman!

 

The poor little strawberry said no thanks to the cold!

Sweet Siblings

The boys have taken to their sister with an ease I love and appreciate. I see them becoming her protectors, her confidantes, and above all, her friends!

This little girl already seems to know how lucky she got in the big brother department!

Growing Girl

Here are some photos of our baby girl growing up over the last year! These are February through September.

 

 

 

Overdue Introductions

So many happenings in the year since the Welch family has been busy living but not busy blogging! The biggest and best change is the birth of our third child, our first daughter, our first sister, and our most favorite youngest child. Introducing Charlotte Marie Welch, or Charlie as she has come to be known over the last few months! She was 6 weeks old in this photo.

It was a DINO Halloween!

We had a couple of cute dinosaurs in our house for Halloween this year! It was a busy day that started with a birthday breakfast in bed for Daddy and ended with a full hour of trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. In between was filled with classroom parties full of crafts, snacks, and games! Mommy was one worn out pregnant lady by the end, but the boys had a blast!

Ready for Chilly Weather!

Taking the Plunge

Our Henry finally decided to participate in his swimming lessons on Thursday night! He had been through 2.5 lessons watching from the sidelines, unwilling to join in the fun. His father and I chalk it up to his current view on life which is "I will do the opposite of what anyone wants me to do unless it involves eating candy". This has been a tough stage for him..... and us. We are so proud that he finally let himself take the plunge and have fun with the other kiddos!

That's Henry doing his back float!

 

We love our Grandma!

We recently spent the weekend with my parents at their house. We did lots of fun things like visit a horse farm, going to a movie and getting popcorn, and hitting the pumpkin patch. The boys loved it all! But none of those things compare to spending time with Grandma and Papa. My Eli loves his Grandma so much that he cries when we have to leave her house- and he's not one to cry usually! I love this picture because it really shows why our Grandma is so wonderful!

Pumpkin Patch Fun!

Eli sitting on a giant pumpkin getting ready to explore the pumpkin patch!

The boys being ghosts- they are both BOO-ing!

Henry loved feeding the goats- despite their level of aggression for food!

Eli did a little corn shooting with Papa's help- he won a free bounce house ticket!

DIY Crazy!

I'm not sure if it counts as nesting yet, I'm only 26 weeks along after all, but I have been on a DIY kick lately that cannot be rivaled! My husband can attest to the fact that I spend WAY too much time on Pinterest, to which I would say at least I'm doing some of the things I pin. And anyone who pins things on Pinterest would applaud that! Two of my recent projects were to make my own laundry soap and to re-do a free play table that I got from a friend of my sister's. I tackled the laundry soap first- the hardest part was finding all the ingredients, the funnest parts were crafting my container and mixing all the awesome-smelling soap in a garbage bag! Here is the finished product!

I love it sooooo much! I think it works 100% better than the super cheap soap I was buying. They tell me it will last a year but I'm doubtful. Even if it makes it 6 months that will be a lovely cost savings and how nice not to be running out of detergent once every 2 weeks!

My next project was to re-do a play table we've had for at least a year or two. It came to us covered in marbled contact paper which the boys and I pulled off one day about 3 months ago because I just couldn't stand the ugliness anymore. It was plain white underneath- not awful but not play room fun! I decided to spray it with chalkboard pain and add some of my own fun (but removable) vinyl stickers. It took me a total of 2 days to get it all finished. It awaits someone with muscle to help me put it back in my basement from my garage- I try not to do too much heavy lifting :) Here it is all done!

Eli loves tic-tac-toe so I thought on the chalkboard surface that would be a fun thing to play! I'm always surprised when my projects turn out how I picture them- probably because of my usual high failure rate. So with these two under my belt I'm off to newer, better projects! I'm going to tackle some closet dividers for the baby out of old CDs, maybe some painted curtains for my living room, and if I'm feeling really ambitious I'll make homemade soap to put in some cute molds my sister found! The possibilities are absolutely endless- or will be till I bring home another busy little body!

The Littles Head to School!

Henry and Daniel were both very excited for their first day at preschool! Hopefully Henry is just as excited tomorrow when he has to go it alone and be "mommy free" for an hour :)

iPhone Expirementation

So the last two posts were handily using photos from my iPhone. So convenient! Why has it take me so long to realize I can blog with pictures off my phone? Probably from lack of computer savvy :) I really need my brother Tim and my sister Cammie to live with me and help me navigate this world of iPhones. So I've now decided to try to upload a short video that I took earlier in the summer of Eli learning to skateboard.....

I'll trial post this and see if it works! If not I'll try, try again :)

The Big Brothers

Here are two pictures of my soon to be big brothers! They are both very excited for the baby, although Henry has less of an idea of what to expect than Eli. Eli is certain we are having a girl, as is his cousin Eva. Henry says boy more than girl but has picked a name for each. He's chosen Snaps for a boy and Apple for a girl.... Mommy hasn't signed off on those, although Snaps Welch has a nice ring to it!