Our Bielefeldt Family Get Together which now only includes Amy's family and Mine since Karl and Kristopher abandoned us...

We met at a park by my house and had a brunch and froze to pieces...

Kevin and Mike pushing Sara and Zach on the baby swings and talking, talking, talking...

All the big kids playing Narnia. Look closely in the tree, Nikolai is up top and Chesley is below him. On the ground is Emma, MaryKate, and Colin.

Sara loves following Zach around.

Dad swinging in the baby swing... actually I think this was a clever way to make a chair.

Sisters! Amy was thrilled that I finally illustrated her book, Oma's Magic, that she wrote years and years ago and gave it to her as a Christmas surprise.

We missed you Karl and Kris at our family gathering and thought of you and your families fondly.

Big Kid Pics

Nikolai wanted to make a Ninja outfit. He asked me for a big black cape and when I told him I didn't have one he improvised with construction paper and created this outfit...

Complete with a closable mouth piece...
I taught MaryKate, Chesley, and Emma an art class this fall. This was our final project, drawing a landscape, tracing it to make two copies, then painting one with cool colors and one with warm colors. I LOVE their results (Chesley was sick that day so she didn't get finish it at my house. Hint Hint Amy, I need a picture of her with hers)

Did you ever think you'd see a snow scene done in warm colors?

Karl, my Dungeon and Dragon's playing has totally rubbed off on my kids, Nikolai especially. Here they are in the park planning the game they are about to play out. Nikolai plays the Dungeon Master AND a character with MaryKate. He always has the Hunter's Bear Trap as his daily power and he allowed MaryKate to have a Horse to ride, a bear and a Lion to fight his. We definitely have a future gamer on our hands.

More Cute Baby Pics

Sara loves driving her car
and LOVES swinging (she cried when I thought she was done and begged to be put back in, can you beat that smile!)

and ADORES her riding chipmunk...

She is mesmerized by the dogs, this was taken before the puppies were born (I have some new cute ones of her gazing at them) but this is what she does, she follows the dogs around and squats down to observe them, when they move out of her eye sight she gets up and moves to a better vantage point...

The girls in the tub. I just love the expressions on each of their faces...

Goofy Golfing with the Gang

Haleigh and Haydan came over two Saturday's ago. We got to spend the day with them and took them goofy golfing.
It was a bit more challenging then I thought with the babies. This was Haleigh's creative way to keep Haydan from getting in the middle...MaryKate putting...

and Nikolai putting...

Kevin managed to get closer then all of us while holding both babies at the same time... he got within a foot of the hole putting like this...

Haydan fell fast asleep in my arms as we walked around the Christmas lights. Amazing how heavy babies get when they are asleep, both my arms fell asleep before Haleigh rescued me.

A week in the life...

Kevin got home late from a basketball game with take out burger king. He left his fries out. Sara found them the next morning and this was the resulting scene...
Sara has started scribbling, no, she didn't write her name, but if you look closely you can see her scribbles on top of it. She'll scribble on top of things you write with chalk, crayon, pens, or pencils. A VERY cute stage, and yet again, way ahead of schedule, all of my books say to look for this around 15 months...

Nikolai claimed my Shelf Reliance box and it has become an extension of him. He figured out how to close himself into it and has kept Sara totally entertained playing hide-and-go-seek in there...

Sara has discovered opening all of our cupboards. She found a box of plastic bags, dumped them all out, put one on each foot, then proceeded to "skate" around the kitchen floor... (side note, she is carrying around another favorite toy, empty yogurt containers from the recycling bin, I keep finding them placed in all of the cupboards, replacing whatever she has taken out)

I love how MaryKate knows how to carry Sara around on her hip, it must be a girl thing because Nikolai doesn't get how to do this. She looks so little to be able to sling this big baby around...

My organized Pantry

Last year for Christmas, Kevin got me the Shelf-Reliance can rotators. I figured since Christmas was coming up quick I better get them up so that he wouldn't try to re-gift them to me. (But you know, to my credit I was big pregnant last year then had a baby then just got busy with life with her, hence the long delay). I am rather proud of how my pantry looks now. It makes it so easy to see what I have and what I need and it looks so tidy. They hold all of the cans I use in cooking regularly. I LOVE it. Thanks Kevin!

And, of course, Sara helped me and I had to include a picture of her contribution.

Four new puppies at our house!

Our dog, Lucy, had four new puppies this afternoon. We got a darling surprise with this batch with a white/buff spotted dog. He is so pretty with such unusual coloring. The white/black spotted one is named "Spot" because of her little circle above her black tail, it looks like a lower case "i". The other two are a male and female buff colored cuties... the female is a little bigger then the male.

Sara is entranced and stands by the cage crouching and looking in. Lucy is so good with her and doesn't blink an eye when Sara sticks her fingers through to try and touch them. Nikolai and MaryKate are excited about meeting the new editions to our family.

November

Nikolai asked for my help to make a ramp for car races. This is what I came up with, with his help. He showed Sara how to play with it. He is so good at playing with her and getting her to laugh and teaching her things like this.
Sara LOVES Elmo. Here she is holding one of her three Elmo dolls while walking around in her Elmo slippers.

Sara is really into imitating all of us. She also loves playing in our recycling bin. Here she gets to do both, playing with old pop cans and imitating Mommy drinking them!

MaryKate with the pink pellet gun she fell in love with when we went to Bass Pro Shop to visit Santa Clause. I love how casually she throws it over her shoulder.

I love this new stage of Sara's. She loves pulling her little doggy around after her. She'll go back and forth for 15-20 minutes from one room to the next pulling her doggy.