Quinn the dog

The two pictures above are of Quinn when we first adopted her from the Collie Rescue (she is a collie mix). We went in expecting to adopt an adult (since I didn't want the hassle of training a puppy). However, Quinn stole our hearts with her gentle, calm nature (it also helped that she was mostly house trained).
Obviously the kids fell in love with her and their enjoyment of her has only grown.

 Lily loves Quin and lays down on her or hugs her regularly. Quinn never seems to mind--if she's done, Quinn will just move. Once when Quinn was on her back under the kitchen table, Lily grabbed a handful of skin and hair and pulled Quinn a few inches--Quinn just lay still, not yipping, nipping, or barking. She is a wonderfully calm dog most of the time--even though she is just shy of 5 months old.

 Obviously Seth wanted to show how much he loves Quinn too. You can also get a pretty good idea of how much she has grown in the 2 months we've had her!

Madeline: My Tom-Boy Girly-Girl

 So yesterday I was making bread. When I grind wheat, I send the kids to their rooms since the mill is kind of loud. Not even two minutes into grinding, Benjamin comes running out saying Madeline is crying. I go back there and don't really see the problem at first (her hair was covering it). Then the boys tell me that Madeline was jumping on her bed (though she knows it's not allowed) and had fallen on one of the railings. I see how much it is swelling and take her to my room and put her on the bed with Justin while I go grab some ice and shut the mill off. Luckily there wasn't hardly any blood, her pupils were dilating normally, and she was tracking just fine. Thanks to Grandma for the help deciding that we didn't need to take her to the ER. This picture is after some ice has helped the swelling somewhat.

Well, I checked on her in the middle of the night and the swelling had shifted but she was sleeping so I let her sleep. That morning we headed for the pediatrician's office to get it checked out since she could barely open her eye (her first words on waking, "Mom, I need some ice.").

 This is after 4 hours spent at two doctor's offices. The pediatrician said everything looked fine but that we should have her seen by an eye doctor just in case. She did fairly well until the actual doctor came to look at her. She screamed and hid her face in my shirt and refused to look at him. We had to get some pictures taken of the inside of her eye since she wouldn't let the doctor look. Everything checked out fine.

Madeline loves everything purple, pink, and in any way girly. However, she also loves the rough-and-tumble, jump-on-the-bed-to-get-hurt games too. It's obvious that Madeline just wanted some pink and purple eye shadow to emphasize her pretty blue eyes!

Here's hoping that ALL our kids have learned that Mom has a very good reason for telling them NOT to jump on beds!

Madeline singing!

Madeline is so sweet singing "I Am a Child of God"

p.s. Happy Birthday to Lily today! Pictures coming soon!

Halloween, Christmas, and Snow!

 So here are the photos we've taken and forgotten to post!

 Halloween--with a Batman, a Robin, a princess, and a ladybug!

The Christmas tradition of graham-cracker "gingerbread" houses (with Aunt Marianne and Uncle Eric). From the left: a rocket, a castle, and a firehouse.

This Christmas we did a hand-made theme. All presents to our family were hand-made. Obviously loving grandparents/aunts/uncles supplied other gifts but it was wonderful to put love into the gifts we made. It was however very time consuming since Amy had to help all the kids make gifts for each other.

 The red "floppy guy" was from Mom and Dad and was a big hit! As was the bag Seth made him to keep his toys in. (The wand from Lily is his favorite toy to play Harry Potter with!)

 The doll Madeline has in her right hand was crocheted by Justin (dress and shoes too)! Amy did the assembly and hair and face. Under the doll is the bag from Benjamin. Just visible on the right of the picture is the princess cape Seth gave her.

 Another floppy guy in green for Seth--it actually has bumped red monkey from the favorite spot! There is also a book the Benjamin made Seth--created, written, and illustrated just for Seth! (Title: A Metally Battle)

 Okay so the Tigger is from Grandma and Grandpa Jorgensen (and she loves it!), but the three felt animals were presents from her siblings. The boys even helped sew around the edges! The ladybug was from Benjamin, the frog from Seth, and the bunny from Madeline.

And we actually had enough snow last Saturday for the kids to be able to make a snowman! They loved it! They hurried outside while it was still snowing and got the snowman built before the snow melted off again about an hour later. The snowman lived until Monday afternoon (he was getting pretty skinny with a sunny 50 degrees) when the kids decided it was essential to turn him into snowballs!

Lily

Lily has been crawling really well for a while and has started pulling up this last week too. Today she stood on her own for six seconds before plopping down! She'll be walking before we know it.

Seth

Seth looked out the window this morning and said, "There is frosting on our lawn!"

Madeline Conversation

Madeline: Mommy, you so pretty.

Amy: Madeline, you are so sweet.

Madeline: I not food!

Amy: No, you are nice!

Madeline: Yes I nice. I not poky!

Thank you Madeline for making me laugh!

Post-Thanksgiving Family Pictures

 As always, a big thank you to Aunt Marianne for the wonderful pictures! You can also see our backyard in the background--yes that is green grass growing! There are still a few stumps that need to be removed but with the grass growing the weeds and poison ivy shouldn't grow back.

 There obviously is something incredibly interesting on the ground that Lily wants to get down and play with!

 One of our fun and silly pictures! Lily actually decided to look at the camera (maybe Uncle Eric was making faces).

 Seth, "I want to be upside down too!"

Madeline wasn't so sure she liked upside down (apparently Mom does it differently than Dad).
Lily, "I'm done with this picture thing!"

I've been rather busy so I haven't posted for awhile. Key things that happened since the last post: Madeline gave up diapers (yeah!!), Justin passed his professional certification exam, and we organized and pulled off the church Christmas party (so glad it's over!).

Merry Christmas from the Jorgensens in North Carolina (where it is currently 64 degrees on its way to 73 degrees today). We hope you enjoy any snow you have--we are jealous!

Family Pictures

 Here are a few pictures of our family that Aunt Marianne took for us when we were visiting her a week ago. She is a great photographer--and the subject matter is rather cute too!

We are so excited that we have a new member of our family--we had to showcase that with a picture!

 Amy and Justin--madly in love! Kids: EWW! Mom and Dad!! (Madeline and Lily have no clue what's going on behind them!)

And finally...the "nice" one! We love our family and were glad to get a picture with everyone looking at the camera and 5 out of 6 smiles!

More posts to come with individual pictures and updates on recent antics!

This and That

 A big dog-pile on the couch. Lily was on top of the first pile but had to get off so I could go get the camera. In the photo you can also see Benjamin's Star Wars book--he really enjoys all things Star Wars--he has a Lego Star Wars dictionary and every time we go to the library he tries to find a new Star Wars book.

 Here is our newest seating in our house. I've had this idea for awhile (with 6 people in our family and only a love seat in the living room it's kind of hard to make seating for all--especially with company; people usually end up on the floor or bringing in kitchen chairs). However (thanks to a 50% off foam and upholstery fabric sale at Hancock fabric) we finally got it completed. Thanks to Justin for building the bench (which has a lid on hinges so I can store extra blankets in it). We all really enjoy it; it's quite comfortable, and it's really nice to read with natural light or sit and watch the kids playing in the front yard.

 We had a lot of fun the other day with this fort. The kids wanted me to build them one and I thought--why not fill up the living room with a fort! Between borrowing the quilt off my bed and getting help from Homer, Shakespeare, and Harry Potter, we built quite a big fort!

And last but definitely not least--yesterday Lily was sitting up in her bouncer! She stayed this way for 5-10 minutes and wouldn't lay back. She used the toy bar to pull herself up and loved sitting up and all she could see! What a happy five-month old!!