Christmas at the Moons!

Christmas Eve

Kenzie practicing with the other kids before the Christmas Eve service.

Aubrey and Ava had fun out in the lobby together

CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!!

We made Jake a family scrapbook from the year

(kinda a gift I might have wanted for myself too ;)

We made the grandmothers tote bags with pictures of the grandkids on them!

Playdough was a hit that morning in between opening the gifts

Opening up the Barbie family... complete with dad, two big sisters, and a pregnant Mom with a baby that comes in and out of her detachable stomach (if only it were really that easy!)

Aubrey helped us by cleaning up the wrapping paper.... yikes!

Make up!!

Daddy loves getting tools!

The BIG GIRL BIKE we were so excited about... darn snow! She hasn't been able to ride it yet!!

We went to my parents after breakfast and had lunch and exchanged gifts. Angie has been talking about these things called, "Sing-a-ma-jigs" since October and was so excited to finally give them to the girls! They are really funny!

It was a special treat to have Mommom and Poppop at my parents house that afternoon!

Memom got them each a bath princess and a play princess... and they keep asking to take baths so they can play in the water with their new princess dolls. So cute!

This one of Aubrey is my favorite from the whole day!

The Boettcher Family 2010... there will be at least 2 more little additions to the picture next year... possibly more ;) So hard to imagine now!

New Blog Started

I don't know how to add links, but I want to announce that there is a new blog started for the soon-to-be FOUR happy Moons! You can get to it by going to: http://overthemoonagain.blogspot.com/

This will be the last post at thethreehappymoons... please come visit us at our new blog!

Long Time, No Blog

I have so many pictures on my camera to post... sorry it's been so long! This past Saturday my friend Jamie threw a baby shower for me with my closest friends. I was totally surprised... I thought we were going to the beach and were swinging by the Finn's for Jake to look at something, it was so perfect! She had it set up as a pretty tea party and we had the most wonderful brunch... she hates to bake and the fact that she baked for me spoke volumes of this girl's love! There were really fun games and everyone wrote me the best encouragment notes... all of which made me cry and are totally keepers! They took time to pray for me and they even gave me presents for Aubrey... and some matching dresses for Mackenzie too!

See... here is proof that Jamie loves me... she's wearing oven mitts!

We have this same picture when Liv was still in her belly!

The baby on the left is Kenny and Naomi's Ava and the baby on the right is Jamie and Alan's Liv... both going to be dear friends to Aubrey =)

Lately we've had several nice weather days in a row and Mackenzie has LOVED playing outside on our porch. She's obsessed with picking up the rocks from our driveway, putting them in buckets, and carrying them around. When we got to the park on Sat. she was more excited about the gravel in the parking lot than the swings and the slide!!

I'm so grateful Jake could come to the park with us on Sat (this was after my wonderful shower!) and keep up with Mackenzie!

I love her smile here!


I don't have play kitchen things for her yet (yard sales baby!), so she's playing with our plastic dishes and margarita glasses... nice, huh?

The other day she saw me put water in the pitcher to water the flowers on our steps and then the next day she went and got the pitcher all on her own and started putting "juice" (as all liquid is known in this house right now) on the flowers... so cute!

There she is downing her pitcher of margaritas! You can see the area she has to play though... it's not much at all, but she LOVES it!



Obviously we're getting very close to being the "Four Happy Moons"... (although this Mama Moon is not a very happy Moon right now... emotional and crampy are the only words to describe me!) so I've got to start a new blog... I'll keep you posted on what happens with that!

Snow Day!

We were blessed with a snow day today! Jake got to stay home and play with us in the snow! He was cracking up at me in my snow gear, he had to get a picture. Bending over and getting my boots on was the hardest part, but I did it without asking for help! (I have been caving though and asking for help with my socks recently... I was just feeling too proud today!) Kenzie wasn't a huge fan of this snow because it was way too hard for her to walk in... it came up past her knees!

She also wasn't a big fan of Daddy pulling her in the sled either. She kept falling out of it and crying.

"No, no... don't put me back in that thing!"

She "tried" to walk to me... but it was a failed attempt... she couldn't take a step without falling!

This is a video from the other day... it's kinda long, but it's really cute. She and Jake were playing this game for like 10 mins before I decided to pull out the video camera!

This is a video of Jake pulling her in the sled today... you can see she doesn't quite understand holding on and balancing yet.

When she woke up from her nap today we played a family game of hide and seek... she liked that for a little bit. We're trying to brain storm some other ideas to keep her busy while we're stuck inside... if you have any ideas, please feel free to comment!

Prayer and Play Group

Today was really special... we got to have our play group HERE! 4 other mommies with kids drove all the way out here to spend the morning playing, and praying, with us! We tried to pray together with kids clunking each other in the head and taking toys from one another... it was quite the experience! We did get a few prayers lifted up on each others' behalf before we decided to call it quits and go outside and look for Easter eggs. Yes, I know it is 6 weeks till Easter, but I was trying to think of something fun for the "big" kids (as in the 2-year-old boys) to do and it was the only thing I could think of. As you can see on the video, they all had fun! Mackenzie really seemed to get the hang of it, she understood putting the eggs in her "basket" (i.e. purse) and definitely understood that there was candy inside the eggs! The weather was perfect for an Easter egg hunt too! Then we all ate lunch together before everyone went home for naps... it was a great day!

This afternoon when we were waiting for Daddy to get home she insisted on putting on my shirt... she strutted around the house thinking she was the biggest deal ever! It was so cute!

Playing Mommy

Yesterday I cleaned out my closet and Mackenzie inherited 10 purses and 2 hats. Here she is "helping" me... she thought she was big stuff! This morning she was convinced that she was tiny enough to fit inside her diaper box. Here are her attempts...

After bath time, she tried again... she got closer this time, but then she couldn't move.

To distract her from the box defeat, we started to play babies. I told her the babies would fit into the diaper box and she liked that for a while. She was being so cute with the babies that I decided today was THE DAY to give her the baby and the diaper bag from Lizzi that I've been holding onto since her birthday. I wanted to wait until right before Aubrey was born so Mackenzie would feel like she had a baby to take care of too. She LOVED it! She played so well for close to an hour... taking care of her babies, giving them juice, changing their diapers (I had to keep convincing her not to go get her diapers, but to use the ones in the diaper bag). She loved giving them "shewsh" and thought it was funny when she drank out of their bottles. Then we had lunch and she and the babies went down for their nap. I can hear her fake crying in there and giving the babies juice to make them stop... it's SO cute!

I love the above picture b/c you can see her lips saying, "shewsh"... her favorite word other than "baby."

So nuturing...

I love the "delicate" way she handles the baby =)

Lord, thank you for my little girl! Thank you that she has a nurturing heart at only 17 months old, I marvel at how you made her. I pray that Aubrey would be a new adventure for Mackenzie, that Mackenzie would learn how to help without hurting her little sister. I pray that Aubrey would love her big sister right from the start and that she would be happy whenever Mackenzie is near. And Lord, please help Aubrey to survive with such a little "big" sister "helping" me! Amen