Newell Get Together

We got together in Anderson this afternoon since we wouldn't all be in town on Christmas Day. What fun to have all the great-grandkids in one room! The youngest, Gabby is six months and the oldest, David, is six. What a crazy fun family we have! Here are a few pictures from the afternoon...

Hailey(3), Gabby (6 mos.), Bella(2) & Phoebe (8 mos.)

Cousin Kyle & Phoebe

YiaYia & Phoebe

GreatGrandma & GreatGrandpa with the GreatGrandkids!

And before everyone left, we took some pictures with Grandma and Grandpa Newell. Here are the Newell's from Phoenix:

Here are the Kirkpatrick's from Fishers, Indiana:

Here we are amazingly all smiling for the camera:

And then here are YiaYia & Papou:


We missed Cortney who had to work at the hospital - she would have gotten a good dose of babies during the visit! Hopefully I'll get some pictures from everyone else so I can add to the collection. Ryan was trying different things with the camera so the ones that showed the rest of the family didn't turn out. It was so fun to catch up in person with everyone! Hopefully it can happen more than once every 3 or 4 years from here on out. Love you all!

The Crawling Begins...

This is what we've been doing at our house recently...practicing our army crawl. It starts by zoning in on an object (usually one of Pita's toys) and scooting, pulling and pushing until the desired object is reached.

She's been such a fun baby and we're starting to capture some really great smiles. She's enjoying moving around more - so much so that she even got moved up to the next level at daycare this week. Tuesday was rough (probably just having new teachers, being in a new room and starting a new scheduled routine), but her last two days have been much easier. She drooled like crazy over the weekend and has had three blowouts in the last two days - we can't help but wonder if more teeth may be the reason? Only time will tell! Ryan caught this one of her entertaining herself in the mirror - how fun is that face?!

And here's one of the two of them doing some father/daughter bonding. Ryan thinks she's starting to look less and less like him and more like her own little person. A lot of people think she looks like her Nana - either way, they're both good looking so we're in luck!

He took this one when I got home tonight. She usually falls asleep on the way home and stayed asleep while we unloaded the car. She just looked so peaceful and snug - we gave up on a coat and are just using the Bundle Me blanket, even though it's a bit big for her right now. It works great, it just means we have to take the carseat in everywhere since she doesn't have a coat on.

Thanksgiving in Chicago

We made it to Chicago for another Thanksgiving - it's hard to believe my family has been making the trek for 21 years now. We arrived about an hour before everyone else which gave us just enough time to get changed before everyone started to arrive - I don't know how Aunt Mary does it - she had 61 in attendance this year! I don't think we could tell you half the people who were there - I can't believe how fast the kids grow up!

I'm pretty sure Phoebe was a hit - Auntie Kate loved getting to spend some one-on-one time with her too!

Katie's friend, Josh came since his home in Texas was a bit too far to get to for the short holiday. He hit it off with everyone, and had a special connection with Jessica.

Skip & Gayle's youngest daughter, Cassiday, became fast friends with Phoebe. We even got to go clothes hunting in her closet before we left - it's so fun to have older girl cousins and inherit some of their clothes!

Yanni and Alexi were able to come this year - their family lives in Greece so we don't see them very often - it was good to catch up with them.

Phoebe loves her uncle so much she wore a shirt just for him that said, "My Uncle Steve is kind of a big deal." It was hard to get a picture with all the words showing so you'll just have to take my word for it!

We also got to participate in Aunt Mary's birthday celebration. The kids made a cookie jar for their Michigan beach house and filled it up with love letters. What a sweet idea (I'll probably steal it when my kid(s) are old enough to write!).

Here's a picture of those two teeth that are slowly but surely making their way into Phoebe's mouth.

Saturday, we had to keep with tradition and make our way downtown before heading home. Josh had never been to the Windy City so we made a few of the main stops (Millenium Park, Garrett's Popcorn, Michigan Avenue, etc.). Here we all are at the bean:

The Wrigley Building:

We stopped at Portillo's for lunch and since Santa was there, we decided to give him a try. The last week or two, she's decided she doesn't care much for strangers...

So after Santa, we headed back home to Indy. We had to be up bright and early the next morning since the Wallis family was lighting the Advent Candle at church all three services. We took Phoebe in her pjs and got her dressed in time for the 8:00 service (she kicked over one of the candles, luckily not the lit one) and we breezed through the other two without a hitch. Lots of people came up to us afterwards to tell us what we already know, that we have a darling daughter. I can't believe it's December already - I need Christmas ideas, everyone!!!