It was a great day filled with lots of love from my little ones and beardless hubby. Seth has been growing a monster on his face the past 3 months and my birthday request was for him to get rid of it.

As we were sitting eating together the evening of my birthday, I just sat there and looked at my beautiful family and was overjoyed at the many blessings in my life. I’m not gonna lie…I love my 30′s.

Impossible to get them both to look at me the same time.

Testing out my new backdrop…I had to bribe him with candy to get these.

She sings that song ALL the time and she also loves to sing “Away in a Manger.” I finally was able to capture some of her singing the other day when she decided it was her time to shine in front of the camera. Seth can back me up on this…the girl sings ALL DAY LONG and I’m not going to lie, it makes us happy.

My mother in-law said Sage can carry a tune too, which is quite impressive considering this momma who always sings to her isn’t too musically gifted. I mean, I’ve got nothing people in that department. Somehow, I was lucky enough to marry into a family who has musical talents up the wazoo. If we ever did a Nickerson family special, I would be the one shaking the little egg shaker. along with my brother in-law, who I was happy to find out, is also musically uninclined.

So, here is our girl in her jammies with her crazy morning hair singing her little heart out just for you. (Ignore the array of toys, the nebulizer sitting out and the mess on the table!) Take note, she was very concerned when Seth stopped watching her so he could grab a tissue. She had to stop her singing to make sure he was watching her. Clearly, she is a performer!

He is really excited that my birthday is approaching and he talks about it all the time. I told him what I really would like for a gift is a picture of my two kids. I prepped him while Sage was napping that I wanted to take their pictures when we went out for an afternoon bike ride. I guess I should have been more prepared and fixed his hair, but this is a typical look for him. He actually is starting to get curls and it will just curl up on the top of his head (it didn’t help either that his bike helmet smashed his hair). Something I’m sure he will hate when he gets older. Plus, it matches his sister’s hair right now. She is starting to get curls too and one seems to pop up on top of her head every once and awhile and I absolutely adore the curls. I wish I would have appreciate my curls more when I was a little girl.

I love this car in our neighborhood and it was sitting in the perfect spot today. (Thanks to our neighbors who distracted Sage or else she would have been running away!)

I mean, really just don’t smile Abe if it is going to look so fake and forced. (I only meant it was getting easier to have him stay still for a picture, not actually look happy about it.)

I am in love with this picture of her!

Abel has been helping me in the kitchen with dinners and some baking (I only bake because he loves it). It has been great! We have some neat talks and I hope his love for cooking continues.

I do try and remember to thank God everyday for giving us a new kitchen. It blows my mind away that this kitchen is ours and how much God knew we needed it.

You can’t hear her, but she is saying “Sage hold it!” Back in the Fall, she was told she needed nebulizer treatments whenever she gets a cold because it turns into a bad cough. And she has been getting colds non stop lately. Good ole’ winter gem bugs. Well, she refuses to let me hold it now.

Abel love to plays the card game war and he is really good at it too.

He is some sort of a dragon. All I know is that we hit up the Target clearance rack after Halloween and we scored bigtime on some costumes for him.

He insisted on taking pictures of me while we where playing cards. I guess it is only fair that I let him since I have been shoving the camera in his face for over 4 years now. I was really nervous as our cameras our like my other children, but honestly he did great. The focus is a little off, but it is a hard camera to figure out so I was impressed.

That’s all for now. Yay! I took some pictures this month. I decided to leave it sitting out on the counter to get me to take more pictures during the day. If I have to go digging it out of the storage trunk it is much more of an effort.

Today, I felt like she was whipping my butt! By 9am it was like I was battling her in a war. Don’t get me wrong, she isn’t blatantly rebellious like Abel, but she thinks she is really funny (and she can be) and it seems to get her in trouble. She also runs and climbs non stop, which how can I complain. The girl had Hip Dysplasia! Together my kids are a great work out program….so maybe I should be thanking them?

But look at this face. PRECIOUS!!!!

This was the first year Abel really got excited about Christmas. I loved waking up early with him (while Sage and Seth were still sleeping) to look at all the wrapped gifts and talked about what could be inside. It was also a great teaching lesson about Baby Jesus. (on a side note: Sage is OBSESSED with Baby Jesus and has now named her baby boy doll Baby Jesus and sleeps with him at night.)

Love his reaction!

Sage got so excited because Abel was so excited.

Helping his sister feed her new baby monkey. Sage LOVES monkeys so what better than a baby monkey that makes noises and drinks a bottle.

Christmas continue at my parent’s house. The kids have so much fun together!

My parent’s got him a bike. I love that he is still so little he couldn’t figure that it was a bike until all the wrapping paper was off.

I must say he is already a pro (with the training wheels). I see the training wheels coming off very soon.

We said our goodbyes to my family, packed up all the gifts and headed to Boston. The kids do great in the car. We have come so far. Abel would SCREAM the entire 7 hours until he was about 18 months old. But now he loves driving there. He loves that he can stay up late and play his games. Sage is a dream and sleeps most of the time. Not without talking & signing her heart out for the first 2 hours. She can’t see Seth or I so she says “MOMMY & DADDY” every 5 minutes to make sure we are still in the car.

Grandma got the 3 girls matching dresses. Since they are all so close in age, we always try to get a picture of them together.

Grandma cleaning up her face before the mini photo shoot.

PIGS TAILS! I’m dying at her cuteness!!!

She was very suspicious of Papa’s tractor the first few days….

but this is her on the last day…

The girls loved sitting in the doll bed.

Morning stories with all the cousins.

Sage kept thinking she could rock herself in the baby crib.

Kissing cousins. Sage LOVED having 2 little girls to play dolls with all week.

I have lots to share. I took a break in blogging to enjoy time with our families. We had a great vacation and I hope to get back to blogging more soon. I have lots of pictures to share from our little Christmas break, but for now here are just a few of me and my girl. She gives the best hugs! Thanks to my SIL for snapping these.

And yes, that is a pony tail in her hair!!!

I so wish we could have videotaped this series of pictures. My mom was singing her heart out and Sage loves a good song so she was dancing and shaking her little booty. It was a hilarious. She had a few teachers at Abel’s school dying laughing.

Abel had a cute little Christmas program today at school, so I used it as an excuse to dress my kiddos up in their Christmas gear and take some pictures. While Abel was a school, I snapped a few of our darling little girl who will be 18 months next week! I hate to even utter these words, but the terrible twos are slowly creeping into my little sweet sugar pie’s body. This morning, after many “no, Sage!” she threw herself on the floor and had her first big tantrum. Seth and I froze as we couldn’t believe our sweet baby girl was turning into a stubborn toddler right before our eyes.

But she is still pure sugar. Look at those eyes!

She looks like a little teacher in this picture. If you had sent us a Christmas Card, Sage thanks you. She is in LOVE with all the pictures and has officially claimed them as hers. In this photo, she is holding her cousins “Ruby & Libby”, but she knows all your kids names. She can’t get enough of all the cards.

An ornament she took off the tree. Our tree is quite interesting this year as we only decorated the top half because of a certain someone….

Tia came over to play today. These 2 love each other. Tia doesn’t understand why she can’t marry her cousin. She did inform me that she doesn’t like to kiss him, so I guess that is good news. They wanted to play dress up and since I didn’t have any girl dress up clothes, I put some of mine on Tia.

Right before the awful stomach flu hit my home, we got to see our little guy preform on stage. What parent doesn’t love to see their adorable child signing songs for a Christmas play? Abel LOVES to be on stage! He has been apart of our church’s children’s choir called the “Hallelujah Choir” for 2 years now. He always is asking me, “Am I signing on stage this Sunday?”. He actually can really carry a tune. During the practices he was getting mad at one girl who was shouting the words. He kept turning around saying to her, “You are no suppose to shout!” He takes his choir very seriously. Most of the kids were shouting and as much as Abel didn’t want to shout, he must have given up at the end because he started shouting. Hey, if you can’t beat them….join them.

For their first song, the kids dressed up as presents (which was hilarious) and sang “Happy Birthday, Jesus”. They actually had a costume change and all dressed up as characters in a live nativity scene. Since Abel was born in a huge girl boom at our church, he is one of 2 boys in the choir. When the teacher ask him if he wanted to be Joseph or a Wise Man he looked at her and said, “I don’t want to be Joseph, I want be a WISE MAN because they are so wise!” (and the wise man gets to wear a crown too.)

Enjoy the Hallelujah Choir!

I wasn’t able to upload the other video where he played the only wise man, but know he did a great job and Sage was shouting in the background the whole time saying “Where baby go? (she wanted to hold the baby Jesus.)

Abel and his cousin, Tia the angel.

These were some pictures I managed to get last week. Abel has taught his lil’ sis how to use the iPad and they were sharing a cute moment on the couch. And, yes Abel is dressed in a pirate costume.

See Sage, this is how you do it.

Just put your finger right there…

Yep, that is it!

Yay for the iPad!

I would have never thought when we got her second brace, the German Abduction brace, back on December 5, 2010 that she would be in it for another year. I am so grateful that we do not know what the future holds. I remember how discouraging it was when we actually thought she was getting better and then we found out she had regressed and needed a new brace. I thought to myself “surely she will only be in this new brace for a few months.”

Through it all, our girl has surprised us. She NEVER let the brace hinder her. She hit every milestone early or right on time. She is outgoing, funny, determined, extremely strong, smart and very talkative. We were fearful that she would start to fear strangers since she has had so many x-rays (which have become incredibly hard to hold her down during the exam) and been to so many doctors appointments, but she loves people. She loves names and let me tell you if she hears your name once and she likes you, she will remember your name.

We will continue to see her Orthopedic Surgeon every few months to make sure her hips still look normal. She will be monitored up into her teen years, which makes me feel good.

We love this little girl! She has brought our family so much joy. At just hours old, we knew she was pure sugar and she is! Sweet & yummy!

Here are some of me and my girl that my SIL took a few weeks ago during our little family photo session.