How are these kids growing up so fast???

Well, for the last few weeks I feel like I have watched our kids grow up to a whole new level each. We'll start with the smallest, Ellie!

She started taking steps to walk around Christmas and has been slowly working up the nerve to try to walk for the first half of January. Well, about last week she decided to take off and each day she is walking more and more. It is now her preferred way of getting around, no more crawling baby! She also has 6 teeth now and loves to eat anything she can feed herself. Last night she slept from 9pm to 4am without waking up! That is the 2nd or 3rd time she has gone so long without waking up. She is by far our worst sleeper yet so hopefully that will change at some point down the road. She is into EVERYTHING lately and LOVES water the most. Today I have already had to change her clothes twice from being soaking wet. Once in the water from the shower when I was taking one because she spent the whole time trying to get in and the other from her playing in the bird bath outside (see video). She is adorable but in that exhausting stage! She loves to say "da da" and make a throaty noise for Dixie but that is about it with words. She was saying "ma ma" a lot a few months ago but has stopped. I love to hear her say "da da" so I am okay with it!

 As you can tell we also do about 10 plus load of laundry each week. Good thing we make our own detergent because it is soooo much cheaper!

Isaiah is now officially a big boy and has been completely potty trained for a few weeks. He and daddy when to Monkey Joe's and Chick Fil A for a little dude time celebration recently and he had a blast. He has also been dry at least half the nights in a week so looks like we won't have to do pull ups forever, or at all! He is such a sweet big brother and I caught a little Isaiah-Ellie love the other day and it melts my heart! Ellie just smiles first thing in the morning when Isaiah and Savannah come in to see her.

Savannah is just getting smarter by the day. She generally loves school, unless she has something else she wants to play. Today she wanted to play 'soccer summer camp' instead of do Bible time. She quickly changed her attitude when she found out part of school today was library time. She LOVES the library and usually has a goal of reading ALLLL of our books the day we get them. Since we get about 40 books that is a lofty goal, but one she almost attains. The other day I got a book called the Christian book of Mother Goose with poems, short stories and rhymes and she read the whole thing that afternoon. It was a 295 page book!

 We went to a high school basketball game the other night because our good friends the McGintys have two sons who play for different teams and they were playing each other. Before the game Savannah squealed and said "I've never been to a real basketball game before". Similar to the hockey game she cheered pretty much the whole time!

A friend once told me to take pictures with your kids often. Don't worry about what your hair looks like or if you have makeup on, just make the memory of the picture. I have been trying to do that more often! Savannah liked her hair up this way because she has "curls" in the back. Ok it is really just waves but she wants to have curls like mommy! I am so thankful for our sweet little ones and love that each day I get to make memories and cherish them more and more. We are truly blessed!