New Year (Almost) New Blog Update

Well it's super embarrasing to admit that this will be my one and only update for 2010. Guess one of my New Year's resolutions should be to update more frequently. One of Ainsley's goals is to set up a website for herself, so, who knows, it may be a much better source of information than my blog will ever be. Won't be surprised at that one!

All that to say, we've had a great (albeit apparently undocumented) year. Wanted to share some Christmas joy and let you know the favorites of each of the girls:

Ainsley: favorite (by far) was her new nutcracker. She's been dying for one, and Santa brought it (along with a much more expensive bed for Kit, but that's a whole other story). She loves her beat up nutcracker- and no one can say that she's not unique!

Emma- her favorite is actually the webinz frog that Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Gary gave her for her birthday. LOVES it. and considers herself a big girl because she has something attached to a computer now. Also loves all things involving art, and recently unfortunately cut Rapunzel's hair on Christmas Eve to try to make it come back brown (apparently this is something to do with the new movie Tangled, but all I know is that on Christmas Eve I walk up into my bathroom and find lots of blond hair on the floor...

Gabby- loves her new dress up outfit that matches her sisters from Aunt Alissa and Uncle Steve and also her new pillow pet from Jacob and Payton. It's actually at school with her today, as she told me she "neeeeeeeeds it"

Happy New Years from ours to yours!

spring 2009

We wanted to catch you up a bit on some of our spring fun.

Here are Ainsley and Emma at Dollywood. Emma is FINALLY big enough for the veggietales roller coaster... Below, Ainsley is getting ready for her ballet performance (thanks again to Lisa for helping with their hair!)

Here are Chris and Emma riding the cars at Dollywood... and below are "mommy and daddy" that I found in the playroom one day when they were supposed to be resting...

and here are "mommy and daddy" with their little baby Bethany

Ahhh vacationing with children

Well, our 2009 vacation was certainly one for the books. We began in Virginia at Smith Mountain Lake, with our dear friends the Romans... you'll know why we consider them so dear shortly! About an hour and a half after our arrival, Emma tripped, propelled herself into an unsuspecting entertainment center (which is now permanently dented) and burst her head open, on her forehead, to her skull. That's what the intake personnel at the emergency room (which was the second stop after an urgent care center that felt that the cut was too severe to handle outside an emergency room) actually wrote on the intake sheet "I can see skull." Lovely, after 7 and a half hours and 11 stiches, we arrived back at the cabin at 4am, grateful to have her in one piece and VERY glad to have left Ains and Gabby at the cabin with our friends. Then Sunday came, when Ainsley decided that she wanted to stand too close to the edge on the floating dock... she fell in (without a life jacket) daddy jumped in to get her, only remembering after rescuing her that he had his blackberry on his belt... one blackberry down, one child fine... it's a wonder if the Romans ever vacation with us again (unless they have an odd sense of humor and actually get joy out of our travails :))... unfortunately, we don't have any pics from this portion (can't imagine why!) but we have some great memories...

Onward we pushed to Isle of Palms in Charleston, SC where things for the most part turned around. We had a wonderful time hanging out with Uncle Jimmy and Ms. Kate, were treated to a fabulous dinner sans kiddos thanks to those two in Charleston, and had my parents come in for the end of the week as well... Lots of memories there too, including having to move out of our original villa at around midnight because there was water coming out of one of the light fixtures in a bathroom... we figure that at least it's never boring with the Focas! Gabby cut her first tooth on Tuesday, Ainsley rode a tandom bike, Emma got over her fear of the noise of the ocean, Chris got to fly his kite, Catherine got to taste firefly and lemonade for the first time.... all in all a great vacation!

Too long- Ains' birthday and a few randoms

It's been way too long since we updated, so we wanted to post a few pics:
First, did you know that it actually DID snow this winter in Knoxville? Enough to build and snowfort?


Here are some photos from Ainsley's ice cream sundae birthday party. As you can see, she took orders (vanilla or neopolitan) daddy scooped, and then each child got to make their own sundae. Thanks to all the children for being so patient!

And here are our three girls... they are getting so big so fast!

Visit to Philly

Our next trip took us to Philly, we sure had fun!

We got to spend lots of time with our cousins, Katie and Melanie. Here Ainsley and Emma and Katie are "horsing" around with Chris



We did a lot of coloring this weekend... Little pop-pop and Emma are here coloring






We loved hanging out with little grammy as well... she's a great reader of bed-time stories...






We also visited Aunt Mary... and played at her park!

We had a great time and are looking forward to the next visit!

Visit to Mary Laine

We took a trip to MS to visit Uncle Gary, Aunt Kathryn, and our newest cousin Mary Laine last month. We had so much fun! Here are some pics

Here are Mary Laine and Gabby- as you can see the four months between the two are pretty evident here!

Here is Chris and the older two girls just relaxing at a park. They are still definitely "daddy's girls"

Mary Laine is so cute and we were so glad to get to visit her!

The girls LOVED time wtih Uncle Gary

the girls cuddling after a long walk to the park!

Gabby's first rice cereal feedings

Getting ready for her first feeding- like the fancy bib?

Eating (mommy wielding both the camera and the spoon) and afterwards... not such a clean bib :(

Ains feeding gabby (notice the green spoon!)

So another fun event that has taken place is that Gabby has started to eat rice cereal. She has taken quite a liking to it (thank goodness!) and her big sisters love feeding her!