2013 Christmas Letter

2013 has been a year of joy and happiness!

…And to get right to the exciting part of our year… we welcomed our new addition to the family- Axel Julien was born on March 23! He has been such a fun baby and has fit easily into the family. Ethan and Chloë love having a baby brother and love on him constantly. Ethan cannot wait until he is big enough to really play with him and Chloë is content just to sit with him on the floor with books and baby toys, she is the nurturer and hugs him approximately 100 times each day!

In May Ethan graduated from kindergarten. It was so fun to see his program at school and hear all their songs they worked so hard on. Ethan is doing well in first grade, although it has been an adjustment being at school all day and having a lot more expected from him. He is meeting his goals and acing all his spelling tests. Plus now he reads all on his own and will be starting chapter books very soon! We are so proud of him.

Chloë started kindergarten this fall and is having the time of her life. She gets upset when there is no school or if she is too sick to go. She is learning so much and has started reading books on her own. They are doing a sign language program with the ABCs and it has been really fun learning along with her. She will try to read almost anything she sees, she is definitely our little book worm!

Axel is 9 months old and crawling all over the place. He loves to be with people and is very social with the people he knows well but he is definitely in the “stranger danger” phase. He has the sweetest little voice and jabbers all the time- “dada” being his favorite word. Axel’s huge grin is contagious- he can make everything better with his smiles and giggles! We are enjoying watching him grow and seeing who he will become.

Travis took the leap out of the call center this year and got a new job (with rocky mountain power) working in a warehouse. It is a much better fit for him and he loves it so far. As a bonus he gets off work at 4 now so we see him a lot more during the week! And as usual he always has a project going in the garage, because what good is it to finally have one unless you put it to good use.

I’ve been up to my same old stuff, taking care of the kids at home and of course I always have a craft going. This year I have been doing a lot of crocheting and Axel gets a new hat for each month older he is. It’s been fun learning to make new stuff; Pinterest and HGTV always give me new ideas! My mom and I also learned to make fudge and divinity this year, and I must say we are pretty good at it- Yum!

 

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 Love,

The Rhynsburgers

                   

 Alexie, Travis, Ethan, Chloë, Axel

 

4, 5, 6 months and a 7 year old!

Its been quite a while since my last blog post, Axel was only 3 months the last time I wrote anything. Now he is coming up on 7 months! Hard to believe my little one is getting so big. Ethan is also growing up so fast, he turned 7 last month! We had a fun dinosaur party with the family in our back yard. Now we are coming up on Travis' birthday then Chloe's! Before we know it little Axel will be turning 1. As always I hope to keep up with the blog more but its hard to say with our busy lives! But for now here are some pictures of my cute munchkins!

 

 

 Pumpkin patch at Wheeler farm

 

3 months

    Its hard to believe that Mr. Axel has been here for 3 months already! He is growing way to fast. He is already 12 pounds and 24 inches long. He is such a happy baby, only crying when he is hungry or tired... or sometimes when he just wants his mama. Ethan and Chloë are really good older siblings always wanting to sit and "spend time with Axel" although Ethan keeps thinking that Axel should be ready to play with him and he isn't quite there yet! Chloë is like his second mom, always making sure he has his binki, blanket, socks, or anything else he might need. They both insist on saying good morning and good night to him every day. I love seeing all 3 of my kiddos together and Axel just smiling away at his brother and sister.

 

 

 

Axel has changed so much!

Axel at 2 months

 Axel at 3 months

 

Ethan feeding the ducks June 2013

Chloë at the Stansbury car show June 2013

right after his bath

I can't even count how many picture I have of Chloë kissing on her little brother, she absolutely adores him!

Ethan and Axel having a picnic in the front yard

All swaddled up just like baby brother!

A tour of the nursery

It took a lot of work and a whole lot of sewing but I love how Axel's room turned out! I made his quilts, pillow cases, changing table pad and all the wall art (except for the tree is vinyl), the lampshade and his name sign. I also painted the dressers and toy box. Travis helped me with the felt board on the wall. It goes from wall to wall and I hope he will like playing with it when he is big enough! It was so much fun shopping for all the right stuff for his room, the chair was the hardest to find but with my mom helping me got babies r us to sell us their floor model and got a really good deal on it too!  

 

 

 

Axel Julien

 

Only 6 weeks late but I am finally getting around to introduce AXEL JULIEN on our blog. Things have settled down and we have gotten into somewhat of a new routine. Travis was home for 18 days when Axel was born, it was so nice to have the help and important that they got some good bonding time in too! Ethan and Chloe are completely in love with their little brother, there hasn't even been any jealousy. The only problem is that they try to help a little too much! I love seeing them love on their little brother.

Axel was born Saturday March 23, 2013 at 5:01 PM he was 7 pounds 10 ounces and 19 inches long. At his 2 week appointment he was already up to 8 pound 12 ounces! He is definitely a good little eater! We just can't get enough of this little guy!

 

 

 

less than 24 hours old!

Easter Sunday- 8 days old

Baby #3

Our baby journey so far... We found out on July 24 that we were expecting baby #3! We were so excited and it was really hard to keep the secret from Ethan and Chloe and the rest of the family. Finally at just over 8 weeks pregnant we announced at my sister's birthday on August 19, 2012. We shocked everyone with the cake that said "baby #3 coming this spring" a week later we went to our first appointment and got a look at our little jelly bean. (9 weeks and 3 days pregnant)

By November we could hardly wait to find out what we were having. Chloe and I said girl; Ethan and Travis said boy. Turned out the boys were right! We were all ecstatic about the news, we went right to lunch with our families to tell them!

We are in the homestretch now, only 3 weeks until our due date of March 29, although we are hoping he will decide to make an earlier appearance. We cannot wait to meet our little man!

 

Snow Play

I may not be enjoying all this cold and snow but Chloë sure loves it! She even talked her dad into a snowball fight!

 

 

 

Christmas Fun

Christmas was so much fun this year. We celebrated and celebrated some more! We decided to spread Christmas out a bit so the kids would have time to play with all their new toys and not be too overwhelmed.

The night before Christmas Eve we all opened our new PJs! Then we woke up on Christmas Eve morning and opened our stockings and gifts. The kids had a blast playing with their new toys all day long. 

Then on Christmas Day we got all dressed up and headed to the Farnsworth's! We had so much fun opening presents, eating yummy food and spending time with the family!

 

While we were at the Farnworth's Wendell and Carole came over to do some more celebrating with. We of course opened more presents... and ate more food! So fun to have everyone together!

 

 

 

It was such a fun Christmas season! Thanks to all of our family for making it so special...a and spoiling us all rotten!

 

 

 

 

My New Years resolution is to be better at blogging so check back often!