Our Lazy Sunday

Today we had the perfect Sunday.  We went to church, got Five Guys Burgers for lunch, all took a nice long 3 hour nap (this was a once in a lifetime occurrence), and played outside with our little girls before getting everyone ready for bed. 

I just had to share these pictures of the girls on their swingset.  Yes, they were all already in their pajamas :)

Our smiley Ella

Daddy and Hannah

Hailee

Our poor, neglected dog Chloe.  She's so cute and such a good girl,
but our other little girls require all of our attention! :)

Hannah

Ha!  They each kept tilting to the sides of the swing. 

Ella pushing mommy

Ella and mommy <3

Pajama Time!

I know I've said it before, but I just love having all little girls!  They are all just so lovable...to us, to each other, even to strangers at times!  I know I would love a little boy to pieces if I had one, but with these little ladies on our hands, I'm definitely not complaining!  Not to mention how much FUN they all are!  :)  Here are some pictures from a recent pajama party at the Clark household!

Ella

 Ella loves showing her sister's their toys

She's up to something.. 

Hannah

Just chatting..

until big sis comes to head butt them both!

Big sis's expression when I told her to settle down!!

Big sis got kicked out of the crib and continued to harass..

Hailee, trying her best to sit up. 

Hailee

Awe, that's better!  Sisterly love!

One big good night kiss!  Muah!

No blog post...

for almost two weeks!  We've all been so busy that I've had no time to even think about blogging!  So lucky for you all, I have a few updates! :)
Our little Ella is almost two!  We've got about 3 weeks until her birthday party and I'm so excited for her!  Ella is having a small friend birthday party at our house this year and a small family party at my parent's house the following weekend.  We figured it will work out better so that no one has to make the two hour drive down here.  Two parties should be so much fun for Ella...she isn't spoiled or anything ;)  On another note, Ella is still doing well peeing on the potty.  She still doesn't tell me when she has to go, but she has been going more often when I put her on the potty.  We have not tried the M&M method or any type of reward method as of now.  I'm hoping we don't have to go that route.

Hailee and Hannah are growing right along too!  At their last doctor appointment, about a week and a half ago, Hannah weighed in at about 13.6 lbs and Hailee at a whopping 15 lbs!  We have been working hard on sitting.  They still may be a bit away from it, but it doesn't hurt to try!  We introduced solid foods about two weeks ago.  So far the girls have been doing good with them.  They have tried bananas, peaches, pears, and apples.  Hannah is hit or miss and Hailee, of course, is a little chow hound!  She'll eat anything that doesn't eat her first! 

Just a little bit ago as we were putting our girls down for bed, Paul made the comment "I've been waiting for this hour ever since 8:00am this morning!"  I just had to laugh!  Our lives are crazier than ever.  Our house is constantly a disaster.  We often feel like we will soon lose our minds.  However, I quickly remember that it is all worth it when I sit down and begin to write about our children and the accomplishments they have made and cute things they have done since my last post.  I am so happy that I started this whole blogging thing.  I already can't wait for the day that I make all of my posts into a book for each of our girls.  I really think it will be an amazing gift. 

The sad thing is, I have been so busy taking pictures of other people's kids that I just realized after looking at my memory card that I barely have any recent ones of my own kids!  I will try to change that this upcoming week.  In the mean time..below are a few. 

Ella got a new winter hat the other day at the mall.  She would not take it off after we bought it, in the mall or after we got home.  I'm sure some of you remember Ella's squishy face.  Here it is again..with the hat on too!

 Hailee still loves the playmat.  I meant to get a picture of Hannah playing too, but then she puked on herself so between changing her and cleaning up I must have forgotten about that picture.

 Two of my three little paci queens.  p.s.  Our new plan is to have Santa take Ella's paci away this year.  We are hoping that we can use some of her new toys as a bribe to forget about her paci.  She will be a couple months over two years old.  That's not too old is it??  Ugh, I know if you would've asked me before I had my own paci lover I would've said YES! 

I know many of you have seen Hailee and Hannah's six month pictures that I took, either on my FaceBook page or ones that I sent you.  If you have not, don't worry, here are a few of my favorites!

I love how I had very similar facial expressions of each girl when I looked through the shots I had taken.

Big smiles:

 Little grins:

Straight (but ever so cute) faces:

 Hannah and Hailee

Hannah (looking a little ornery) and Hailee (looking nice and plump)

Hannah

Love this one!

Hannah and Hailee

 LOVE OUR GIRLS!!! 

Watch for Ella's two year photos soon!! :)

Our night out!

Paul and I had our first night away this past Saturday from all 3 girls since the twins came home from the hospital.  Paul's cousin was getting married in Toledo, so we took the opportunity to stay the night and have my family come down and stay with the girls.  Paul and I had so much fun together!  The wedding was beautiful and it was nice to see Paul's family and cousins.  Paul had not seen his family for almost 3 years...since our wedding!  They ragged on him about that more than a couple times throughout the evening :)  Then on Sunday we went antiquing for some photography props. I got a cute little chair and bench that will be adorable for sitters through about Ella's age kids.  I can't wait to use them for a couple one year old sessions I have coming up in the next couple months!  We were happy to get home and see our girls again yesterday.  It is the best thing ever to see how excited Ella gets when she sees us when we've been gone.  Mom cleaned our house while dad watched the kids for a couple hours on Sunday.  She said she cleaned it because she has no idea how I ever have time to do anything.  She said one of the kids is always in need of something.  Yep, it's tough, but we wouldn't have it any other way!  However, I can say that we are already talking about our next weekend sans kiddos!

We've all taken pictures of ourselves before.  Here's a few from the evening...I am not proud of the photography skills of these particular photos :)

Ready to go out!

My Love <3

I included this because I have no idea why I am carrying one of the centerpieces back to the hotel.
I do remember that the flower arrangements at this wedding were the prettiest I've ever seen though!
And, who knows why Paul even took this pic of me...

On another note....Ella peed on the potty one night last week!  I was so proud of her!  Her princess potty sings when you pee in it.  I heard this sound coming from it, wondered what it was since I had never heard such a thing before, and she had peed!  I hope I didn't scare her with how excited I got!  She hasn't done it since, but she does like sitting on it.  She'll sit there for a half hour to 45 minutes at times with no pee.  Hopefully she will go again soon! Yay Ella!!

Something New..

As a lot of you probably know, I have recently started my own photography business.  I am so excited about this new venture in my life!  I am so passionate about the work I have done so far and just love working on and editing each photo from every session.  I never thought I would say that I love working...but I really do love this.  So far I have done a few newborn/young child sessions (besides my own).  I love, love, love doing newborn sessions!  The babies are just so new and sweet and it is so much fun.  My style of photography is using natural light, inside or out, capturing real life poses and expressions.  For newborns, I visit the client's home so that they are in their comfort zone, and we have the option of adding some personal touches into the photos.  They are normally done within the first ten days of the baby's life to capture the best sleeping baby poses.  For young children, I like shooting outdoors in a park or somewhere that the child can have fun being their cute little self.  I just created a Facebook page and hope to have a "real" website soon.  Oh, and I would greatly appreciate if next time you are on Facebook you could check out my page and "like" it!  I am so excited about the next few sessions I have coming up.  There are a couple babies due within the next couple weeks (one born yesterday:) and I can't wait to use some of my new props on these sweet little ones.  I had some time today so I did some 6 month shots of the twins that I will post on my page as soon as I get them edited.  Note:  Twins are HARD to do!  No wonder photographers always charge a higher sitting fee for them! 

Another new thing we have going on for us is that we brought up Ella's jumperoo for Hailee and Hannah to use.  Well, Ella had other things in mind.  She was SO excited to see her old toy and wanted to check it out right away.  Ella had a blast in the jumperoo.  She can stand straight up in it and the toys are clearly too young for her.  We finally peeled her out of it, kicking and screaming, when it was 7:00pm and she hadn't even ate dinner yet.  Hopefully this phase ends soon...



I had to include these pictures of Paul, Ella, and Chloe goofing off wearing Hailee and Hannah's sun hats!  I love my family!