Keeley celebrated her 3rd birthday on January 7th.  We had a small party for her over Uncle Brady, Auntie Jenn and Elle's house.  We also celebrated at school with her friends there.  Keeley draws so well.  No more just circles and lines, she's actually beginning to draw things that look like what she says they are. She's learning to spell and write her letters.  She can spell everyone in our family's name so far.  She continues to want to help take care of "Baby Brother."  Getting her to go to bed at night has become a struggle over the past month. She'll come up with any excuse in the book for us to come back in there after we put her down.  One night after we thought she had exhausted all of her excuses (I want my blanket on, I want my blanket off, I want ice cubes in my water, I want one more story, etc. etc.), she yelled out for Jeff and said "Daddy, your kiss fell off."  We couldn't stop laughing.  She's quite funny in some of her comments.  We were at the gas station the other day and while Jeff was pumping gas she says "That gas doesn't come out of my bum bum."

20 Month Old Kaelin, oh Kaelin.  She's our little love bunny.  She gives the best hugs and kisses ever.  She's so sweet and generous and is great about sharing.  She recently graduated from Group 1 at school and now she and Keeley are both in Group 2 together. They are best of friends (well...most of the time).  Kaelin loves to sing and draw as well.  She really looks up to Keeley and wants to do anything she's doing.  Kaelin also wants to help take care of "Brully" all the time.  She's crazy about Aidan.  Kaelin will pretty much try any food we put in front of her--most recently Thai food, sardines, lobster, shrimp.  Kaelin loves to dance to music, we can't help but roll the video as soon as she breaks out dancing.  She's been stringing a lot more words together lately and is learning more and more every day. She surprised us by counting to ten this morning.

7 Month Old Aidan has been sitting up on his own for about two months now. We're waiting for his next milestone which should be crawling. Unless he decides to go straight to walking!  He's moving so fast these days and can roll from one end of a room to the other in minutes (he rolled off of the bed the other night in a matter of 3 seconds...but he's fine!).  He loves eating "real" food, favorites are anything mushy green and also bananas.  He likes to play with and use a sippy cup now.  He started clapping last week and actually does it on command now too.  He's beginning to wave goodbye as well.  Just like the girls were with Jeff when they were babies (and still are!), Aidan is with Tara.  He will jump out of anyone's arms to go to his Mommy's.  He puts just about everything in his mouth and is exploring like crazy.  Still no sign of any teeth yet though.  We held off as long as we could, but we finally got his hair cut two weeks ago.  He was perfect at the salon.  Aidan babbles like crazy, new sounds every day!  He's recently started sleeping in longer stretches at night--we can expect about 8-9 hours.  Of course, that doesn't mean we get that much sleep...after all the kids are in bed we usually have several hours of work and are lucky to catch a good 5 hours!

We'll be heading to Massachusetts in a couple weeks for a long weekend and well celebrate a belated Christmas there.  Santa will come too!  Nana promised to keep the Christmas tree up, but is getting tired of dusting off the ornaments!  Let's keep our fingers crossed that we are all well for the trip and no more emergency room visits either!

Upcoming birthdays & events include:

• February 4th Auntie Jenn's 30th Birthday
• February 15th Cousin Conor's 9th Birthday
• March 5th Auntie Kelly's 37th Birthday
• March 5th Auntie Erin's 37th Birthday
• March 26th Uncle Brady's 32nd Birthday