And the Winner is...

Ok, so it's not fair to ask you all to decide who looks more like who- and THEN we don't tell you, so I'm going to tell you what we think.  It is... Mya and Kenadi.  I know, the angle didn't help you at all.  But, really, Mya and Kenadi look a lot alike, minus the extra chins on Mya.

 We were so lucky to have my sister Haley and her husband Nick, with Sadie their 1-year-old come visit us.  They came right after I had Mya.  Kenadi and Emma had so much fun bonding with their little cousin.

Randy got to stay home and help with the baby.  We love having him home. 

Of course, there were a few late night games.  I lost terribly, so I'm sure they were all cheating.  This is my sweet sister.  I miss her tons!

 While Haley and Nick were visiting, Kenadi asked me if she could put on some of my makeup.  I said yes, and this is what she came up with.  She really thought it was beautiful and I had a hard time not laughing each time I looked at her.  I hope this isn't an interpretation of what she thinks I look like when I wear makeup.

 I liked these pictures of Haley and just wanted to share.  She is my sister who is just younger than me.

 Yes, I notice Nicks inappropriate placement of his hand, but this was the best picture we got.  Thanks a lot Nick.

 

Who's like who?

Here's each of our girls at roughly the same age (~5 days).

Kenadi

Emma

Mya

Notice any similarities. Who looks the most alike? We looked through each of their baby pictures a few days ago and have our own opinions. What do you think?

She's Here!

Mya Lee Hempel arrived on January 20th, at 1:52 pm! She weighed 9lbs even and 21 1/2 inches long.  We are all doing very good! 

This is just minutes after she was born. She was such a chunky little thing.

Here's our first family photo. Kenadi and Emma were very excited to see her.

Here she is at about five days old. She's not as chunky or swollen any more.

They loved holding her.

They still enjoy holding her every chance they get.

Peaceful.

Such sweet sisters.

We have enjoyed our new addition to our family. Mya is so sweet and is a very good baby. She mostly just eats and sleeps. We are so blessed to have three wonderful little girls. We have also been the recipients of so much love from friends and family. My sister Haley, her husband Nick, and daughter Sadie came to visit the day after she was born. Pictures from their visit will be posted soon, hopefully.

A Walk in "The Woods"

We have a wonderful park that is in NW Oklahoma City that has a few miles of trails through woods.  It is actually right next to the apartments we lived in when we first moved here.  We fell in love with these woods while we lived there and love to go back often.  There is also lots of wildlife living in this park.  If you go at the right time of day you will see lots of deer.  On this day we saw lots of ducks and an opossum.  These woods are also the location of the only live armadillo I've ever seen.

The girls and I (it's near impossible to get everyone looking at the camera at the same time)

The girls love the woods.  Non-stop fun to be had.

Emma is much easier, at times, to photograph than Kenadi.  Most of Kenadi's pictures are of the back of her running away from us.

Here's the best one we could get of Kenadi on this outing.  This was towards the end of the hike when she was finally wearing down.  

Christmas

It's only a little over a week since Christmas happened.  I'm doing pretty good!  The night before Christmas we started a new tradition that I heard from someone... opening one present that is to the whole family and it is known to be a game... what kind of game the kids don't know until they open the present.  Then we spent Christmas Eve night playing the family game.  It was Hungry Hippo.  The girls loved it.  It was a good family game.  We all had fun.

 Then of course, over night Santa came.  Emma woke up and was so happy with her gift he brought her- a train set.

 Kenadi's reaction was a little unexpected.  She almost didn't even look at the gift that Santa brought.  She'd been drooling over it in the store for a couple of months already, and she just walked out and acted like she expected it to be there.  Don't get me wrong, she was happy and plays with the princess barbies every day, but I think she thought that she submits a gift list to Santa and just gets the gifts on her list.  She even asked me, "where's the princess gloves and shoes?"  Hmmm, guess I need to explain things better.

 Look mom!  Candy before breakfast!  

 Randy was definitely surprised with what he found in his stocking.

 "come on sissy, lets finish opening the presents"

Then because I'm half crazy and senile, or maybe just crazy in love, I agreed to make Randy donuts for brunch/breakfast #2.  They were so good.  I have the recipe here if you want it.

 After the madness of the morning we followed with our Oklahoma Christmas tradition of going over to our friends house (same friends for almost every holiday).  They've taken us under their wing since we have no family nearby.  They are now our Okie family!

 I found one gaming system that I might allow in our home- this dancing game that looks at your body and see's how well you follow the dancer.  I don't want to ask Randy the name of it because that might seem like I'm really interested.  We had a blast doing it.  I know I look dumb, but this was the best picture that showed Emma following along too.  She did pretty good!

 AND, SURPRISE SURPRISE!  Randy actually got up there and did it!  Oh it was hilarious to see him dance to "Hey Mamma, you Sexy!"

 The girls got some beautiful Christmas dresses from grandma Jensen that we (us girls) fell in love with.

 Emma does like hers, I swear.  She'd just woken up from her nap on the way home from church and didn't want her picture taken.  It was either this picture or one with her finger up her nose.

 Emma's also been enjoying our baby's first gift (my mom made- isn't it adorable?) and my crochet book from Nanna and Papa.

 Oh, and all of the boxes- they're so much fun.

 Last but not least, here's my profile/picture I promised.  I am HUGE.  Well, I don't fit into my clothes any more, and I think I'm about the size I was when I had Emma.  I still have about 3 weeks until my due date- and remember that I have always gone over my due date.  This makes me a bit worried.

 We've enjoyed all of your Christmas cards and pictures!  What beautiful families!  Thank you!  I will send one out next year.  I just couldn't do it this year.  Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Pre-Christmas

Randy gave me my Christmas present a week or so early- a new camera!  A NICE new camera that takes nice clear pictures and does way more things than I know how to handle.  I absolutely love it.  So, here are a few pre-Christmas pictures that I took with it.

I have Christmas photos I need to upload, but until then, here are some cute pictures of the girls in some of their Christmas dresses.  They are so funny and LOVE to dress up in poofy dresses.  Then they dance to "princess" music- disney music on Pandora.

 I guess I love these pictures of the girls because A) you can see they're both happy (that seems to be a hard thing to capture on camera lately) B) you can see they both love each other and how Emma looks up to Kenadi, and C) they have both grown so much!  

 D) It finally got cold here... although, no snow which Kenadi has prayed for and asked for since December began.  The girls' latest "hobby" is digging holes in our backyard and filling them with water. I should probably care about the holes in our yard, but since it's winter I don't.  Maybe when the grass comes back I will.

 But they have so much fun doing it.  Making mud pies and stuff.  It's the things kids should do.  Cause I did it as a kid.

This little sister LOVES her big sister.

Their backyard holes.  Cute little holes that are making memories for me and them. 

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  We did.  My highlight has been having Randy home.  We've gotten so much done, and the time together is wonderful!  I'll post some more pictures soon.  First, I need to have Randy take a good picture of me and my belly.  Yes, I will actually post it.  Brave, I know.