Just for the record...this isn't my baby. Don't worry, I didn't have her early. My dear friend Heather had Addison a few weeks ago and Emma and I were able to visit her yesterday. This was great practice for Emma. Doesn't she totally look like a pro holding this tiny baby??!!
Emma was thrilled that Addison woke up while she was holding her. She told everyone the rest of the day that she had "the magic touch" with babies.
What sweet little friends!
I thought the Masschusetts blog checkers might enjoy seeing picture of the Marshall girls with their new hair cuts. Grandmom Brinkley took them to get haircuts this week!
Abby hasn't had bangs since she was two!! I think they make her look younger! Her hair is going to be soooo much easier to do now!!
Christian loved his new Thomas the tank engine tent that he got from Grandmom & PopPop.
All Ryan ever wants for Christmas is books. So this year I did a little Ebay shopping and got him enough books to last until next Christmas...I hope.
Nate loved this tent too!
Now Grandmom is ready to scrapbook Christmas!
Thanks soooo much Auntie Mimi (Amy) for these really loud recorders. All four kids have them now!
A new dress for Abby's American Girl doll, Kit.
A fire station for Christian's trains.
Emma LOVED her new digital camera! She took pictures all day!!
This Thomas book was the first present Christian opened (Thanks Christi, Carl, Carter & Kohl) and Christian actually sat there and read it.
Our morning was quite chaotic with four kids and lots of packages in one room. Everyone did a great job of sharing their new things with one another.
We had a little Christmas at our house on Saturday night!!! My parents came into town and the cousins (Marshall & Chatterton) exchanged gifts. I was also able to surprise the Marshall gang with some gifts from some dear friends far away!! It was a great evening!
Nate knows how to enjoy a good meal!
Finally a case to hold all of those Polly Pockets. Leave it to Aunt Judy to come up with some kind of organizational tool for a four year old.
The best gift of the night seemed to be a DVD that I made for my parents of their home. I made it on Shutterfly and it included over 100 pictures of their home from the last 35 years.
On Friday we celebrated Jesus' birthday with a very special birthday party!
We did several crafts. In this picture we're all painting a gift box for Jesus. We're going to draw a picture of what we want to give Jesus this year (ex. a picture of us being kind, picture of us sharing, a picture of us with Jesus in our heart, etc). We're going to put the "gift" for Jesus in the box and put it under our tree on Christmas Eve. This is a great, tangible way for the kids to remember that Christmas is really about Jesus and what He really wants for Christmas is us. Jesus wants to have a relationship with us and He wants us to have the fruit of the spirit in our lives.
Emma working on her box!
Nathan was a very serious painter!
Miss. Mandy overseeing Tanyon's creation.
Christian playing with baby Addie. He was fascinated with her and crawled around on the floor with her.
Our next project was decorating birthday cakes for Jesus. Each family got their own cake to decorate (although Emma and Christian both shared a cake because they're both sick....we wanted to keep their germs contained to a cake that we don't plan on eating).
Check out the intense sprinkle situation on this cake.
Emma and Christian created quite a masterpiece.
All the kids blowing out the candle on their cakes!!
We were riding in the car on our way to get these pictures taken and Abby said, "Look Auntie Judy, I'm bringing along my most beautiful smile (and she demonstrated her smile). " Then she said, "Just in case you don't like that one, I've got another good smile with me too!" She is such a cutie!!!
Christian has never been one for getting professional pictures taken (I've included an example below), but this one actually turned out pretty good. 
This was Christian's disasterous one year old picture!!! At least it's a funny memory now!
Nathan loved getting his picture taken.
Check out the latest addition to our family (no, not our new baby). Abby is holding her new American Girl doll named Kit. She was an early Christmas present from her daddy. Abby loves to talk to Kit and play with her just like a real baby. I just didn't realize that this would mean more girl hair that I'll have to do everyday. Apparently when Abby gets her hair done, Kit also need her hair done too. I guess this is good practice for me.
These children love music and have a great time dancing around together!
They are also very opinionated about what music they like. When we ride in the car I usually don't get to pick what we listen to, I'm always overruled.
Their favorite songs right now: 
One of my favorite things about having a blog is how it keeps me in touch with friends that I otherwise may not hear from too often. My dear friend Katy has a blog and she posted this fun little project with recipe. She did this project with her boys. Believe it or not that brown gooey stuff is a mixture of applesauce and Cinnamon and we made ornaments out of it.
Of course the two year olds and four year old had to point out that the dough looked like poop. But Abby assured me that it didn't taste like it, she checked. Gotta love it.
Can you tell that these children are used to having their pictures taken??
Nathan didn't actually end up making an ornament. After he was done playing with his sticky mess, I rolled the dough out again and made him a few ornaments. He'll never know the difference.
Christian admiring his Christmas tree ornament.
Nate broke a his first ornament, so this was the second try.
Abby hanging her angel!
