Lights

Last night we went to see the lights at Hopelands Gardens. It was definitely a change from last year when I wore flip flops and a t-shirt! We bundled everyone up and headed out. My pictures aren't the greatest, but we had fun, and that's what counts.

Jack took a picture of us. He could use a little practice!

Having a meltdown because she wanted to push Sam in the stroller.

Jack enjoyed pushing Sam around more than seeing the lights, I think.

Panties

Look who's wearing "panties" today for the first time! Actually, they are cloth training pants and when I put them on her she said to me, "That's not panties. That's underwear!" We're calling them panties, though, and we're pushing on with potty training full steam ahead. The princess charts are hanging in the bathrooms, skittles and stickers are ready, so we will see what happens. I think she's ready. She's been talking about panties for a while now and asking to go potty, but I'm a little spoiled by how easy it was to train Jack, so I'm trying to be realistic since she's so much younger than he was when we trained him. Think about us today!

Oh, and she's also wearing her brother's shirt today (along with his old training pants). We just love sharing in this house!

It's Cookie Time!

Earlier this week we stayed at home (a rarity these days) and made sugar cookies. As soon as Sam went down for his morning nap we hit the kitchen and started mixing, rolling, cutting, and sprinkling! The kids loved it. A side note though, next time we will steer clear of the watermelon flavored sprinkles. They were the only green sprinkles I had in the cabinet and they were gross! Of course, when you use as many sprinkles as Anna did, any flavor is bound to be gross!

Jack insisted on watching them bake.

Do you see the amount of green sprinkles?! That one's technically my fault, though, because it didn't have the tiny holes for the sprinkles to go through, just one big opening, and I turned my back for just a second . . . . !

Jack's cookies.

Please, oh please, ignore the extremely messy kitchen in the background.

Anna's cookies.

Sleepy Sam

A few days ago Sam just refused to take a late afternoon nap. He was pleasant and very happy, but I knew we needed to rush through dinner and bath so he could get to bed a little early. As I was feeding him, I could tell he was exhausted, but we just kept plugging along with dinner. I turned my head to answer a question asked, scooped another bite onto the spoon and when I went to feed it to him, the poor baby looked like this:

Sound asleep!

Back by Popular Demand . . .

THE CHRISTMAS CARD REJECT PHOTOS

I thought it was difficult to get a good family picture for the Christmas card when we had a toddler and a newborn. The following year we had two toddlers and it certainly didn't get any easier. Oh my goodness . . . you can just imagine how it went with a preschooler, a toddler, and a six-month old. Oh wait, no need to imagine, let me show you how it went!

The sun way way too bright here, obviously.

In case you can't tell, Jack is actually digging in his pants in this one. I can't even begin to imagine why!

Sam is pulling Anna's hair, Anna is crying out in pain, and Jack is deep in thought.

Anna is pretty much summing up what we are all feeling at this point!

The parents look pained and the eldest appears to be bored with the whole thing.

Again, this one just illustrates how cooperative Anna was during our photo shoot.

Yep, he's picking his nose.

And now we see what's going on - I'm pulling out the tissue and Marshall is fussing at him to get his finger out of his nose! Also, this is probably the best shot of Anna's black eye - at least it matched her dress in round one.

Round two happened a couple days after we got home from Thanksgiving and I realized my coupon for free photo cards was about to expire. We threw clothes on the kids, wiped the snot off Anna's face (she wasn't feeling her best on this day), and plopped them in front of a bush in our yard.

Jack was putting his arm around Sam and touched Anna. She obviously didn't like it.

Someone surprised Sam!

We like to call this one "Evil Jack."

You can kind of see here that Anna's "black" eye is now a purplish-greenish and she has a new scrape right between her eyes.

Somehow Sam lost a shoe.

Now he's trying to eat Anna's dress and she is not pleased at all!

Yep, she's actually licking the snot off her upper lip.

Happy Sam

And we're done!

So, to sum up we learned that 1) It's impossible to get a good picture of my 3 children together, and 2) My kids are pretty gross - how hard is it to ask for a tissue?!

Babes in Stripes

The Fallen

We had a fun time picking out our Christmas tree Sunday afternoon and came right home and decorated it. It was the last of our decorations to go up and the kids (actually, all of us) were so excited to see it lit up that night! Sometime during the wee hours of the morning Marshall and I heard a noise, but I was too tired to process it and went right back to sleep. The next morning, this is what greeted us as we came downstairs:



Fallen tree, shattered ornaments, and tons of water everywhere! I spent most of the morning cleaning up the remains and trying to keep little feet out of the room while I mopped. At least the lights stayed intact and Marshall was here to help get it back upright.

At first we blamed the tree (the trunk is a bit crooked and caused several "discussions" about getting the tree straight when we were putting it up the day before), but the more we've thought about it, I have a hunch that a certain weimaraner might have had a part in the downfall of our tree. It made a noise loud enough to wake both Marshall and myself, yet Hank didn't make a sound. He always barks at strange sounds, especially during the night, unless of course, he's the cause of them! Seems a little fishy to me!

At this point, it doesn't matter, but the same tree (with LESS ornaments) hasn't fallen again since we put it back up! And isn't it pretty?