My parents have all of our music books in their piano bench at their house. When we are at their house Reese always wants to go play in the “singing room”. One day we were at home and she kept asking where our magazines were. I kept asking questions to figure out what she was talking about. I eventually figured out that she wanted her own music books.
One day I walked in to the living room and saw that Reese had created her own magazines.
She is so creative.
When we were at my parents house the last time I told Reese that a lot of my old toys were down in their basement. She asked if she could see them so Becca and I took her down to see them. I knew our baby doll beds were down there and I thought she would want to see those but when we got down there we found something much more exciting.
We stumbled upon all of our old Barbie dolls. Reese thought she was in Barbie heaven. There were so many clothes and Barbie dolls.
We brought them all home with us to enjoy them all in Reese’s new dollhouse.
Today we went to play with our friends and celebrate an early Valentine’s day. It was so much fun to get out of the house and visit with our friends even though it was completely nuts!
I finally had my first go at using my new KitchenAid mixer. It was fabulous!!
I made a cake for our little get together and it was yummy.
The monkeys that make up the craziness.
What a fun day!
Back in October we had my grandfather’s 80th birthday party. All of the cousins went in together to hire a photographer to capture some memories. The experience with the photographer was actually a really horrible experience and the pictures she sent to me turned out even worse. I played with a few of the pictures in Picnik and was able to make them decent but nothing I would pay for. I’m sad that the situation turned out the way it did. Because not everyone lives close by, we can’t just try again right away. I hope that we will be able to get everyone together again one day to have a do over.
The whole family…
Gigi and her grandbabies
Papa and his grandkids
Leah, Becca, and Me
This has been one of the most horrible weeks around here…aside from the weeks we all had the flu. This week we have all had the stomach flu. Along with all the stomach stuff, it kept us down with achy bodies and super tiredness.
So…no pictures, no fun stories, no nothing. A lot of fluids, crankiness, and sleepiness.
Please let this be our last family wide illness. It is making us all CUH-RAY-ZY!!!
We turned Sam around in the car today! We waited a little longer with him until he was walking full time. He really seemed indifferent about facing forward v. facing backwards. He isn’t feeling 100% so that could be why he doesn’t look too excited in this picture (taken on my phone).
Tonight we went to Taco Mac for dinner. When we are out we usually get Sam some apple juice, put it in his cup and cut it in half with water. Towards the end of dinner he was getting a little restless so I gave him the straw from the juice box to play with but he decided he wanted the half empty box too. He didn’t know how to drink out of the straw but wanted the straw in the box. After playing with it for a while he figured out how to sip through the straw and loved to full (not cut in half) apple juice. He might fight me on watery apple juice from now on.
Reese has done a pretty good job of entertaining herself these last few days. She loves doing crafts…crafts that she comes up with. I have learned that she isn’t really interested in my coming up with crafts for her. If it is her idea, she flies with it. If it is my idea, she totally shuns it!
She cuts, colors, glues, and makes a huge mess. She makes all of these crafts for other people or to hang them up for showing. I try to get her to color on coloring paper but she refuses…she uses “Special Assignment Paper” that is just computer paper and “Zebra Paper” which is construction paper. She likes to do her own thing. If I try to convince her to color on the coloring paper, she will scribble on it and refuses to try to color in the lines. She will then tell me, “Mrs. Sandy (her teacher) said I HAVE to do it this way!”
She did not want her picture taken…silly girl!
She has turned my sewing table (AKA the dining room table) in to her craft table. We both know how to make a good, crafty mess.
I have really enjoyed watching my little artist craft. I truly think these moments show me how her little personality will be later in life. I hope that I can learn from Artist Reese and apply these lessons to Teenage Reese.
Things we did on Snow Day Round 2.
Lance shoveled the driveway.
We bundled the kids up to go outside again. Sam got to join us this time…but he could barely move.
We took a short stroll down the street. We were in desperate need of getting out of the house. This being stuck is getting old.
Sam had his first attempt at walking in the snow.
But he decided to try and crawl through it instead.
Daddy gave him a little pep talk…
And sent him on his way.
But that didn’t go over too well.
Lance, Claire, and Reese built a toddler size snowman.
While Sam hung out in the stroller and watched.
The snowman turned out so cute and they were so proud of “Crystal”. It has Dum-dums for eyes, a bigger sucker for the nose, a branch for a mouth, and snowflake shaped Peppermint Patties for buttons.
Reese had a staring contest with her. I truly think she was trying to make her come to life like in the Frosty movie.
After dinner the kids got a ride on the laundry basket roller coaster.
I think today may have been Lance’s last day home with us and Claire is hopefully going to be on her way back home tomorrow. She has not received a cancellation for her flight yet so it looks promising.
I am so glad to have had both of them with us these last few days. I think I might have actually gone crazy being stuck in the house. If Reese could choose a new mommy, I am pretty sure it would be Claire. She will do things for Claire that she refuses to do for me. The two of them cuddled in bed watching a movie this afternoon. Reese doesn’t even sit still for her favorite movies with me!
What fun memories we have made!!
We had Owen and his mommy and daddy over on Saturday for lunch. We had such a great time visiting and he is so cute!!
What a fun snow day we have had!! Claire is from Florida and she has never played in the snow before so Reese showed her how it was done.
Seriously, Reese never smiles like this for me but she will do anything for Claire.
They plotted how to get Lance with snowballs.
And then executed their plan.
Reese loved eating the ice/snow today. It was an interesting mix.
On the top it was a solid layer of ice and under it was all the soft, fluffy snow.
Again…that smile…
Silly faces. Sam, once again, was napping while we played.
While we were outside we collected some clean snow, brought it inside, and Claire and Reese made some snow ice cream.
It was pretty good.
After dinner, Reese started a pillow fight. It turned in to Lance beat up Claire, as usual.
This picture cracks me up because you can tell both kids are not happy about Lance tackling her.
What a fun day! Hopefully Sam will get to go out and play tomorrow.
