Early December

Our weather this December has been all over the place.  It has ranged from 65 to 10 with snow and rain and everything in between.  My children beg to play outside, but there is quite the difference between 65 and 10. This was one of those colder days where Jack begged to go outside before it got dark.  He would not listen to me about his coat or gloves, so I figured I would let him learn the lesson that when mom says to zipper your coat, you zipper your coat. I think we were outside for 3 minutes.

I feel I should explain Jack's wardrobe.  He has recently discovered that pajamas are superior in comfort to any other article of clothing.  As a result he spends most of his days and nights in mix-matched pajamas.  With boots.

Lucy is my sweet little chunky baby.  I have never had a fat baby and it is so exciting.  There must be some sort of maternal instinct that wants your baby to thrive and being fat is the number one sign that they are getting enough to eat!

I can't seem to capture her rolls. But we love them so much that we try to eat her up every day.

Both Lucy and Jack take some convincing to smile at the camera.

But my Lilly girl is a natural.

Thanksgiving

We had Jim's nephew Ryan and his family to our home for Thanksgiving.  They battled a New England snow storm and traffic nightmare to arrive.  We had a lovely time.

Wanda is an incredible cook but graciously allowed me to still be in charge in my kitchen. Which endeared her to me even more. Wanda and I cooked and baked for two solid days and on the third day we shopped.  A lot.

The kids had a great time together, their girls are absolutely precious.  Sophia wasn't quite 3 months yet and there was Wanda cooking away and taking care of her girls.  What I am trying to say is that we are rock stars.

The boys played video games and helped with all the preparations and child care as well.  It was a fun time. It was also the first time in years that I have made a turkey! I was so proud.

Thanksgiving is a lot of work (and I don't know why that picture of Wanda is so small)! Maybe next year we go out for the meal??

Leaves

Well, I'm behind. Which is the opposite of what I would like to happen. So I am going to start backwards.  Amidst all my computer trouble and life my pictures are sitting here with no one looking at them.

After Jack broke his nose (by pulling a table down on his nose) we spent a couple of days inside monitoring his concussion.  A few days later he was ready to run and jump and play and I was not ready for him to do those things.

The following week was a beautiful day and Lilly and Jack played in the leaves for awhile.  I took 500 pictures of them playing in the leaves and then made it into a beautiful slide show. It takes hours for my computer to save slide shows and then upload them to youtube.  After I uploaded the video, youtube took it down because I had attached a Beatles song. Sorry, you will never see my slide show unless you come to my house.

I love it when I see joy on the faces of my children. Especially when that joy is experienced outside in nature and has nothing to do with material possessions.

My computer is dead again which is really sad for you because I took great pictures with my new lens. Oh yes, Jim got me a new lens for Christmas! Until I have a working computer you will just have to wait in suspense.

Merry Christmas and happy new year!

Jack's poor nose

After the last post I wrote Jack broke his nose.  A lot. It was awful and traumatic, he had a concussion for a few days, his eyes swelled shut and then he started to slowly get back to his old ways.  The funny part is our family pictures were scheduled for an hour after he broke his nose.  As you can imagine, we did not get our family pictures taken.  They have been postponed for spring.  After these events transpired I lost motivation to make Christmas cards or update my blog.  Sad to say I think I will not send our cards this year.

I will have more updates soon.

Fall 2013 phone update 3.0

On the night of Jack's actual birthday we had a donut cake. At Jack's request.  I can't recommend this cake enough.  It's pretty delicious with ice cream and takes about 10 seconds to assemble.  I couldn't pick just one picture of him because he is too darn cute.

When it's your birthday you can wear your tummy and PJ bottoms to the dinner table.

This is my cute chunky baby.

Here she is in her Halloween costume which she wore for about 23 minutes.

At first she was amused and liked the costume.

She got over that quickly.

Halloween wore Jack out, Lilly's candy is pictured above and Jack's is below.  We plan to work on training him for next Halloween so his candy haul can be improved.

This concludes the photo fall update 2013.

Fall 2013 phone update 2.0

Look at my fat baby! I love having a roly poly baby.

I'm not saying they're in a ninja gang, but...

Here is Jack's turtle costume that I made. 

Here is Lilly looking super cute in her fall 2012 outfit form grandma (that still fits).

Then someone broke the TV downstairs, AGAIN. I really don't know who did it, we think it happened during Jack's party. However, I have now learned that I need a plastic screen cover for the TV that goes in the basement.

Jack went downstairs to play, it got quiet and I got worried.  I couldn't find him but then I found him sleeping here.  It was so sweet and very surprising.  He takes a nap about 4 times a year.

Here are the kids on the way to the Davnille Halloween parade.

Lucy before the parade.

This is where my daughter betrayed me and attended a birthday party at reptile land.  She touched a kimodo dragon and a python, and then HELD the python on her lap. She thought it was great and I almost threw up.  That place was my worst nightmare.

This was part of reptile land was awesome.  Life size dinosaurs outside.  Very cool.

Can you see the baby dinosaurs behind Lilly?

Lilly accidentally dressed herself like Ann Margaret from Viva Las Vegas one afternoon.

Which of course led to the very important conversation on who Elvis was and why he matters.