Some may wonder....

what in the world I'm doing... giving my 15 month old ramen noodles, corn, a ring pop AND the remnants of my watered down Dr. Pepper?

It may seem a little counter-productive...but this is what I did today to get the rest of the downstairs cleaned and mopped.

It's been a week of fevers, rashes, and ear infections with this one and my house has suffered! So, I'm resorting to doing whatever it takes to get something done today!!! I know, I'm competing for parent of the year.

What we've been up to.........

Christmas is all put away, kids are back to school. Cody is back to work full force. We had a nice break, but now it's back to real life!! My sweet mother in law has been working on giving Avery's bedroom a whole new look. This is a pillow she found that shows you the theme.....

Very fitting for our girl. The color scheme as you can see is pink, pink, white, and a little black. It's not quite finished, and it was lots of work. Jane repainted and repaired a cute wicker bedroom set that was in the play room at grandma's house. It's a day bed so she'll have lots more room. Jane is all about details... this cute lamp was plain pink til she got hold of it.

We painted subtle stripes of pink on pink...pain in the you know what, but turned out cute


bed isn't quite finished but here she is on her new bedding on the mattresses... she looks like a happy princess!



My sister and I let the girls ditch school yesterday and took them to Disney on Ice. We had a great time. The kids were so excited. My sister in law was nice enough to take ms. Em for the day. She would have been an absolute nightmare there. No room to run around...wouldn't have worked for her. It was fun to spend some time with the older kids alone.

Avery with her twelve dollar icee!!

I tried to get them to look at me for a picture, but they were much too interested in what was on the ice!

and lastly, a picture of my messy miss Em who insists on feeding herself...what a joy!

White Christmas

OUR Very first!! It was white and cold and crisp and Beautiful!!

We woke up to this lovely sight. Our kids aren't old enough to wake up at the crack of dawn, so we all slept in til about 8, then got up to see if Santa found us. They were worried because we weren't at home. Luckily when we woke up, Emrie seemed herself. No more puking, thank goodness.

The kids were thrilled that daddy called Santa and he actually found us at our "snow house" ...and find us he did. They were so excited when they saw all the stuff in front of the tree

middle of the morning mayhem...

Emrie's first dolly...so cute, she loves it

Avery's first Mp3 player, which also happens to be a 5 megapixel digital camera. It's pretty nifty, and has all her favorites loaded and ready to go.

SOMEONE decided that our four year old is ready for a gun. He loves it (not that you can tell from this smile!) He did some target practice, and had lots of fun with it.

Cute miss Em getting a bath..both bathrooms just had showers, so we settled for the kitchen sink.

After presents and breakfast, we bundled up and went outside to PLAY!! It was so nice that there was enough snow that we didn't have to drive anywhere. Just walk out the front door.

Here is a picture of our cute little house.

It was all decked out like a country cabin. Nice pretty wood floors. Some kind of animal rug on the floor (now that I think about it, pretty sure it was just a cow) And a huge stuffed buffalo head hanging above the fireplace. On Christmas Eve late at night, Avery was sitting with Cody's dad and checking stuff out. She was sitting by the fire getting warm and kept eyeing the buffalo. He asked her what was wrong and she said "I don't like that thing!" when he asked her why, her quick response was "he doesn't blink." It was so funny!

Our bundled up bunny

sledding in the road, nothin better

Avery's turn

even Em took a slide down the hill

love the brown eyes, just like daddy

Gammy & Papa

Avery would do this ALL DAY!!!

We loved our white Christmas and spending some quiet time with grandma and grandpa and our family. It seems like there is always too much to do, and it was so nice to get away and have a relaxing Christmas. It was definately one of our most fun and memorable, we hope yours was too!!

Happy New Year. Here is to 2010 being a new start, and a great year for everyone!