Today's Pictures

Ray and I thought the girls were extra adorable today. Here is the proof:

Abbie Rae

Gorgeous Girl! Kayla's After-Church Outfit

Melissa's After-Church Outfit

Best Cook Ever

This dinner:

had the girls saying, "Mom, you are the best cook ever!" Wow. Had I known I could win them over with blueberry muffins (which I called chocolate chip muffins) and scrambled eggs, I would have made it for dinner years ago! I like this new title.

MOM! You're embarrassing me!!

There have been several occasions lately that my choice in wardrobe has been questioned. I'll give 2 examples. Tuesday I knew I was not going to be going into ballet with Melissa as Ray usually waits with her, so I put on a simple, grey T-shirt with a pair of jeans and headed downstairs. When I started to put on my jacket Melissa froze and said, "Mom, you aren't wearing that, are you?" When I told her I was she had a fit! After several minutes of questioning she finally said, "Mom! You are going to embarrass me!" WHAT?? (In her defense, I NEVER, EVER leave the house in a T-shirt... I wear them around the house, but never out. She thought it was a HUGE problem!!) Yesterday the same thing happened. I got dressed, except for a pair of jeans as they were in the dryer, and headed downstairs. Melissa caught a glimpse of me and refused to come down the stairs. She BEGGED me to change my clothes and even cried a little. She couldn't believe I would wear my pajama pants out of the house. Poor thing. When I finally stopped giggling and told her I wouldn't dream of wearing pajama pants to Kayla's ballet she cried again.. this time from relief! Ahhhh. What to do with my little fashion cautious girls. What to do... On a side note, Ray just left with Melissa and Kayla to go to the post office and grocery store and he was wearing an OLD, paint-stained torn T-shirt with OLD paint-stained jeans and the girls did NOT question his clothing. Not once.

My Princesses

When I ask the girls to get dressed I NEVER know what they are going to pick as their "masterpiece outfit" for the day. I guess that is another good thing about homeschooling... they can wear whatever they want most of the time! Kayla says, "I DO know HOW to match my clothes, I just choose not to!" That's good enough for me! This is what they are wearing today. Pretty, huh?

Duty Calls!

My Kayla Brooke cracks me up! Yesterday she was playing with the baby until she looked at her watch and said, "Sorry, Abbie. I've got to go. Duty calls!" And ran off to save the world from evil My Little Ponies. She is a riot!

Abbie LOVES to eat!

I know that this was some time ago, but I forgot to post this picture of Miss Abbie in her highchair for the first time. She LOVED it! She now happily plays in it while we have homeschool and, thankfully, while she eats too. She LOVES to eat "real food"!

Bubble Blowing

On 1/11/11 Melissa learned to blow a bubble with Bubble Gum! She was SO pleased with herself! Since learning to blow bubbles she and Poppa have had several Skype calls with bubble-blowing contests. I love that we can keep in touch with them through Skype. (I think they enjoy it too!) Good job, Lissa-Lou!

Fun with Daddy

When Daddy-O gets home from work he goes and takes a shower immediately. It gets rid of all of the germs he may have brought into the house and also gives him a few minutes to breath. Once he comes downstairs, it's a free-for-all! Any quiet time he may have hoped for goes out the window and the fun begins! The following picture is a typical evening with Daddy. The girls climbing all over him while showing him how good they are at something, in this case the Leapster!

It's Catch-up time!

It's catch-up time! This year instead of doing our traditional "chocolate behind the door" advent calendar I changed it up a bit. I planned 25 activities that we could do together as a family and put them in 25 cute little envelopes (thank you cricut cutter!) for us to open each day. We did everything from painting toenails to making bird feeders. It was SO much fun to connect each day with an activity we could all participate in. (don't worry... Daddy was a painter of toenails... not a paintee.) The following are pictures of some of our favorites...

We decorated Gingerbread houses together:

We had a "Fancy Dinner" while CiCi and Grandma were here. CiCi brought some of her "fancy" jewelry and make-up and let the girls wear ALLLLL of it. It was so much fun!

We saw Disney Princesses on Ice with Daddy, his girls and Grandma and Grandma. It was magical!

We took cookies to our neighbor. Daddy thought it was hilarious that we were taking pre-made cookies to the neighbors instead of taking them homemade cookies and I think he was a little uncomfortable doing it. I told him I am a semi-homemade kind of girl and that the neighbors would appreciate the thought.. even if they didn't the girls felt good after doing it. :)

We made and hung bird feeders made out of bread for the local birds.

We acted out the Nativity with our "Little People". This was the BEST purchase ever!

We even had a Family Dance Party!!

All in all I think the Advent Calendar was very rewarding this year. Consider this a new tradition for our family!

Abbie is 6 months old today!!

Our baby girl is 6 months old today! Time is going by way too fast this go around. Wasn't she just born? In true Mama-Fashion, I took a bazillion pictures. Here are a few of my favorites! (Thank you Terry B. for the BEAUTIFUL dress! I love it!!)

Abbie Rae