The Big Reveal

This morning we gave the girls the dollhouse. They were pretty excited but Ava noticed a few things wrong with it. She asked where the stove was in the kitchen and where the ladder was for the bunk beds. Oh and she pointed out there are not enough beds for all the barbies to sleep. Boy, tough crowd! They didn't play with it as much as I had hoped during the day. So I decided to bring out the huge bag of accessories. I was avoiding this because it's just a bunch of little things that will get scattered about. Ever since I brought the accessories out the girls have not stopped playing with the house! Their favorite thing is changing the barbies clothes.

Here they are playing.
I just wanted to show some of the fun accessories they have. You'll also notice a white sqaure in the back of this room. That's the stove. Ava took it upon herself to draw one. It is taped to the wall.
This is the bathroom accessories. There is a toothbrush, toothpaste and even a hair brush. Too fun.
The Barbies have invaded the home :) In this one you'll notice a Barbie under the bunk beds. I think they are just using that space as a third bed.

Snot

Ava came into the living room with her jammies on, went to Justin and asked, "Daddy, will you tie this in a snot for me?" She needed the strings on her jammies tied in a knot.

How boring would life be without four year olds?

We made it.

We made it home after about 11 long hours and three stops in the car. the kids did pretty well actually. Brie fussed quite a bit but that was due to the numerous feeds she got used to in the middle of the night while we were in Indiana. It is going to be REALLY hard to break this little habit.

I have begun the long and awful task of unpacking. Thankfully the laundry won't be too bad because we washed most of it before we left. Brie is in a bit of a mood today so working around that will prove to be interesting as well.

I bet you are all wondering about the house when we got back. Well it is BEAUTIFUL!! It smelled clean and looked clean. All of my appliances are spotless. The windows and blinds look new. The best part was the caulking around the tub in our bathroom. It's white!!! When we left it was disgusting with that awful black mildew stuff. Now it's perfect and looks SO good. This is probably the best Christmas present ever. It's such a huge relief to come home to a perfectly clean house that doesn't smell like dog.

After I hit up the grocery store I plan on coming home and lighting my new candle which is the best smell ever and making my house smell oh so sweet. Thanks Aunt Heather!

It stinks to be back to the daily grind but it's good to be home in my own bed with my own stuff. We had a great trip and miss everyone so much. I love my in-laws and wish they would hurry up and move out here. I know they all want to :)

Grandma and Grandpa Lukie

Grandma and Grandpa Lukie drove up from St. Louis to celebrate Christmas with everyone.

Justin's dad is an avid golfer and the last time he came to visit us Justin and him played golf on the Wii quite a bit. So now that Justin got a new Tiger Woods golf game they had to have a rematch. They have been playing all day. Justin has been playing the game for three days now and Grandpa is just as good and has only been playing one day. I guess being a golfer in real life helps.
Brie was having some quality time with Grandma Lukie. She is having some stranger anxiety so she mostly just screams when other people hold her. It's very frustrating because everyone wants to hold her but she wants none of it.
Ava and Amanda got some awesome princess makeup kits from grandma and grandpa. Amanda is making over Rachel.
Ava was very excited about her tiara.
There were these rhinestones in the makeup kits and the girls were sticking them on everyone.
Amanda is dressing up Grandma Lukie's fingernails.
Does she look gorgeous or what?!?
Aunt Heather and Uncle Chris got some knives...Chris looks a little scary, it's a good thing we are leaving tomorrow :)
Gina and Lola were very impressed with the whole situation.
We are headed home tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a nice drive and sleeping patterns will get back to normal. Brie has been a bit of a stinker at night and I am ready for that to stop for sure!

Christmas!!!!

We had an awesome Christmas this year with Justin's family.

This is the tree Christmas Eve when Santa came.
This is when the girls first woke up in the morning, I am happy to report that they slept in rather than waking up really early. They really liked that princess wrapping paper.
Brie is not quite awake yet :)
We were lucky enough to get a surprise visit from SANTA!! Brie seemed to really like him :)
Amanda...not so much.
Ava needed someone to go with her before she would see Santa.
Finally, they both warmed up to Santa and showed him all of the toys they opened earlier in the morning.
Here's Ava and Aunt Rachel (who got engaged for Christmas!!!).
Babies with bows on their heads are so cute...
...point proven. This is Chloe.
Brie standing.
Grandma Lois and Ava hanging out.
Me and Brie. I never seem to get any cute pictures with my kids because I am usually taking the pictures.
Aunt Heather and Amanda.
Jay got the girls some cool old cameras to play with. I am pretty sure these were the favorite gift.
Aunt Heather and Brie.
Justin really liked his Christmas present :)
This was probably the gift of the day. The last gift was huge and we said it was for Chloe. So Uncle Chris (Chloe's dad) helped her open it. It turned out to be the bass Chris has been wanting. He was so excited!!

This is how it went with Santa. We were expecting the girls to be so excited and happy. Ava got scared and Amanda cried. Oh well. But all day they were talking about how Santa came to visit and said HO HO HO! It was awesome!

Oh Christmas Brie :)

Brie was finally in a good mood this morning. She has been sick with a fever and stuffiness and just plain yucky. She turned a corner this morning and was very happy. I took advantage...


Check out those teeth!
Don't you just love her?!?!?!??!

Oh Christmas tree

I tried getting a cute Christmas tree picture without using the flash. That means the kids needed to sit very still in order for it to work. Yeah right.

This is what I got:


At least the dog cooperated...

Ice Skating...sort of

We had some fun weather today. ICE. The roads were a sheet of ice and very slippery to drive on. Even the dogs were having trouble with it. So Justin, being the adventurous father that he is, asked the Ava and Amanda if they wanted to go ice skating outside. They were stoked! Until they got outside. Amanda slipped and realized she couldn't move easily and started crying. Ava was having trouble too but she thought it was funny.
Amanda was happy on the grass. Nice and rough.
Here is Justin demonstrating his talents. I love him.

The Birthday Party!

We had an awesome time last night for Ava's birthday.

Here's the birthday girl in her birthday chair. She made sure everyone knew it was her chair because it was her birthday.
She just blew out her candle here. It was cute actually because she actually got a little bit shy with everyone singing to her. Aunt Heather made Ava her cake and let Ava and Amanda help put the little sugar decorations on it. On the phone about a week ago Aunt Heather asked Ava what kind of cake she wanted and she of course said pink. So Aunt Heather made a pink cake, th frosting and the cake was actually pink. What a great aunt!!
I just loved this look on her face as she was studying this present she just opened. Don;t be fooled though she didn't study it long before she moved on to the next present.
Another really cute shot. She is handing Justin a check she got. She's so cute.
Aunt Heather even bought Amanda a present. I am pretty sure Amanda felt special after that. It was hard for her yesterday because Ava was getting all the attention. She was quite cranky after her nap so Justin to her out to spend some one on one time with her. When she came back she was a changed little girl. I didn't think it she would be that affected by the attention.
The girls really like their Uncle Chris. They are tickling him.
Gina was feeling festive...well Justin thought Gina was feeling festive so he dressed her up. She is such a good dog.

Happy Birthday Ava!!!

Ava is 4 today!! I can't believe I have a four year old now!!! We are headed over to Aunt Heather's for some birthday fun all day today.

Really...it's cold.

I'm not kidding.

Busy in Indiana

After a wonderful egg breakfast this morning Grandma Lois put us to work. Ava and Amanda couldn't be happier because everything they had to do dealt with sweet stuff (frosting).

Ava is showing us the yummy caramel stuff Grandma Lois made.
Justin is trying to look useful and busy but notice there is nothing in front of him.
Here are the girls decorating cookies. Aunt Heather is supervising.
To help Grandma with dinner the girls set the table. Ava loved it and thought it was a great job. Amanda liked to help too but he attention span is MUCH shorter.
These are the babies! Brie and Chloe finally meet. Ava just stole that book from Chloe. I guess she'll be the bully. This is our first time meeting Chloe too and she is a cutie! I love having a niece. Hopefully she'll get used to me more and I'll get to cuddle with her. She is one of those yummy babies you just want to squeeze. Love her.
We are about to sit down to a yummy big dinner. I can't wait.