Seriously

Why? Why must Ava feel it necessary to paint her own toenails with the brightest pink polish she can find...and on carpet. UGh! I scrubbed and scrubbed with acetone/polish remover...oh well. I've always hated that carpet anyway...I guess I'm one step closer to the walnut hardwood floors I've been wanting for years.

All by herself

The day after I "attempted" to potty train Ava she was upstairs playing with Lainie when she decided that she wanted to wear panties again. I was feeling a bit too lazy/tired/whatever to change her out of them, so I just let her run around in them...expecting an accident. Lainie tried to make going potty sound fun and took Ava into the bathroom and read her a book while on the toilet. That's all it took. Once Ava went once, she got it. I put her in a diaper that night, still not wanting to deal with it, but she woke up dry and has been dry ever since (minus a few drips here and there as in the shot above). She's quite proud of herself-as am I. I so love that I didn't need to put any work into it.

Smarty Pants

Anna received an award a few weeks ago for her writing skills. She is such a sweet and smart girl. Good work Anna Jane!

So many changes

This poor little lady has gone through so many changes the past few weeks with more yet to come. We moved her into a big girl bed with Lainie and Anna, took away her sippy cup, and took away her binkie all in one night. She is on the road to be a big sister and she isn't handling it as well as I wanted her to. This morning I decided I'd see if potty training was at all interesting to her. She of course, loved the whole panty idea, but the toilet....not so much. I only lasted 4 hours when I decided to nix it. The truth be told, she could probably handle the whole "training" period, but I can't. I'm the one who isn't ready to put in the effort she will demand.

And yes, we still have snow at my house. It's been forever!!! I'm so ready for it to leave. It finally has started to warm up again and melt a bit so we grabbed the chance and went outside to play on the playset.

Happy Birthday to me

Another year, come and gone. Time passes so quickly these days.

25 weeks

15 weeks left to go....I'm in trouble!

Ducks...again.

It was cold and it was obvious that the ducks were all very hungry. We've been feeding them for years but have never seen this swan come out of the water to get any. He grabbed at least 10 whole pieces of bread for himself.

Christmas Morning

One of the only pictures I took that entire day. We had a great Christmas.

Merry Christmas

I'm going to stop pretending that I'm going to send out Christmas cards this year. We never got around to taking a good family picture so this will just have to do. Merry Christmas everyone. We love and miss you all!

Ready to Update

I am finally done with all the Christmas projects/gifts I've been working on the past few weeks, and I am now ready to update my blog. Be prepared for a serious amount of posts and backdating.

Church Christmas Party

Friday evening the girls and I headed over to the church for our annual Christmas party. There we ate lots of yummy food, listened to some great music, and hung out with Santa. All the girls seemed to love it, especially the Santa part. Ava sat on his lap more than anyone. She kept cutting in line to sit on his lap again. It was quite amusing. Later that evening Anna and Lainie decided that it wasn't the real Santa. Anna said to me, "that wasn't really Santa mom, that was Amy's dad." Little stinker.

Please note: I look absolutely huge in this photo. I am very large these days, measuring 30 cm at my mere 24 weeks, but I swear I'm not this big!

2nd Snow Day

We got another round of snowfall and school was canceled for the second time in one week! This time we went out as a family and built a snowman. It took us a good 2 hours to make, but we had a good time. Ava...maybe not so much by the end. She sat on the porch and ate crackers most the time because she lost her balance too much in the deep snow. I'm estimating we had a least a 15 inches. I don't know if you can tell by the picture of Anna, but she lost her other front tooth about a week after the first. Now she says that all she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth.

Snow Day

We had our first ever "snow day" (no school). Anna had already taken off to go play in the snow with her friend Madee. She was gone all day. Lainie and Ava braved the cold for a bit, and then came in for some hot cocoa.

Handsome boys

Paul emailed me this picture the other day. It's of him and his friend/roommate Earnest. Love a man in uniform, especially with those eyes peeping through his mask.

Our tree

We ventured out to Pine Valley (up the road 20 minutes) to find ourselves a tree this year. It took us awhile, but ended up with what we thought would be a great tree. (Later on I discovered this particular kind of tree made my house smell like urine. Note to self: Do not get a pinion pine next year.) We ended up decorating it the next day. Paul took charge of the picture taking, while I handed out the ornaments.

PS. I've tried to get that top picture not huge a million times and I have no idea why it's still large. So sorry.