A Week With No Sun

A two-week long headache, some sick kiddos, and the never ending fog that seems to have settled over our city means there haven't been many exciting things to blog about. Thank goodness I have my cute girls to keep me entertained or I might be crazy about now. (Please no comments on whether or not I am already crazy ;) )!
To keep ourselves entertained we have played endless hours of dress up, had countless photo shoots (the girls are obsessed with our camera), and we have managed to escape the house once or twice for some small outings. Here are some pics of a few of our indoor adventures. (yes, I know most of the pics or a little blurry..our camera is having technical difficulties).
Here is just one pic of our dress up activities. Banana found this dress in her closet and hasn't taken it off. My SIL made it for the nieces for my BIL's wedding a few years ago, and Banana now says it is her Princess Zelda dress. That's right,her favorite princess of the moment doesn't live at Disney World...she lives in a video game.
We went down to the river for our annual eagle watching day. We were excited that we got to see some eagles, but it was slightly FREEZING so we didn't stay too long. Of course we had to do a photo shoot, which lasted two seconds because my battery died. The girls weren't to impressed with me.

Banana loves for me to change the settings on the camera to do weird stuff like this...

But I don't mind because she looks GORGEOUS no matter what setting it is on. She is growing up so much. Apparently I'm not the only one noticing because everywhere we've gone this last week friends have been commenting on how much she is turning into a little girl. She's not my baby anymore...
Running Man must have noticed that I was running on empty this week because he came home from school one morning and told me he was kicking me out of the house so I could have some "me" time. I enjoyed three wonderful hours sans kids. Of course I missed them after five minutes, but I took full advantage of the time and got some serious errands crossed off my to-do list. I had lunch with a friend, and spent way too much $$ at Target. It's probably a good thing that I always have my kids when I shop there because they don't last that long in a shopping cart and their screams usually rush me out of the store. When I'm alone and with my enabler friend :) bad things happen! We shouldn't be allowed to shop together.
Here's to hoping for a little sunshine! Have a great week!

Attack of the Mischief Bug

I blame my lack of blogging on the FREEZING weather we've been having. All we have wanted to do these last two weeks is bundle up in our blankets and sit in front of the heater. I enjoyed the bundling up in our blankets part, not so much the bitter cold. Things are finally warming up a bit, so that makes us all so much happier!
While we were back in Utah over the break I had the sudden urge to hurry and get home and start organizing and de-cluttering my house. It almost felt like that insane "nesting" urge you get when you are pregnant. (I am NOT pregnant). So, of course our house looks like a tornado ripped through it, because getting things really clean means making a big old mess in the process. Sigh. But I didn't want to wait until four months from now and try and de-clutter and pack at the same time. That's right folks...this is my last Iowa winter! I know at least Liz is jealous. :) I can't think about moving yet because I get all sorts of emotional/panicky/teary thinking about.
Being cooped up in the house a lot means that my kids get a lot more mischievous. (Well mostly Em does, and Banana kind of follows her lead). Em's favorite thing right now is to climb. On Everything. Her favorite place to climb onto is the kitchen table. You think I would learn my lesson and not keep any food sitting out on the table...right? I forget and do it anyway, and Em has helped herself to countless serving of cake, cookies and whatever meal I am too lazy to clean up at the moment. She has also figured out how to climb onto the dresser...mostly my fault as well because it's an ANCIENT dresser with drawers that will only shut all of the way if you push, shove and bash your head against them. Hence me finding her like this the other night:
Running Man and I were cracking up so Banana came to investigate and decided to join her sister:

The girls love hanging out in their sleeping bags all day, and we are so grateful Santa brought them to our house! Here they are relaxing on Sat. night while Dad was on a fun filled Guys Night Out.
My close friends are well aware of the new obsession that has taken over my house. It's a five letter word...ZELDA. I'm going crazy. Running Man has always loved it and grew up playing it with his brothers. Well, the obsession was re-started over the break and I'm so, so sad to say that Banana has picked it up as well. It makes me even sadder to say that she plays it BETTER than I do. And understands what's going on a whole lot better than I do. My husband (and his brothers) have created a monster. :)

Today was a pretty nice day (it's pretty sad when we consider the mid 30's nice), so we took the girls out sledding for the first time this year. We had a blast, and I think the pics say it all!
Em liked the sledding part of sledding...but had even more fun giving us our push start.

Banana walked up every single hill about twenty times. By herself. Without complaining. It was a good day!

Holidays '09

Disney '09

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

A little preview of all of the fun we've been having! More to come when we get home! We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, and will have a wonderful New Year!

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

Our first major storms hit this past week, which meant a lot of snow days, and a lot of crazy ppl freaking out about the weather. The stores ran out of most everything the day before the first storm and I think the whole city pretty much shut down. The good news was that work was cancelled. Bad news being that Banana's pre-school got canceled one day. I tried really hard to convince her it wasn't my fault and that no one was going that day. Then we drove past her school to go shopping and there were cars in the parking lot...not pre-school cars, but she definitely didn't believe me when I tried telling her again there was no school. :Sigh: It was FREEZING, and just like our previous years here I forgot how cold it actually gets here in the winter months. Or maybe I purposely block it out because it's so painful to remember. :) The first "snow" day there wasn't a lot of snow, but plenty of ice and wind. Banana has been dying for the snow to arrive so she could play, and was pretty disappointed when we went out after the first storm and there wasn't very much snow.
(notice the beautifuil, clear sidewalks in the background? Running Man gets to plow a our whole square block and the paths around the church. But he said he didn't mind it this year because Banana loves the snow so much).
After a few tears we convinced her she could still do her snow angels, and she perked up even more when we started throwing snowballs at her dad!
This was Em's first real experience playing in the snow. We took her out last year, but she couldn't run around and play so she didn't get the full experience. She loved every minute. Her snowboots are hand me downs from Banana and are slightly large on her...she was fine walking, and sitting down. But to go from one to the other wasn't her favorite. She couldn't figure out how to swing her massive boots under her body and stand up. Hilarious. Kind of sad. But mostly hilarious.

I think this is the last chance I'll have to post before we take off for our Christmas adventures. I'll post some pics from the sunny Bahamas when I get a chance! Have a WONDERFUL Christmas!!

Think, Think, Think

Things have been crazy lately, and I haven't had much time to sit down and blog. I should have because the last few weeks are a muddly mess in my brain tonight...We've been working a ton, but have also found time to do some fun things as a family. I think I'll just let this blog be a picture post because that is so much easier than trying to remember anything right now :)


Here are some cute pics of the girls from Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time with all of our D-Port Family, and enjoyed all of the yummy food! Banana was excited to get to be with some of her best friends, and Em was just excited to get to eat all night! Every time I turned around she had something in her mouth!
Running Man surprised Banana and I with tickets to Princess's on Ice last weekend! It was such a fun girls night for Banana and I. She was decked out in all of her princess gear (complete with makeup and sparkles). On the way in we walked passed a family and one of their little girls started yelling at her mom that cinderella was there, while pointing frantically at Banana. I thought Banana was going to scream she was so excited someone thought she was Cinderella!! No trip to Disney on Ice is complete without one of their overcharged, but delicious snow cones.
I spent most of the night watching Banana's face every time a princess would come onto the ice. Melted my heart, and made me so excited to go to Disney World next week!

It's our tradition to get our Christmas Tree the day after Thanksgiving and we love going to a little tree farm here. Not quite the same as cutting one down in the snow covered moutains...but a whole lot easier with two kids! The girls loved it, and Banana found the perfect tree for our tiny house.



We started new tradition this year of watching Polar Express while decorating the tree. Banana and Em are in LOVE with this movie and have all of the songs memorized. And you can't watch Polar Express without drinking some hot chocolate! I didn't get a pic of them enjoying their treat because by the time I got the camera out their hot chocolate was gone!

Decorating our Gingerbread Sleigh. So much easier to construct with two toddlers. Banana enjoyed decorating the sleigh so much more than the house. There was a lot more for her to do, and we didn't have to be as careful in the construction.Em doing what she does best...eating her food while we try and decorate the sleigh. She got to put a few things on, but after around 5 sneak attacks on the candy she was banished to her chair. :)
And finally here's Em in her favorite hang out. I don't know why we buy her any toys because she loves to play with the most random household objects. This is a shot from when she first climbed in...

And here's her face when I had just saved her from tipping over and nearly bashing her head into the coffee table....She's clearly not impressed with my superhuman speed.Phew...I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season, and we can't wait to see some of you in a few weeks!!