HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Just wanted to wish all of you a Happy Valentine's Day!! Thanks grandpa and grandma for the fun package and the new outfits for V-day! I had a nice morning of sleeping in until almost 9...perfect way to start the day! Then, the girls nixed my idea of heart shaped pancakes for breakfast and had eggo waffles instead. They did come downstairs to a flower, card and stuffed animal from dad and a mailbox with fun stuff inside from me! They loved it. I got beautiful roses from Kurt and a few other things. Kurt's present is coming tonight :) It's just been a nice relaxing day hanging out with each other. The kids decorated sugar cookies and then Kurt took them on a bike ride. The weather's been so nice this past week, we've really enjoyed being outside everyday!! We finished the night with heart shaped pizza, with heart shaped pepperoni, and heart shaped garlic bread with something red to drink...

sorry, this was suppose to be posted yesterday, but my pictures weren't uploading

NO!

I think that this has to be Madelyn's favorite word right now...and I'm sure it was learned from her older sister Alyse. Whenever I ask her to do something, like help clean up or take her diaper to the trash that she just took off for no apparent reason, she yells, not says nicely, but yells, NO! I think this easily comes from Alyse who is also frequently heard saying no, although in a much calmer, I don't really care what you want me to do, tone of voice. For instance, two nights ago it was her turn for family prayer. So, we say, Alyse could you please say the family prayer tonight...without any hesitation or change in her voice or what she's doing she says no and leaves it at that. What?!! Since when did my children have a say in what they do or don't do...crazy kids!

I have a few things to catch up, so my kids know what went on in their lives. Madelyn has been in a bed for a while now, but every once in a while, she won't stay in it, so she has to sleep in her crib for punishment. One such night, after she had fallen asleep I went to go check on her and turn off her night light. This is the sight I found....pj's off, as well as her diaper!!!
It is a good thing I check on the girls before I go to bed at night!!

I am going to sum up what's been happening in our every day lives with pictures...The girls love the wii...alyse not so much, but the other girls love it...Annie is really liking guitar hero, doing either the guitar or the microphone....madelyn loves to do anything we let her, which is mostly holding a remote that is not actually connected to the game :)


The girls love to dance and be silly together...I would say that almost everyday we have some sort of dance party in our house, sometimes with dress ups and other times with just being plain ol' silly. Annie, however, is quite the dancer with her quick feet...you can view the video below...





Some other random shots are of Madelyn eating pepperoni for breakfast...some mornings are just like that...Alyse also ask for hot dogs on occasion and sometimes I really am just not in for a fight that early in the day, so she eats hot dogs or like this day...Madelyn happily eating her pepperoni!

The love to help me clean most of the time and the girls favorite job is the toilets....one they love the clorox wipes used to clean the outside and seat, etc and they REALLY like using the scrub brush to get all the blue cleaning stuff off on the inside of the toilet...If I could just get them to like mopping floors I'd be set!

All in all they are just girlie, silly girls at heart...one of them in the shower, one of Alyse getting her nails done (my girliest!) and two of them in their authentic German dressed from Opi and Omi (Kurt's grandparents)...they are just too cute. I am so grateful to have these three precious girls in my life, through the good and the bad, but mostly good!!!

Mischievous Girls...

So last week, the girls were suppose to be having quiet time. So, I, of course, put a movie on for them and went downstairs to eat lunch and watch a DVRed show of mine. About 30 minutes into the movie, I hear something upstairs so I go up and find Madelyn with a bottle of lotion making little piles everywhere...on a book of mine, a craft project, a few on the floor...you get the picture. I was on the phone with my mom and she says, "oh I can just see Madelyn's pouty face." I tell her, actually she is smiling at me and doing her little mischievous laugh. She so does not care if she gets in trouble. So, I put her back in the playroom to watch the movie. Another 20 minutes pass and I hear Alyse at the stairs calling my name and something about Madelyn's hair. I start walking upstairs and see scissors in her hands and about freak out. I got to the bathroom and see hair everywhere...luckily Alyse doesn't know how to use the scissors very well or I could have two very ugly haircuts on my girls! I again, go downstairs, determined to have my quiet time...the girls go into the playroom to finish their movie and 5-10 minutes later I hear Alyse at the stairs again talking about cleaning Madelyn up. I race upstairs to find Madelyn naked in the bathroom with about 20 tissues in the trash can with pooped on them. Alyse proceeds to tell me that Madelyn took her poopy diaper off and accidentally stepped in (not likely, since Madelyn usually does things on purpose and thinks it is funny) and she was trying to help me clean her up. She also told me the diaper was in the playroom, but not to worry, she folded it in half, so Madelyn wouldn't step in it again! So, I threw both girl in the bath and they had a great time! I know this means I should start potty training Madelyn...she takes her diaper off often, but it's the thing I hate most about parenting and I really don't know how to train properly....so we have 2 more "packs" of diapers left and then we're going to give it a go!

Luckily that day happened to be a nice one and we left the house for a while before anymore incidents occurred...Annie got off the bus and Kurt got home early so we stayed outside to play. These are the first pictures I have of Annie riding her bike. She finally figured it out about a month or so ago...it's been a big challenge for us. She's so afraid of falling, but for whatever reason, it finally clicked....YEAH!!! She loves it too and can start and stop herself and turn herself around. The first time I let go of her and ran next to her she was just giggling and let out little screams of excitement...it was so fun to be there!!! Alyse, of course dressed herself again and tells me she just likes to be silly and Madelyn always has to put on all the protective gear...not sure why?

Vacation Mode

I am having the hardest time getting back into the swing of things. When I wake up in the morning and get Annie off to school, I just want to crawl back into bed with my other two kiddos and go to sleep or read a book (pretty much just be lazy) while they watch TV. However, I have only done this once in the past two weeks despite my desires to do it every day. I hate coming back from vacation for this reason. My kids have adjusted fine, which is nice and makes it easy for me.

A few things have been going on...
One of my friends is doing a picture a day thingy and it sounded like a great idea. So one of my goals this year is to do just that and take at least one picture a day and at the end of the year I'll make a photo album of all my pictures and hopefully it will represent the year well. For instance, I took a picture of Kurt folding the laundry the other night. I want to try and capture my everyday life as best I can...if only I was a good photography it would be even more fun!

I also am in the process of making my past blog posts (about a year and a half) into a book and will then delete them from here. So far I am loving it and it looks great on the computer. I should have it ordered next week sometime. It is taking me forever though. Annie had school canceled today for cold weather (felt like -4 this morning). So it was a perfect day to work on it, since she kept the girls occupied without any fights...amazing! I really do have good girls and they are growing up so fast. I have to remember to be kind and patient with them because I don't want to look back and wonder why I tried to make them "grow up" so fast.

Here's a few of my latest pictures from being back home...of course one of Alyse dressing herself to go to Annie's haircut and looking stylish as ever (today she had on a pink long sleeve shirt with her Halloween shirt on top and orange biker shorts...classic). I finally talked Annie into getting her haircut, in hopes that we wouldn't have so many tangles to comb out in the morning...I love her hair a little shorter like it is now!
There's one more picture of Annie coming off the bus after school and I love it...I can hear the bus when it stops the one stop before Annie's and that's when I go outside and everyday she comes running to me and I pick her up and give her a huge hug...I love it and usually her sisters follow after me without much clothing or shoes on!