January 26

Helping with dinner.

We were having enchiladas for dinner the other night and I needed help cutting the tortillas up. Ally and Ben had a great time knowing they were helping me and getting to use a knife (a not sharp whatsoever IKEA knife). Usually if I have them help me prepare dinner, they have no problem eating it, no matter what it is.

January 27

So the kids and I LOVE listening to music, volume UP and dancing silly around the house. I've done this with the kids since Ally was a baby. They love it. Lucy will sit there and bounce and it's adorable.

This little girl is SUCH a princess. She's decided that screaming at a rather high pitch is the best way to get the attention of those she's demanding things from. I've tried to ignore this, hoping she'll realize it's not the best way to communicate, but sometimes it's so cute, BUT I musn't reward her! She's such a sweet little girl. We have been SOOO immensly blessed with great babies. For the most part they sleep really well, eat well and play by themselves. Lucy is fine playing on the floor, as long as Ben, Ally or someone else is in the room. She gets really mad when she realizes everyone left her.

He has a thing for shoes. Right now it's mommy's shoes. Before it was daddy's shoes, but I think he realized they were quite large. Mommy's shoes fit him better. Don't you just love that little face! Oh I love to kiss his squishy cheeks!

He loves walking around the house in whatever shoes he can stick his feet in. Clomp clomp clomp and you know he's coming!

Snow fun

The kids were dressed and ready to hit the snow as soon as Matt walked in the door. Actually they were ready about 10 minutes before. Ben had been dragging his snow boots around all day saying "ees" (please). Poor boy, it's hard for me to take him outside when Lucy only naps when the other 2 do. While daddy played in the snow with Ally and Ben, I worked on dinner and Lucy and I took pictures as well.

Ben worked on throwing snowballs.

A stick?
I can dig with this.

Since I didn't plan on the kids staying out long, I didn't put snow pants on them and Ally hadn't zipped her coat, so I had to explain, no throwing snow at each other.

I told her to pull her hat down more and she couldn't figure out why.

Watching daddy make a snowman.

Ben stole the poor snowmans arms a few times and tried beating him with them.

Giving the snowman a food face. Grapes for the eyes, carrot for the nose and cheez its for the mouth.

Our morning

Can you tell someone wore themselves out playing?

Right after this picture, Ben looked at me and said "shhh". Then he proceeded to poke her in the face and wake her up. The joys of brothers!

Ben has had a love of Ally's barbies recently. We really need to get him some action figures, but I'm not sure he'll go for those, since they don't have the flowing hair and all the accessories. At least he's having her play on a car.

January 23

Our beautiful princess...well one of them anyways!

I love her eyes.

January 22- Toy Story 3 on Ice

My sisters boyfriend got us great tickets.

The kids had fun. The show was fun.

This was Ben for both the first and second half.

Right as intermission started, Ben threw up. Luckily Matt was willing to clean him up.

This is Ally trying to flag the man down selling sno-cones.

We had told the kids before getting there that we were not buying them anything.

Ally and Ben were both fine with that, except for when Ally saw how to flag the guys down.

She didn't understand you have to give them money for the things they are selling.

Lucy was sick of getting squished by Ally.

January 18

Cheese'n for the camera

So far all the kids have had a love for books.

Lucy had started to get fussy yesterday, so I moved her from the family room to the library and she sat there for almost an hour, just looking at books.
When Lucy was finally done with books, I realized she'd had a massive explosion in the cloth diaper. It was a doozy.

Ben decided that looked fun, so he joined her for a few minutes.

January 17

Sibling love.

Ben loves Lucy so much. I love watching him with her. When she's playing on the floor and starts to cry, he'll walk over to her and hand her a toy, or he'll sit on her. Either way he's trying to make sure she's feeling included. He'll sometimes share his sippy cup with her. He gets mad at her when she pulls his hair. I'm letting his hair grow out for a few more weeks, then we're doing a major cut before vaca. So right now his hair is long and easy for Lucy to grab onto.

Most of the time she doesn't mind his roughness. She is even patient with him when he climbs in her crib in the morning and wakes her up.

January 16

Sundays are kind of crazy now at our house. I have meetings twice a month before church and that leaves Matt home with the kids. He has to feed them, get them dressed and loaded into the van. As well as get himself ready. Naps are a BIG part of the kids day and 1pm church throws them off. So this week, the kids went down for a nap right after Grandpa and Grandma left. Matt had them there close to the end of the 2nd hour. They were pooped out from a fun weekend.

When we got home Ben was famished, so instead of changing clothes like normal he had a big snack and then ate more dinner at grandma's house.

Daddy did really well dressing the kids.

I'd forgotten to set tights out for Ally, so she came with just shoes on her feet.

I'd also forgotten to set a head band out for Lucy, so Matt got her a headband and forgot the bow.

At least he made it to church with all 3 kids, right!

Oh how we love this chubby girl. She is such a blessing and so much fun.