Shhhh! Santa's Coming!

The cookies are laid out.

The milk is in a chilled glass.

The carrots for the reindeer have been saved from Addison's little chompers.

The girls are in bed.

The whispers have finally died down.

Santa has officially visited our home.

Cannot wait to spend our first Christmas morning as a whole family!

From us, to you...

Merry Christmas!



Relaxin' Around the Christmas Tree

Our family has had a very hectic week full of things that we wanted or needed to get done.

So Addison and I are taking the day off and being "lazy" together.

It's sure to be a wonderful day full of nothing, knitting and present wrapping.



Happy Monday!

Bump Update!

I realized I haven't had a bump update in a while.

The last time I put up a bump update was a very eventful day.

Not 30 minutes after I put up the post I was in the emergency room worried about a possible miscarriage.

Without going into too much gorey detail... there was lots of gore for around 4 hours.

Vague enough for you?

Anyway, they ended up doing an ultrasound and Scarlett was super active and had a strong heartbeat, but part of my amniotic sac had detached from body parts it was supposed to be attached to... thus the "gore".

So the ER sent me home with a "We're super lamesauce, and there's nothing we can do, you might, you might not, we'll never know even though we went to TONS of medical school and are charging you a ridonculous amount of money."

I've been on a sort of "Bed Rest" for the last 9 weeks or so.  No running, jumping, jet skiing, competitive weightlifting, etc; for me!  In return though, my little Scarlett is happy and healthy and still baking in the oven :)

I'd call this a pregnancy/belly success!

Prayers are of course still needed as they haven't taken any restrictions away, but baby is happy and healthy and at 23 weeks gestation (if for some horrible reason something went wrong) my little Scarlett has a chance of surviving outside of the cozy little dysfunctional home I've made for her :)

Once she's outside of this polka dot accessorized home though...

All bets are off.

I make 'em special.

Who's Child is This?

If any of you have known me for any amount of time you are all well aware that cleaning is about my LEAST favorite thing to do.

I'm a stay at home mom and I know that cleaning is part of my job title but I am a master of procastinating and excuse making and will wiggle my way out of it as often as possible.

That being said, their are some things in a house inhabited by children that HAVE to get done every so often.

Scrubbing pb&j/macaroni/ranch/boogers/dirt/watermelon/yogurt/etc; off the walls is one of those things.

Today was one of those days.

So I loaded up one of my larger bowls with soap and water and started on the stair walls.

These walls see a lot of traffic and gunk covered fingers on a daily basis and were definitely needing a good scrub down.

About 5 minutes into my scrubbing and sulking I had a little girl who looked like this on my hands...



She had been attempting to "help" me scrub the walls by taking the sponge from me.

I'd had to tell her no multiple times cause I didn't want her getting her hands in the dirty water.

I finally relented and gave her the sponge...

Notice, if you will, the ginormous crocodile tear sliding down her cheek.

Now watch her stop wailing and prep the sponge...

Now watch her CLEAN my walls...

HAPPILY?!

Ok, who's kid is this?

Seriously.

All I Want for Christmas...

Guess which one of our kids knew who to suck up to this year :)



Free/Willing Advertising

Today I had the pleasure of taking some office Christmas photos for a good friend at her place of work!

I enlisted the help of my sister to watch the munchkins while I worked some Christmas office magic.

She did a fabulous job of keeping them wrangled and they were, surprisingly, cooperative.

At the end of the shoot the office ladies were nice enough to donate some fun Arby's hats to the lovely little ones.

We've been rocking the free advertising ever since.

So in case you weren't aware you wanted some curly fries and a delicious sandwich...



Open Wide!

It's SNOWING.



Our kids are also rocking the puddle stompers...

Sorry about the shaky pictures.

I was shivering.

Because it was SNOWING!

That's right baby.

Fluff from the sky!

Oh man, I wish this would happen EVERY DAY.

Bliss.

Eyes closed, tongue out, whirling, singing, jumping, BLISS.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Daughters

Two of the most precious gifts I've ever had the pleasure of loving...



I don't think it's physically possible for me to love 2 little girls anymore than I already do.

That's Right Woman!

Last night I received a text message from my dear sister.

It was a picture of her car, covered in snow.

I promptly demanded that she send the snow my way because I am an avid lover of winter.

Her response...



1 large and slightly deformed snowball on my doorstep this morning :)

Addison was so young last year that, if we had the pleasure of any snow, she would not have been able to play in it!

She wasn't too sure what the hard lump of cold was on our front step.

The Cheeser approves.

I'm so EXCITED!!!

Dance/Make-Shift Hula Party

They happen often at our house.

It's ok if you're jealous.

Our house is awesome :)



Humility...

On Sunday morning we had the pleasure of listening to Pastor David give a sermon on the qualities of a humble person.

Paul and I didn't really have to take many notes, because of course, we are the most humble people we know.

Stop laughing Mom.

Apparently our supreme humbleness has not rubbed off on our children.

Case in point...

The one person in the whole wide world that Addison loves the most.

I don't mean Aunt Lacey either.

Everything in her world literally stops when she passes her own reflection.

Aunt Lacey made the mistake of getting her close enough to start this...

The 3 minute long make out session with herself.

"Oh hey! You want me to say cheese? Ok... but I gotta finish something first..."

"You're gonna watch this? Alright, but it might get awkward."

Humility is like 2nd nature in our home.

Trick or Treating!

Paul and I took the girls out trick or treating on Sunday night!

It was a fun night full of candy and costumes :)

Lily went as Tinkerbell.  Her mom found an awesome costume at the Disney store!

Addison went as Darth Vader. As I've mentioned earlier she has a small obsession with lightsabers and we just coudn't resist!



You'll have to forgive my photos from here on out.

I'm terribly night blind and trying to FIND the people through my camera, let alone focus on them, was a tad difficult.

Lily has always been a pro trick or treater.  She runs to the door and promptly shrieks "TRICK OR TREAT" the second it cracks open.

A couple of houses just left the front doors open and we had to stop her from heading right on in.

Addison CAN say trick or treat but chose not to.

Instead she'd give everyone a "gum" and scream bye as she made off with her loot.

She spent most of the evening with a death grip on her bucket.

She was afraid we were gonna take it from her.

A little ways into our night we sat down to go through our loot and wait for Grandma and Aunt Lacey to show up.

That big brown bag is FULL of candy.

Lily could barely contain herself.

Aunt Lacey showed up moments later and Addison spent the rest of the evening clinging to her.

She refused to walk.

Aunt Lacey is the center of the universe to Addison.

We attempted a family picture but Addison was too busy freaking out about not being 1/2 an inch away from her beloved Aunty.

Oh well,  there's always next year :)

AND NOW!

A taste of blog to come...

Paul and I throw a costume party around Halloween every year.

It's my birthday and I wanna see my friends having some fun!

I'll have a full post tomorrow but for tonight...

Candy filled burro destruction :)

We Were Lost Forever.

As I mentioned yesterday Paul and I took Addison to the corn maze at Liepold Farms before the weather could get too bad.

She had an absolute blast and walked pretty much the whole way all on her own!

She was super tired by the end of the day and a little extra cranky but it was totally worth it to watch her waddle around a ginormo corn maze pigeontoed :)

She's too precious!

We're planning on heading back Sunday with Lily to pick out pumpkins for carving, so until then here's a few photos from our fun afternoon.



Hope you all have great plans for the best holiday of the year!

I plan on turning 25...

but please don't tell anyone.

I feel the inexplicable urge to hide my age.

Is this normal?!