In honor of...

...the season upon us, and because I haven't posted in a few days, and because I will be out of internet range for a while, I am uploading some new pictures of the house as we speak. Er, type. I know you have been missing my daily anecdotes and pictures, as well as my sparkling personality and sense of humor, so I figure you deserve something good for your patience and long suffering. Don't worry, Christmas posts will follow the New Year, as well as New Year posts, and oh yeah, that pesky 5th birthday thing for my oldest. See?!?! So much to look forward to! However, until then, these updated pictures (albeit old as heck) will have to suffice :)

This was the family room/dining room before we tore up the carpet and restored the hardwood. This is how I saw it the first day. Hubby saw potential. I have always said he has good vision :)

Up the stairs to the bed room.
The smallest, and aptly named bedroom, "the Pink room." Now Dylan's room.

The middle room. The Blue room. Now the girls bedroom.

The Master. The Red Room.

The new middle bedroom. Check out that fancy scmancy carpet!!! And the poor girls, who spent many a night in their sleeping bags with their little TV :)

The New Master!

OK. That is all for now. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!!!

Gloves

Dylan is a very hot natured little boy. When the rest of us are in blankets or comfortable, the poor kid has little sweat beads on his cute little button nose. However, the other day, his little hands seemed freezing, so I borrowed some gloves the girls had.

At first, he can't really tell what they are....

Then he figures out, hey... It doesn't matter... I can still move around. And stuff.

And then, the rest are just cute. Gloves or not.

I love me some cheeks :)

Sneaky Fort

After we had moved into the house, I helped Kari to build a fort. I let her keep it up and sleep in it over night. I went in to check on them, as I normally do before bed, and found Kaitlyn had sneaked in to join the party. Back up... Yes, we have changed Kaitlyn's bed to a toddler bed. She was climbing out of her bed, so we thought it would be better to just change it over. We actually had a relatively good transition. She stays in her bed most of the time. In fact, one day we were pretty busy doing something (I believe it was a water/basement issue) and she got tired of waiting for me to put her to bed. So, she walked up stairs, grabbed her blanket and pacifier, and went to bed. Yes, the pacifier is the next hurdle. Kari ceremoniously gave hers up on her third birthday. As long as Kaitlyn is done by then, I consider it acceptable. It is kinda hard to tell from the pictures, but they are both in there... I don't know how they slept. They are both such wiggle worms!

Here is the fort. The sheet door had fallen off.

Its hard to tell, but they are both in there.

See, there are two pairs of pajamas.

To be honest, I am surprised they both fit. Kari sleeps with so many "cuddle toys" anyway, there is hardly any room for her. But, there they both are :)

Beach Party

Ok. Lets go waaaay back. I said I was gonna catch up a bit. I am gonna skim over some stuff, but this was cute enough, I wanted to share. Kari decided we were going to have a beach party. In November. A few days before we moved. She made us Party Passports. We had to have these to get into the party. :)

We played a few games: Follow the leader. Copy Cat. And then, we drew pictures.

For the beach party, we drew pictures of beach balls :)

Then, we had a seal party. It was for Kaitlyn, but she didn't plan it. Kari did :) We did all the same things, except we drew pictures of seals.

She did a very good job planning it, and it was very fun playing around. She is so creative :)

She's Baaaaaaack...

I know, I know... It has been, like, forever! You missed me?!?! Well, I missed you too. In a virtual manner of speaking. And, as much as you want all the gory details of what you have missed in our busy and not always the super happy lives, I will spare you. For one thing, it would take way too long. And besides, I am an optimist. And, I am choosing to not dwell on the things that would send me into a spiral of depression the likes of which you, as my dearly devoted reader and friend, do not want to be held responsible for. Things like the hard drive on my computer going bad and having to be replaced and loosing everything because I hadn't backed up anything. Or the phone company turning off my phone and Internet because of a misunderstanding and not being able to turn in on again for 4 days, at which point they had apparently not even put the appointment on the computer, so I had to call, and wait another 4 days because that was the "earliest available" even though they were the ones who messed up. Or that my phone still doesn't work. Or that it rained, and my basement flooded again to the point where I was bailing it out with shop vac after shop vac, but still ended up getting not one, but two pumps, and letting them run for a combined 30+ hours. Or, that Dylan had his first sick visit to the doctor. Or, that I have decided I no longer like the rug or paint on my wall, and need to take one back and re-paint the other, though what color, I know not. No, I am not going to think about those things. Suffice it to say, when it rains, it pours. And in my case literally. Inside my basement.


But, now, in my optimistic attitude, I am going to move forward, and embrace my new in door swimming pool, and my newly clean and super fast hard drive, and my non-phone interrupted life and look forward to the holiday season. So, in honor of the wonderful evergreen smell now invading my senses, I am going to post a happy point in my life: our Christmas tree. We went to a local Christmas tree farm, and in a tradition coming mostly from my side of the family, cut down our own tree.

Us, sitting by where the tractor would pick us up to take us down to the trees.

This one, mommy. No, this one....

I love this picture :)

Its a purty one :) They are so helpful...

A little more to the left daddy.

No, more to the right....

Mid moo.

Going across the street to look at the cows.

Mid skip :) I guess cows make her happy....

She needed a closer look.
Ha-woh!

Poor guy. This was a close as he got.

Cute little antler sisters.

And, I made hubby get up on the roof and put up lights...

So, that is all for now. I will do my best to catch up, but we of course, are going to be quite busy, so, don't hold your breath :) Merry Christmas!