Playing with Ella....

Yesterday Ella and I were playing in her room and she was being so cute I just had to take some pictures!

fun in the snow....

A couple of weeks ago Sean took Iain for a fun afternoon of sledding and playing in the snow. When they were done sledding, they came back to the house to build a snow fort. In the parking lot next to our house, the plow had pushed a huge snowbank just on the other side of our fence. So Sean helped Iain dig (well, Sean did all of it actually) a really cool fort into the side of the snow bank. Iain was so excited about the fort, he wanted Ella and me to come outside and look at it. A couple of days later, the plow guy decided to move that snowbank and took Iain's fort a long with it....Iain was so upset when he saw the fort was gone. I guess all good things have to come to an end.

Iain's Birthday highlights....

Here is Iain and AJ eating yummy food! Iain had special requests for his birthday lunch....Bamma's mac and cheese and dino shaped chicken nuggets. Also notice the Batman plates that Iain picked out himself at the party store.

Opening presents was the best! Although you would have never known it. Iain didn't get very excited about any of his gifts....until later when he stated that he liked his birthday "stuff" better than his Christmas "stuff". He got a lot of transformers and action figures!

Hanging out with family....everyone at the party traveled from someplace. We are so glad everyone made the trip safely (the weather was kind of iffy that day). A visit from Oma and Opa is always a treat!

Iain and Ella with their cousins AJ and Micah. They had a blast playing all day! By the end, this was the best picture we could get of all of them together. Iain is already talking about what he wants to do on his 5th birthday!

Blogging slump....

Well, it has been awhile since my last post. Everybody has been sick here at one time or another. We've been busy with.... I don't even know.... stuff. As a result, I just haven't felt like blogging. Iain has had this problem of having blood in his urine for some unknown reason which is stressing me. I haven't been going to the gym or playing with the kids as often as I would like either. I guess I have been in a slump across the board.

Iain just had his fourth birthday party....I can't believe he's four! Something happened at his party that sparked the blogging bug in me. His cousins were here....who he loves. Micah, who is almost three, was playing with some toy food and somehow became very attached to this plastic piece of chicken. All of the sudden, Micah noticed that the chicken was missing. Well, that was just the end of the world....Micah cryed and cryed about the chicken and everyone was looking for it, no one could find it. As soon as he left with his fam, before their car had even pulled out of the driveway, Iain came clean. Apparently (as Iain tells it) he and AJ (his older cousin), hid the chicken in Iain's closet because sometimes Micah hits Iain....a 4 year old's revenge. I am still laughing about it. So the plastic chicken leg has been found! And we've learned not to mess with Iain cause he'll hide your favorite stuff!

Ella's hair

I have been anxiously waiting for Ella's hair to be long enough for me to "put up" (if you can call it that). On Christmas day I was finally able to do that! She got some hair accessories in her stocking from Santa (aka. me) and I couldn't wait to use them! This is a picture of her on Christmas....so cute. I think she looks like Cindy-loo Woo (sp?).

All dressed up

The Christams festivities started on Christmas Eve. We all got dressed up and attended the Christmas Eve service at church.

COOKIES!

For the past 3 years or so, my friend Bree and I have gotten together before Christmas to decorate cookies. We like to do it without the kids around so it usually ends up getting done in the middle of the night. Well, last night was our night! We put the kids bed and then I headed over to Bree's at about 8:30 and stayed there until the job was done at about 1am! We had a lot of fun and did a lot of catching up. If I was up until 1:00 in the morning at home by myself doing that, I probably would've been pretty grumpy by the time I reached the last cookie. The Christmas season is so much more fun when you have friends to help you get through it!