Finally: A Snow Day!

My tradition has always been to put my bare feet in the first real snow of the season. It took a while, but we finally got one. Doesn't Hannah look thrilled?

Catching snowflakes!

My three snow angels. Thanks for the cool scarves Aunt Tammy :)

Joseph starts a snowball fight

My sweet, giggly Hannah

Goofy Emily. She is by far my best photo poser :)

Making snow angels

Hannah throwing a snowball at me. Love this shot!

Isn't she precious

One of their favorite parts was still swinging

Playing with his backhoe in the snow

My smiley girl.

I love his tongue on this one ;)

Notice their chins. They were eating snow and got snow goatees :)

Hannah took this one of Mom getting into the action. It was nice getting some fresh air. I love snow!

Exteme Makeover: Office Edition

I am sure I have told all of you how proud I am of Allen....repeatedly in fact :) Well, this fall he got his very first office. How exciting! The office is ....well, it needed some decorating help. So, MawMaw and Papa agreed to watch the kids while Allen and I got to go out to dinner and then back to the office to decorate. So much fun!

Here is the desk area before

Here is the entry way after with a cool carpet, an incredible pasron chair and an African...uhm.....thingy on the floor next to the chair :)

The desk area after. I even put pictures in the picture frame.....no more kids we didn't know :) Notice the cool wicker garbage can....love it!

The other wall before

The other wall: after! All three of the wall hangings are metal. Very masculine but stylish.

In front of Allen's desk. Cute chairs :)

***I love you, Babe. I am so proud of you***

Weekend Activities

We had another Saturday workday. Unfortunately for MawMaw and Papa we sucked them in too :) Here is MawMaw buried in my laundry AGAIN. Seriously, I do some of my laundry. No, really I do. Yes, Emily is in her swimsuit and it was 20 degrees out. I have no idea why!

MawMaw also helped me tackle our horrendous basement. Wow, it looks so awesome!

Papa and Joseph are working on my new chair rail. The arm rests of the stools were decimating my wall. This will help...then when those get too bad they can be replaced. Papa also then helped Allen put together one of my bookshelves. I was SO grateful to get so much done.

Yes, I know I will have to be looking into nominating them for some inlaw award! Thank you guys sooooo much!!!!

Teeheee...this pic makes me laugh. Later that night we had family movie night. Karen and her parents joined us. Poor Karen. The strangest mishaps kept happening to her. Here is one. This used to be her pretty glass of lemonade :)


Mr Howard

Miss Mary

Joseph and Auntie Karen playing :)

Sunday Hannah started working on her science fair project. Isn't she cute. She was having so much fun!

Writing in her research notebook :)





Emily couldn't be let out of the fun of course!

Happy Inauguration Day!

I have not really been looking forward to this day. In fact, the thought of this day has given me an ache in the pit of my stomach since the beginning of November. But, my hope is NOT in whomever is leading this country, my hope is in the LORD! So, why should I fear; why should I dread? We may not love the man in charge but he is our leader nonetheless and we LOVE our great country!

So, we decided to party :) This is a HUGE historic day and I wanted to remember it with my kids. We got up some of the favors and things from Hannah's soldier party last year (yes, that is really what she asked for).

Cheering with the crowd. The cutest thing was that they sat when the crowd was told to sit :)

Our 44th president of the United States...and my 2 and 3 year olds got to witness it!

We did lots of cheering and flag waving. I can ask who is our president and Joseph says "Bak Obama is our new pesdent"

Hannah was a bit offended that we had a party without her. So, we had a second round. She got to wave her flag and cheer too :)

Joseph took this one of me getting into the spirit of things....or was it just getting into the spirits??!!!

Monday the 29th

Wow, that is a very close shiny picture of Dana and me. Well, what do you expect when I am trying to hold the camera with my t-rex arms! We decided to tackle Allison's room on Monday. Allen watched all the kids at my parents. She has always had a white room and we wanted to give her a preteen girl room.

Talent! Balancing the roller and the frappuchino! Man, thank goodness for Starbucks...I think that may be the only way we made it through :) Actually, Allison's room went really fast

Allison's room before the makeover


After the makeover!

I love it! I think it looks like Allison!!!

I started thinking about it....it really wasn't fair for us to be using Dakota's actual birthday to do a huge project for Allison. So we ran to Walmart and picked up paint for the boys' room. And off we went cleaning and painting their room. We worked fevorishly and got it done! The only realy casualty was Gavin's bedspread that got a couple of paint spots....sorry Buddy. Good thing the paint matches so well :)

More boy room

Dakota's side of the bedroom. The color is a tanish green. Matches perfectly with their camo bedspreads. I was so impressed with us :)

Lake Michigan

We took the kids back to "our spot" at the lakefront. This was where we had our first ringing in of the new year in 99 and where Allen proposed. We came to find out it was also my parents' spot :) Eeeww...remember that Beth! Then we took you to see where Jeffrey Dalmer lived and the hooker loop? Ahh, good times.

Anyhoo, we went back on my birthday because the first time we took them this trip it was so foggy you really couldn't see the lake. Joseph called it the ocean :) It actually looks the same. He has seen the ocean when we went to NC last summer.

Hannah taking a picture of us

It was freezing and very windy, but of course I made them take pictures!