Pictures!

I know it's been over a week since I posted anything, but we've been really busy around here. So, I hope you don't mind if I post a lot of pictures!

It's still very wintry here, and Elle is tired of being inside! So, she insisted on going for a walk the other day, even though it was 30-something degrees. She didn't seem to mind the cold and seemed very relaxed in her wagon!


In the past few weeks, Elle has become really attached to her baby doll and her Minnie. We usually have to take Minnie with us in the car, and she insists on carrying her through the store. I guess Aunt Tarolyn picked perfect present! We can't wait to take Elle back to Disney when we go visit my sister in a week!

Elle always thinks it's pretty funny when her daddy play Halo on X-BOX and wears his headphones, so she thought she was really big stuff when he let her wear them the other day. She probably spent 30 minutes trying to get them to sit right on her head, and she kept making the goofiest faces. She is certainly a performer!

Winter Entertainment for your Children

So, winter has definitely caused me to get creative as far as entertaining Elle and Sam. It was so nice to at least be able to walk around the block when they got bored or fussy, and we went to the park a few times a week when the weather was warmer. Yesterday, Kyle was working again all day, so I decided to make Elle a sort of indoor sandbox. I've been wanting to get Elle a water/sand table for a while now, but she's still into putting things in her mouth. And since I don't actually have anything as big as a sandbox, I just used a tupperware container and filled it with oatmeal, instead of sand (this way, it's not a problem if she eats it). She had a blast! She was transferring the oatmeal from one side to the other and scooping it up with her spoon, but she especially loved throwing the oatmeal up in the air (she would scream and laugh at herself hysterically every time she did it!). It was too fun, and I got some cute pictures!

Winter Wonderland

So, we finally got out of the house the past two days after being snowed in all week! And though we certainly enjoyed the snow and playing in it, Elle was going crazy being cooped up for that long (and I was really going crazy!), so it was nice to leave the house and do something different. But, since most of our week was consumed with snow, here's yet another picture and video of Elle and our neighborhood on Wednesday (our third day of snow!). Doesn't it look beautiful?!? Elle really wanted to go outside constantly, but didn't understand how cold it was.

Snowed In!

Okay, we're not really snowed in, since Kyle still had to go to work (apparently, hospitals don't get snow days!), but I certainly won't be driving anywhere. It started snowing about 5PM last evening (it was coming down so fast, it was hard to see!) and didn't stop until late last night, so we have at least 4 inches (probably more). We had a lot of fun playing in the snow last night; Elle even enjoyed it! She mostly liked walking up and down the sidewalk and feeling it crunch beneath her snow boots, but she also thought it was hysterical when Kyle started throwing snow in the air. I'm sure you Southerners won't agree, but we were really excited to have all that snow! Our back porch




Elle doesn't look too excited but she really did enjoy it. We were afraid to get the camera too wet, so we could only record from our porch.

Weekend Snuggle-time with Daddy

By the Grace of God

**Warning** If you don't like reading stories about people getting sick, you may want to skip this one!

Over Thanksgiving, my family and I played a game called Loaded Questions. (It has now become one of my favorite games to play with a group because you learn a lot about people. Basically, one person reads a question, which everyone else answers on paper, and the person who read the question has to guess who put which answer.) Anyway, when asked "What makes you want to vomit?", my immediate answer was "the smell of vomit or watching other people vomit." And this is very true; just the sound or smell of it causes me to gag, and I've always said I cannot clean up other people's vomit. Well, God certainly has a sense of humor because I just spent the last day and a half essentially sitting in vomit. After getting home from mass on Wednesday evening, Elle turned to me and puked all over me and the living room floor multiple times. Thinking that she was surely done at least for a while, we immediately showered, only to get out and have her do the exact same thing. After the third change of clothes, I figured I might as well not change anymore. Being only 16 months, she is of course not good at letting me when she's about to be sick or at aiming. So, needless to say, it was a fun over 24 hours!

The amazing thing to me is that when all she wanted to do was have me hold her, of course often covered in puke, my thought was not about how gross it was or how I didn't want to get it on me or how I was going to gag from the smell. My only concern was making her feel better, even if that meant being surrounded by something that I hate. And all I could think of as I sat on my towel-lined couch was how funny it was that I had put that answer down during the game and how God was really trying to teach me something here. It is so true that being a mother really helps in that whole dying to self thing! God certainly had a purpose for putting Elle in my life, and He continually shows me that He will always provide the grace for any situation. And Elle is finally getting better this morning. It is so hard to see your little one sick!

Old MacDonald had a farm....

Last night, as with most nights, Elle had her "crazy" time, and she was being too cute! First, she ran around the house like a wild animal and started yelling "hep peez" ("help please") over and over. We found her like this:

Then, she wanted to watch Baby Einstein. Her new favorite song is "Old MacDonald", since she's been learning her animal sounds, and for some reason, she always does this motion with her hands (basically opening and closing them over and over) every time she hears the song and to let me know she wants to sing it. Last night, when the song came on her Baby Einstein video, she started furiously doing her hand motions and kept spinning in circles until she was so dizzy she'd fall down!

Our Weekend and a Sugar High

So, we had a really busy, fun weekend. On Friday night, I went to dinner with a few friends, so all the guys stayed at our house to watch the kids. The best part of the evening (according to Kyle) was when our neighbor's little girl turned on Elle's favorite song (Shake my sillies out) and all the kids came running into the playroom and started dancing. He said it was soo cute! Kyle tried to get it on tape, but as always, Elle stopped as soon as she saw the camera.

Then, on Saturday, we went to a 1st birthday party for one of Elle's friends. It was at a kid's gym, so Elle loved playing in the ball pit, going down the slide, and climbing on all the mats.


But, her favorite part was, of course, the cake. She definitely had a sugar high afterwards, and here's a taste of what she did for the next hour or so: