Princess or Biker Chic? or My Clothes Confuse Me!

Happy Birthday, Nicole!

My niece (and God-daughter) Nicole became a teenager officially on the 4th, and we celebrated on Valentine's Day. Here she is with her friends Sarah and Claire (and Quin, who tagged along with the bigger girls all evening.)

Katelyn, Audine, and Mom

The girls painting nails.

The younger boys playing with Legos.

Lynn lights up the candles for Nicole.

Cameron and Ethan

Carrie and me
Ah, look - the men appear when the beer comes out! Adam, Randy, and Dick hanging out in the kitchen once the girls clear out.

Presents!

Josh and Mom

Big Girl Beds

Over the past few weeks, Quin has been asking to sleep in Carrie's toddler bed instead of the crib. And so we decided to bite the bullet and get big girl beds for them. The type we bought could break out into two twins, but it's so much more fun to have bunk beds! The girls were very excited about the entire process. Here they are dancing around the empty room. (There are no pictures of us taking down the crib - I was too busy crying!)

This is one of my "Honey, I have never loved you more than at this moment" moments. Yes, Adam vacuums more than I do. . .this should surprise no one.

Quin kept pointing at the bed and asking "I sleep here?" And then she'd smile. . .

Yeah! New beds!

We don't have new bedding for the girls yet, so we used the Mickey sheets that Beth I. gave to Heath and Ari's tree frog sheets.

Quin loves to sleep in her new bed. She gets in without fussing and doesn't climb out until the morning.

For the past two nights, Carrie hasn't been bed-hopping either.

First School Valentines

Carrie traced her name on a few of her Valentine's, but she needed help with the others. Adam helped her tape the lollopops to her cards.Carrie counts cards for her preschool class.
Heath gets excited about his Transformers cards that change from gadgets to autobots.

Quin watches Heath's reaction to his cards.

Heath signs his name - 21 times. We're ready for Friday.

Hanging at the Mount

Saturday afternoon at Magic Mountain

Lazy Winter Days

A few weekends ago we did everything we could to battle the rampant cabin fever running through our household. A little snow, a dirt bike - there's nothing wrong with that picture, right? Heath emerged unscathed from this new experience - mostly because it was so cold the engine kept stalling out on him.

There's Trouble in the Bubble! Playing games while both Laura and Rob visit.

What - you never sorted and counted your M&Ms? Footraces in the kitchen. Yeah, we have cabin fever.

Rob wanted something sweet on his visit, so he and the kids whipped up a batch of flourless peanut butter cookies. Yummy!

Carrie is very proud of the cookies she made all by herself.

This is Carrie's favorite position this February. If she doesn't have school, she doesn't even want to get our of her jammies. Otis is proof that you can indeed force someone to love you - the kids have carried him around so much that now he actually likes being around them, and trusts them enough to fall asleep.

Yeah, it's big, but at least now the couch can face the fireplace. I've nicknamed the TV "my vacation." You know, because we won't be going on one now!