Messy Girl

Nora loves to make a good mess. She says "meh" and smiles. Usually when it involves food I'm not super excited about it, nor do I encourage it, but this one was pretty funny. We were eating tomato soup and looked over to see Nora putting her bowl on her head before we could stop her. She thought it was pretty funny.

Just 2 days ago I was cleaning out my closet and suddenly noticed that it was really quiet in the house. I asked Aidan where Nora was and then turned to find her sitting in my bathroom among a pile of mess. She had dumped out a bunch of stuff (Q-tips were the most tedious to pick up) and was happily sitting in it all and saying, "meh".

Reading with Daddy

There is really  nothing more sweet that "Daddy time" in the evenings. I love these moments.

Sweet Moments: Christmas Wrapup

These are my final pics from our Christmastime in Kansas. We had a fun night at Fritz's with Seth's parents and I caught this quick snapshot of Aidan with Papi. 

 Another sweet moment was seeing Nora sitting and being read to...this was right before we left. :(

Christmas in Kansas: Cousins!

Love these funny pictures of the four cousins eating popcorn (out of yogurt containers) by the fireplace. They were so stinking cute.

More Christmas In Kansas: Time with friends

We were so blessed to have our dear friends Kara and Cody come up to see us during New Year's weekend. We had planned a trip down to AR, but with Nora fighting off a cold/ear infection and not sleeping well, we decided it probably would be a very miserable trip for all of us. So our friends came up to see us instead! We were so excited because they brought baby Ruby and it was our first time to meet her.

 Aidan loved Ruby. He was so sweet with her it almost made me want another baby...almost. If he would treat Nora this nice all the time I might even be more convinced, but we are still desperately working on that in our house right now.

We had a fun evening playing games and eating yummy food. Wish our time could have lasted longer. We rung in the new year, went to bed and all started 2012 with very little sleep thanks to the little ones in our lives.

Loved getting to hold my bestie's little baby girl. I am so glad that we can share our motherhood journey's now that we are both in that life phase. Kara has been such a dear friend, even when we were in two very different worlds, but it is sure fun to have her friendship turn into a motherhood camaraderie.

More Christmas in Kansas

We got to spend a morning at the Crown Center checking out their exhibit for kids and then at Union Station to see the train exhibit. It was quite a windy day (as you can see with Nora's hair), but a beautiful day for such an outing. I really couldn't believe we were out without coats. In South Carolina that's not an amazing thing, but Kansas?....it was so weird to have such mild weather. So much for packing snow boots. 

No Words Needed

Five.

January 20th was our fifth anniversary.

I know it is like we've hardly begun, but at the same time it feels like it's been so long.

We have multiplied and I think that is what makes the 2 of us seem so distant...we were only just 2 for a short time.

We had a good day.

Seth stayed home from work, I slept in. He gave me a nice card and gift certificate for a 1 hour massage. Sweet man.

We went out and bought his present: Mario Kart for the Wii.

Then we went on errands, the kids watched movies in the backseat while it poured rain.

These came to the door in the afternoon. Sweet husband again.

We grilled burgers in the rain for dinner. A very summery meal. Stuffed with jalapenos and cream cheese.

The little ones went to bed.

And we finished the evening with some fondue.

So blessed to have had 5 years together and looking forward to the next 5 years.

Circus Time

We took Aidan to the circus tonight and we all had a bunch of fun! We actually had pretty good seats and a friend of mine watched Nora so that we could have a more relaxing time. It was a great memory and I took a lot of pictures!

Aidan laughing at the clowns during the pre-show

Asia the Elephant

She painted during the pre-show

Showing off her work!

I had a blast taking pictures because I finally decided to read my stinking camera manual and stop using Auto as a default way to take pictures. Can I just say a whole new world has been opened up to me? I was constantly adjusting the settings to take pictures during the show, but I learned a lot as I adjusted for the different lighting in each act. 

More Christmas Memories

Aidan had a great time making a gingerbread house with my mom and Xan. They also made gingerbread men while we were there. I think Aidan especially liked eating the candy as they decorated.

I caught this sweet moment of the kids on camera. Aidan reached down and gave Nora a kiss. Love seeing those two being sweet with one another because it seems to be a battle for them most days.

Here's a pic of the boys playing with the new Hot Wheels set they got for Christmas. I am totally clueless when it comes to boys toys and this thing doesn't even excite me one bit. But, all the boys (even the older ones) had a good time with it
.

And then there is the sweet little princess taking her bath. Oh my word does she love a bath!

Christmas in Kansas 2011: Part III

We spent the day after Christmas celebrating again with my family. It was a wild morning to wake up to the excited and impatient sounds of 4 little ones. What a fun time to watch them all enjoy opening their gifts though! It brings such joy to my face to see the enthusiasm and excitement over little things.

Animal cookies!

Nora kept putting things back in after she took them out

Time of worship before we opened presents

One of my favorite moments of this morning was seeing my two sweet boys playing music together. Seth was leading us in a few worship/Christmas songs and Aidan was playing along on the drum.

Another great memory was the reindeer nose that would light up. Nora (as seen below) would take off running with her nose in the air. I love the action shot I was able to take of her. :)

Hat I made for Sarah

Pots and pan for our new kitchen!

Cousins playing together

Sweet boy taking a break with his Daddy