A new big girl in the House!

Wow -- this weekend was exhausting. I am thoroughly worn out! Let me start out that our little Girl turned 4!!! She is a happy camper and also graduated to a booster seat this week -- W have also had great success on her having dry diapers in the morning so let's hope we are done with that!!

Valentine's Day was very sweet at our house, daddy was home at a surprising early time (before we left for dance) and had flowers delivered to mommy that morning and brought 2 single stem roses home for his daughters. {such a thoughtful husband -- he has his moments!! ;-) } Rosetta loved the rose and fell in love with daddy all over again!

{here is our valentine's}

{Rosetta and Lily}

On Saturday Rosetta had cheer leading camp with the Indian Hills Community College cheerleaders. She was so excited and had been talking about it forever!!
She was so excited to cheer that we had the outfit on 3 hours before the game!!! She even put her "game" face on with face tattoos they gave us.

We were all pumped up for the game. Mommy took Rosetta and Xavier to the game, while daddy and the two youngest girls had good bounding time.

At the game Xavier was super impressed with the REALLY TALL basketball players. The game was good and I watched Xavier's eyes widen as the guys went up and down the court. At half time the cheerleaders came out and my girl is smack dab between the 2 boy cheerleaders!! I was very proud of our girl!!!

When I went down after the half to get Rosetta she was holding the blond boy's hand and and was excited when she saw Xavier and me. She told me this boy was her best friend... oh boy are we in trouble! :-) i will have to post videos of the dance soon. Also Saturday was the first time we tried rice cereal with Lily. We were just going to attempt it to see if she would like it.... I would say she is in love with cereal. Only problem was right after she had the little bit of cereal she fell into a coma and slept the rest of the night! Let's just say her belly was full and she was happy.

{ "I want food daddy!"}

On Sunday morning was Glorianna's 4th birthday. She was all smiles that morning. She got all dressed up in the birthday gift her mommy and daddy got her -- a minnie mouse dress and Minnie ears! She was all ready for her party. We had her party at a place called jumping jim's, which is a big indoor bounce house. We had about 8 kids there running around and sweating and having a ball.
They were slip and sliding and bouncing everywhere. We finally got them all together to blow out candles and eat cake and then they were off again to bounce some more.

{Happy birthday to you}

{blowing out the candles on her Minnie mouse cake}

{anticipation of opening gifts}

{she was so super excited with every gift she opened}

{BIRTHDAY GIRL}

when we got home from jumpin jim's we had to get out her new wii game Disney Sing it and belt out a few tunes before cubbies. I think mommy likes the game better than the kids!!! i know all the songs and got 5 stars on princess and the frog's song "almost there" and showed the kids how to sing supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (spelling?? do you know spellcheck actually had this in the dicitionary?!?) My kids were not impressed with my many talents. Lily is still loving her jumper and it seems to wear her out!

And tonight is dance night. Rosetta had to dress up her American doll, Bella, just like her to go to dance! Okay now mommy has to go get some work done so she can have a weekend away this Friday with my sisters and mom. So looking forward to so much needed shopping therapy! LOL

Weekend In Ohio

We headed off to Ohio last week and got to spend some much needed time with family. The kids had a blast and it was great to see almost everybody! We got to eat lots of good food (thank you Pam and mom) but I was able to not gain more than a pound on the trip. I am okay with that!! :-)

Everybody got to see how lily has grown so much since Christmas. She is a tub-a-lub now! She sat and watched the Buckeyes play on Saturday on grandpa's lap. Some people watched the game... ...some watched it behind closed eyes!

All of us got to love on mason a couple days too! He is a cutie and there are many similarities between him and lily. They both have the same nose, eyes, and pudgy baby fat rolls!

Our oldest three were able to get out in the snow and use the sleds we bought a while ago but haven't gotten out of the boxes. They had a blast!!!

{Lincoln and my sister Beth}

It always takes a bit for Lincoln to warm up to me, but successfully in about 3 hours I had him smiling for the camera!!

that ham!!!!

Xavier always likes to practice his billiard skills while home in Ohio. I don't know how many "games" were played but it kept them entertained.

{mason and lily}

{holding hands}

Xavier is our fearless little boy - Nate was pushing him as fast as he could down the hill and all you could hear was his laughter!!!

{my boy in a Kalida Wildcats hat -- gotta luv it!!}

Megan was a little babysitter to lily, she was a baby hog until her mom came over! LOL

Uncle Neil even stopped in and got a few tickles in before he had to leave. Glorianna just adores her uncle -- all giggles!!

{mason's smiles}

{grandma Judy and Glorianna -- note I had her hair all pretty and straightened that morning and 5 minutes after it is done its a mess again! UGH}

{lily and baby jack (4 weeks old)}

{Lauren in the snow} {faith in our tunnel that we dug... three days later I am still paying for it. My shoulder is throbbing, the things we do for those adorable nieces and nephews!!}

{Rosetta and Megan all smiles!}
{This big kid had to try it too. The most hilarious part is the trench Nate put in the snow from going down on the sled!!}

{Proof that yes mommy was out there too! Mommy never gets in the pictures!!}

{Faith and Xavier made the record for going the longest distance by holding hands on two tubes!}

{Nate's attempt on a tube}

{Faith and Rosetta-- looks like the tooth fairy had been busy!! ;-) }

We made lots more snow memories. It was sad to leave after having so much fun, but back to the grind. The trip went well except for the last hour 20 minutes where lily was fussy. I made the decision to keep going because she just wanted out of her seat. I was wrong, she had a poopy diaper and because of mommy she had her first case of diaper rash. Sorry little girl! Other than that we made it back to Iowa with no problems.

country line dancing

my boy is all country!!!

glorianna's moves

dancing away on a snow day!! Nothing sweeter!!!

the next OSU freshman phenom

xavier made 2 baskets this game. Way to go Xavier!!! We are sending the tape to OSU for their scouting reports!! LOL He even gets an offensive rebound!!! Watch Out!!

xavier's basketball game 1-29-11

Our little man doing his thing on the court!!

jack frost nipping at our nose

Okay we have dug out from underneath the snow and are just now surfacing. "Snowpacalopse" started on Monday and got full force by Tuesday night. Of course daddy had to work everyday and didn't get a snow day like the rest of us, but the 4 kids and I had alot of fun hunkered down in the house and spent most of the time in our pjs. Here is the snow starting...

by Tuesday night it started really accumulating...

With our snow day on Tuesday we rearranged the loft to make room for a fort. We had all the pillows and blankets from all over the house draped over chairs, tables, the easel .. you name it! This kept the kids entertained for maybe 15 minutes tops and then it was back to "I'm bored!"

my masterpiece!!!

Then mommy had a brilliant idea..... let's organize the puzzle drawer. We got ALL the puzzles out and lined them up and then tried to find all the missing pieces. Some how after 30 minutes mom and glorianna were the only one doing this project and the other two had disappeared. Hummmm.... apparently not so much fun.

I found the oldest two doing this alot!!! darn old video games.... whatever happened to using the imagination? I did have to allow it a little bit because it gave mommy some piece and quiet.

Then Wednesday morning we woke up to ALOT more snow and piles and piles of the white stuff!! Glorianna wanted to immediately go out and play in the snow... but we saved that for a little later in the afternoon.

Instead we spent the morning making homemade whoopie pies. Yum Yum!!!

We all put on our aprons and got dirty. The kids were my mixers, the pourers, the tasters (this was glorianna's favorite part!!) and the look at the oven and tell mommy when the are done helpers!!

Yes i know Xavier is wearing a pink apron but Rosetta wouldn't give up the brown one! i pick my battles and this wasn't one. He didn't seem to mind!!

The finished project.... YUM... they were tasty.

The latest thing the kids like to do is empty out the dishwasher. Mommy taught them how to organize the plates and cups and utensils, so all mommy has to do is put them in the respective spots. NICE!!

Then daddy got home and we finally got to play in the snow!!!! YEAH!!! Here is Xavier trying to shovel out our front porch.

"Help mommy I can't get back up!!!!"

there was alot of snow!!!

here is the back door we had to shovel out to let the dogs out!!!

I told the kids to see if they could make it aroudn the house. Glorianna made it 10 feet before getting stuck!

So we made it through the snow days... not without hair pulling, fighting, boo-boos, and many mommy "serenity now!!" moments. Let's hope the worst is behind us and now we can just play in the pretty white stuff that mother nature left us!!!