Happy Valentine's Day!

This and That

Lila's Curriculum Fair at school was this week. I didn't take any pictures, but we got to see all of the projects they've been working on in school. They made melting snowmen, penguins and polar bears and did some science experiments with ice. We also got a chance to check out what the 4 year old class and the Kindergarten class have been working on as well.



Then, on Thursday, I got to help out with the Valentine's Party in Lila's classroom. I really enjoy being a room mom and having the chance to see the kids interact and meet all of Lila's friends.



Cara also had her 15 month appointment on Thursday. She weighs 20 lbs 13 oz and is 29 inches long. That makes her 25th percentile for weight and 10th percentile for height. The doctor was impressed with her verbal skills and how social she is as well as her fine motor skills, so she's doing great! She is getting more independent every day. She walks all over the house and is perfectly content to explore on her own, but she still likes to be in on all of the action and to keep up with her siblings. I took her to story time at the library this week for the first time and she LOVED it. She listened to the story and clapped along with all of the rhymes- it was adorable to watch her have so much fun!



Cara can say Mama, Dada, Nana, Pa, Lila, Ian, shoe (still a favorite, she's obsessed), cheese, chips, thank you, paci, drink, more, bowl, this, sheep, ball, pool, yay!, hi, bye bye, boo, okay, and yes. And she knows quite a few animal sounds too: woof (probably the word she says the most), quack, baa, oink, neigh and moo. Plus, she can make a fish face and knows that a bunny goes hop hop hop.

Sail Away

Last week, Chris and I went on a week-long Caribbean cruise on the Freedom of the Seas. We stopped at CoCo Cay, Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Maarten and had three days at sea. It was fantastic! We both love cruising- this is my fifth cruise and Chris's third- and this trip just demonstrated why we loved it so much. The weather was amazing, the ship was perfect and overall we just had a really good time.

The view from my beach chair in CoCo Cay.

In St. Thomas we went shopping (of course) and then that night we had a sunset harbor cruise around the island. It was really low key and fun and may be my favorite cruise excursion ever. It doesn't hurt that champagne was included!

The sunset

One night the ship entertainment was a magician. He asked for volunteers and Chris immediately rasied his hand. He was picked, so he got to assist during the "cut the woman in half" trick. He said it was very cool and he still has no idea how the magician did it. Chris is on the far right.

Chris with his three dinners on lobster night--prime rib and two lobster tails.


One of the the professional ones we had taken on the ship.

While we were gone, Mom and Momoo stayed at our house and took care of the kids and animals. We are SO grateful that they were willing to do that. And everyone had a great time. The girls got lots of one on one attention during the day and everything went smoothly. Except for a little thing like a record breaking blizzard, maybe you heard about it? I've heard it called several things, but my favorite is Sn...O.M.G. We got 22 inches of snow and everything was shut down in a city that never shuts down for weather. I'm glad we missed it and glad that everything here was fine.

Mom took pictures of the snow and of the kids during the week, but I forgot to get them from her camera before she left.

Oops! It's been a month!

Um, oops. I know I said January was a slow blog month, but I really didn't intend for it to be the middle of February before I updated. It's been pretty much the normal routine around here.

Lila did a winter animal unit at school and then at home had to make an animal out of clay to take to the classroom. She chose a penguin and did a fantastic job making one! Here she is making it out of clay.

And here's the finished project after it dried and she painted it.

My friend Shannon celebrated her 30th birthday with one of the most fun parties I've been to. It was a bar crawl with the party trolley taking us around the city. It was a blast! Katie joined in the fun and Tim even met up with us for awhile, including a nostalgic trip to La Bamba!

Emily, Me and Shannon

Fancy Lila

I am afraid I am creating monsters. Shopping monsters, that is. Lila has always loved clothes and shoes and always enjoyed going shopping. On Monday, we made a family trip to the mall to do some shopping and help Chris pick out some new clothes. As soon as we walked in to Von Maur Lila said, "I like to try on shoes here. Let's go try on some shoes!". We made her wait until we were done shopping and she kept asking to try on things in her "own little size". So, as a reward for being patient I took her up to the toddler section to look at clothes. She informed me that she had to try clothes on, just like me. She tried things on and, of course, we bought a few things. Her favorite were these Fancy Nancy pajamas with matching slippers. They are satin and the slippers have feathers on them, they are very fancy.

New Camera

We got a new Canon Powershot last week! I was never happy with our last camera so I am very excited to have a new one. Plus, this one is much smaller and lighter so it's easy to carry in my purse and diaper bag, so hopefully we won't have any more events that are captured only on my phone's camera.

This has been a fast month, but a slow blog month. We've been very busy, but nothing has been all that blog-worthy. Today Lila wanted to have a birthday party for her pink bear and we all had to dress in our fancy clothes. Cara and I had pretend fancy clothes, but Lila dressed herself in a tutu, butterfly wings, a big pink bow and a pink blanket aka a beautiful scarf.

Cara checking out the party food.

Singing Happy Birthday to Bear.

And an update since the blog has been lagging:

Ian's grades are all up in school and he's been keeping very busy with school, swim and youth group. Last weekend he participated in a service project for Feed My Starving Children and described it as "really awesome. I could have saved a life today." He and I also took on the job of organizing all of the books and papers in his room and after some grumbling (me) and sighing (him) we finished it and his room looks much better!

Lila moved up to Turtle 2 at swim lessons last week! She started swim lessons at this school last March and has already moved up four levels! The director said she is a natural swimmer! Lila was very bored over Christmas Break and was thrilled when school and all of her activites started up again. This week was Spirit Week at her school (it's Preschool through 8th grade) so she had Pajama Day on Tuesday which she loved and Sports Team Day on Thursday.

Cara is fully walking! She is also learning new words every day and is learning more animal sounds. In addition to dog, a long time favorite, she knows sheep, cow and bunny (hop, hop, hop). She can also point to her tummy when asked where it is.

A Little More Christmas...

Yes, I know it's January 14, but I had to wait to get pictures from Mom and then the picture CD sat on a shelf for awhile... And here we are.

This is the best family picture that we have. It also counts as Six Days of Christmas Outfits-Day Six.

Sibling picture after the kids were in bed and before the adults opened presents.

Momoo and Popoo with the grandkids and great-grandkids before we opened presents with them on the 26th. Ian was already at his dad's.

Lucy took a nap on this present for about an hour. Christmas is exhausting for dogs too!


Lila and Cara intently checking out Cara's new basketball hoop.