Nesting Dolls

My father has brought back several sets of nesting dolls from his trips to the Ukraine, and the girls absolutely love them. This year, Santa gave them blank dolls in their stockings. They've been having fun playing with them blank, but were really excited when I asked them if they wanted to decorate them this afternoon. They chose permanent markers rather than paint, and it was a really fun (and not messy at all!) project. We also baked cookies, so Michael had fun participating--he ate most of the cookies while the girls were concentrating :)

Paige's finished product:
Ashley's finished product--she wanted her "A" shaped hands in there :)

Our Plants

Remember these guys? They've grown! We're ready to plant them outside--if the weather would only cooperate!

Ball Pit

I've been trying to go through each box that we've been moving around and storing the last few years, and this weekend, Ashley discovered the ball pit. I was a little hesitant at first because it requires a LOT of blowing up (Charie did it all by herself last time it was blown up) but James figured out how to hook it up to our vacuum and I'm really glad he did. Michael went CRAZY over it.
Step One: get ready to dive in:
Step Two: flop!

Step Three: laugh and laugh and laugh!

This one's blurry, but I couldn't resist the look on his face. Serious fun!

The last of the snow..

Please let this be the last of it! These were earlier in the week--then it was 70 degrees and gorgeous, and now it's in the 40's and rainy. No wonder my kids are getting sick. (not to mention the fact that Ashley's school had an outbreak of whooping cough in several vaccinated kids and the whole 2nd grade is on antibiotics...)

They discovered that the bushes made great igloos!
You can see Paige's pink and white boot there in the middle...kind of.

Super Baby!

Here is Michael in his Superman jammies :)

He's getting pretty affectionate and will give hugs and kisses now.

If I offer you popcorn...

...you might want to politely decline. Here's why:

Guilty!

I do actually have some popcorn in a bag that he doesn't play with, so I promise I'll make that when people come over.

Sick of Snow

I don't think spring is EVER going to come! I took these pics today. I'm trying to be postivie about it in front of the girls and act like it's normal to have 2 feet of snow in the middle of April, but-come on-please no more snow! The girls are still having fun with all the snow and we're keeping the hot chocolate and mini marshmallow companies in business :)

Happy Easter!

Here are the kiddos with their Easter baskets. We had a fun Easter at Jeremy and Lauren's house. Church was canceled due to snow, but we managed to drive up and have a delicious dinner and great time with friends and family.
Concentrating very hard to open the chocolate!

This means, "I'd like some of what you have, please!"

Giant lollipop!

Pajama Day

Ashley had pajama day at school this week and got to bring her dolly, too. She insisted on matching exactly and came into my room at 7 to wake me up and ask me to curl her hair. She looked especially cute wearing her snowboots with this outfit!

Trip to Florida!

It was my mother's birthday last week, and Michael and I flew out for the occasion. We had a great time! We played in the Florida sun, went to the spa, and went out for a great meal. My sister flew down for the weekend, too, which was really fun!

At the spa!
Out to eat!

Playing at the splash park that you can walk to from my parent's house:

Driving the golf cart:

Dancing Queen

Paigie is quite the little dancer--and she's really into getting her picture taken these days. I love this little girl!