Bath time

Gary told the girls, "Come on! Time to get ready for the bath!" And Danielle did just that! (She just forgot to get undressed first)

Fluffy

I've finally started the Wilton cake decorating class - I've wanted to take it for a long time. It turns out decorating cakes is a lot harder than it looks. But my first cake turned out alright. We used it today so that we could have a birthday party for Samantha's Webkin, Fluffy. What we do for fun!

Yesterday we endured (I mean enjoyed) a couple hours at Kids N Motion. And that's exactly what it was.

Laundry fun

I found a funny video of Danielle from last month. She has a thing for laundry baskets.

Food Art

Creative Food Art by our very own artist Samantha.

Budding Pianist

Very cute.



Some day I will stop blogging about the snow, but until then, here are a few more pictures. Gary dug a snow fort out of the mountain of snow that used to be our front yard. Danielle was so excited to be a part of what the big kids were doing.

Some scary icicles outside of our bedroom window.

Desperate times

The Blizzard of 2010 continues. We woke up to another few inches of snow today (much better than the 10" we were supposed to get - we'll count our blessings).


Yesterday (beore it started snowing again) I went out with my neighbor - we were desperate to get out of the house for a few minutes. Once we finally made it up the hill on Springwoods Drive (we had to get out and help push a car up the hill) we enjoyed lunch at Panera and then browsing around the grocery store - not because we needed any groceries, but because we needed something to do. It's very sad when you go to the grocery store for some excitement. Even sadder than that: the produce section - completely bare.

Our trash pile is starting to look pretty bad as well. There's no way we can get the trash can around the house, so we thought we'd turn our back yard into a landfill. I'm not sure how the association will feel about that.

Can you see the icicles hanging from our upper deck (and on the air conditioning unit)? It feels like we're in an underground cave.

Our 2-year-old

Can you believe our little Danielle is 2 years old?! She loves her raincoat and umbrella she got for her birthday yesterday. She insisted on going out in the snow with them.

Last night Danielle enjoyed having dinner, cake and ice cream, (and a few presents) with our neighbors.

The Blizzard of 2010

Danielle's 2nd birthday is being called "The Blizzard of 2010!" (When you watch the news, the blizzard has its own theme music - very dramatic). It really is quite a snow storm - more snow than I've ever seen at one time. We can't even measure it, but I know it's past 2 feet. The snow drifts on our upper deck are up to the window.

It was hard to open the front door - there's no sign of the steps.



Much better, but it's still snowing, so a few minutes after this picture was taken, you couldn't tell Gary shoveled.

The bushes and the woods behind our house look beautiful.

Can you see our neighbor's tree that has fallen over and leaning on their fence?

Happy birthday Danielle!

Cute things

Here are some things I've been working on:

Danielle's room has a Babar theme - I framed a few pages from an original Babar book that a friend gave me; other Babar prints; and a fun Ikea bed tent that Danielle loves.





Rebekah and Samantha's room has small prints of old children's book week posters that are kind of fun. I still need to finish doing some things (like painting the clock the right color and repairing their kitchen), but it's starting to look pretty cute.

Snow Princess

We had a great time at Samantha's preschool play last week. Grampy and Grammy Warnick drove up for it (and got stuck in a snow storm on the way home). It made Samantha feel so special.

Samantha was a snow princess in the play "The Mitten." Her line was, "It begins to snow." (Very appropriate for the winter we're having.)

After the play was over, Samantha very enthusiastically announced, "I did great!"

Happy Golden Anniversary, Grandpa and Grandma James!

The girls each want to wish you a Happy 50th Anniversay, Grandpa and Grandma! We love you and hope today is special!

Grammy's house and more

We had a fun visit at Grammy's house last week. The girls loved seeing everyone, especially Great Grammy Pyron, cousins, Shelly's hamster, and of course Mitsy the dog.

This Sunday at church Danielle took off running. Where was she running to? Nursery! She loves it now! What a big girl! We sure love her!

Christmas

We enjoyed Christmas Eve at Mount Vernon. They opened the third story, so we got to have a look around up there for the first time. And there was even a camel visiting Mount Vernon for the holiday season. Kind of fun.

Christmas morning was fun. Danielle (still waking up) joined in the fun. She knew she was supposed to be excited about something.

Let it snow ...

We got about 2 feet of snow this past weekend. That's A LOT of snow! Our dining room door opens out, so it's very stuck - we wont' be using our deck for a very long time.


Can you see the very tall, skinny wall of snow on the railing - it started to melt, and just suddenly froze, so now we have waves.



Danielle LOVES being outside in the snow.

So, are you wondering why our car is the only one that doesn't have 2 feet of snow on it? Well, we decided to take a trip down to Williamsburg. Saturday we decided to brave the snow storm and come home. It started out fine. We drove slow and made it about 10 miles from our exit. Then all of a sudden, traffic stopped. We waited, and waited, and waited. 8 hours later we finally made it home! (It turns out there was an accident at our exit that took forever to get cleared.) We hope we never, ever have to be in the car for 12 1/2 hours straight again!

Our Williamsburg trip was fun (not worth the trip home, but fun nonetheless).

Danielle needed a little help throwing her penny into the fountain.

Rebekah and Samantha are trying to warm their back sides by the fire.

We even got to see Santa while we were there. Of course, Danielle is still terrified of anyone in costume. She didn't even want to make eye contact (if I don't look at him, he won't be there).

Grandpa and Grandma

Here are a few pictures from Grandpa and Grandma James' visit. We had such a fun, relaxing visit over Thanksgiving. Gary's turkey turned out better than ever! So good! His secret tip: a few pieces of bacon on top.


We also enjoyed the pies. When Samantha saw Grandma's plate she said, "Grandma, you're going to get a tummy ache."

The girls' favorite day was of course playing at Chuck-e-cheese and then picking out a toy at the store. Can we say "spoiled" ...