Chaos and teeth…

"Mommy, I pulled James' tooth out"
-Ashlyn

When kids get bored, chaos usually follows.  That held true this weekend when the kids got a sudden rush of sugary donut infused energy and ran through the house like crazy people.  Even the dog got excited and joined in on the fun.  Too bad the energy quickly waned when it was time to clean up the mess.

James had a birthday party on Saturday and while he was having fun with his friends Mom decided it would be fun to take the girls out for dinner.  They went to a local pho restaurant and took pictures while they were there.

In tooth related news, James lost two teeth in one day.  The first one he pulled out on his own, the second had some help from his big sister.  Needless to say James is looking forward to the tooth fairly tonight.

Painting and makeup…

"Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I am just a girl who wishes for the world."
-Marilyn Monroe

This will be a shorter blog post than normal, it was a busy week and events kept us from doing a lot that we could take pictures at.  So this week there will be random assortment of pictures that show a little of what goes on around the house at any given time.

Ashlyn is continuing her painting journey using her new easel, she painted several things this week and it’s impressive how quickly she’s progressing.

One of Isla’s favorite things to is digging in the makeup drawer and putting whatever she finds on her face.  This week she recruited Ashlyn and two girls spent some time putting makeup.  The end result was better than we were expecting, and both girls seemed to age a few years in the process.

Another one of Isla’s favorite things is reading.  When we all read as a family, Isla will insist on sitting as close to the book as possible so she can follow along.  The other two bounce around on the bed hiding from pictures.

Six flags and birthdays…

"I believe in myself that I won't throw up."
-Isla

We took a trip to six flags when the weather warmed up and this time Isla was able to ride all the same rides as Ashlyn and James.  We spent the afternoon going from one ride to the other, and they had fun on all of them.

My birthday was this weekend, and so was cousin Sydney’s.  Of the two, Sydney’s birthday was by far the most important and we spend the afternoon on Saturday with her, the family, and a bunch of their friends.  The kids had a great time, and somehow didn’t get any pictures, but we did get some of my birthday morning and dinner that evening.

We had a rare event in Texas this weekend when the weather decided to give us some snow in the morning.  The kids were excited and though tit would be fun to run outside in it.  They quickly remembered that snow is cold and so ran back inside.  They went back out again after getting dressed in warmer clothes, and Ashlyn took the opportunity to take a selfie and send the picture to her friends.

A visit to snow and a Happy New Year’s!

"Using the force is a little hard for a baby."
-James

Texas does not get snow very often, rarely enough to actually play in, so we had a goal over the Christmas break to visit snow.  Luckily there was a good place a short flight away that we knew the kids would enjoy.  Bags were packed and off we flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We spent the first day visiting some of the local fun places for kids, including Explora and a trampoline park with a climbing wall.

On the second day we rented an all wheel drive SUV and drove up into the mountains, stopping to rent some ski gear to see what the kids would think about skiing.  I’ll admit the skiing did not go well.  We didn’t sign up in advance for ski school, and trying to ski for the first time with only was not the best idea.  Isla gave up pretty quickly and chose to roll around in the snow.  James and Ashlyn did better, but I we definitely learned a few things before trying it again.  After coming down off the mountain we stopped off for a warm dinner before heading to bed.

Ashlyn had James both had sleepovers this weekend and we wanted to do something fun with Isla.  There’s a neat drive through Christmas lights display near our house we decided to drive through it since it was still up.  When we stopped to explore a little deeper (they had a walk through area as well), guess who we ran into?  Ashlyn happened to be there with her friend, so we paused to take a family picture.  James was having fun playing video games with this friend while we braved the cold.

If you didn’t know, Grandma is great painter.  She came over this to give Ashlyn a lesson and they chose an apple on the counter as their subject.  Ashlyn’s came out great, and she was deservedly proud of the final result.

This was the first year all the kids stayed up for New Year’s.  We went to a friends house where they could play with the other kids and got to do both the countdown at midnight as well as some sparklers afterwards.  The next day was rough, but they at least they got to it.

Happy New Years!