Abigail I want to take your picture…

She gets so excited and turns to the camera with a big smile and says CHEESE! Her eyes always close when she is sure she is smiling just perfectly.

Sometimes she likes getting her picture taken. Other times she wants NOTHING to do with it.

Appreciation

My little Abigail girl is teaching me so many things. I am grateful for that. She has been referred to as: a little firecracker, She’s the boss applesauce, spit-fire, hot-head and there are more. But most of the time I find myself amazed at the little person she is becoming. She knows what she wants. She knows how to get what she wants. I have learned a great deal of patience in allowing her to have her feelings and not getting in the way.

I just found a quote that I feel pretty much sums up life with her in the family: “While we try to teach our children about life, our children teach us what life is all about.

Abigail often allows me opportunities to slow down and appreciate things more. Today while I was chatting with my mom on the computer she came and took my hand and said come on mom. She led me to the rocking chair, and told me to sing. We enjoyed singing some of her recent favorites: Old McDonald and Popcorn Popping. Then I started tickling her and laughing. I know it should be easy to find moments to enjoy quiet one on one time with the kids but sometimes once the day gets going I forget to just sit down and wrestle and play and appreciate all the blessings I have.

I am glad Abigail is demanding of my time and helps me to see what life is all about.

Picnic time

Arrgh!

 

The plunger was NEW when this pirate swiped it to be his sword.

Abigail’s Birthday Celebration

We were excited to be able to celebrate Abigail’s birthday just a few days late on the 16th. She felt a lot better and was excited for her special day, Grandma and Grandpa Peless even joined in on the fun.

I made her oreo truffles for a little extra SUGAR. She loved them. Daddy did the artwork for her name.

The birthday girl looking as CUTE as can be!

Valentine’s Day

We started doing a candlelight dinner with the kids a few years ago and it has been something I really look forward to on Valentine’s day. I totally understand the viewpoint of why have a day to show your love when you can love the people everyday BUT I do like to be a little extra cheesy on this one special day. So the theme for this years dinner was HEARTS. I had sick kids and wasn’t able to get to the store for any fancy ingredients.  I settled for heart shaped jello jigglers, heart shaped peanut-butter cocoa krispie bars, and heart shaped breadsticks and the spaghetti fit in with it because it is red.  We have noticed with the candle light dinners we have had that there is something magic about the lights being dim that helps Eli decide it is okay to eat what is on his plate. I haven’t seen him eat spaghetti for a long time and he chowed down on this stuff.

Micali helped me with a few tissue paper puff balls for decorations. I saw them on a friends blog and decided to give it a try. It was a fun little project.

 

These are the flowers Luke brought home for his little girls.

I love this Spring Garden he got for me. It has gotten so big and colorful and is a welcome relief from all the cold and snow outside. It is wonderful having a little glimpse of spring inside.

My Poor Sick Baby’s 2nd Birthday

Abigail started feeling sick the night before her birthday. She didn’t do much on her birthday besides sleep. We managed to make her happy a couple times by giving her presents to open.

We got her a doll baby with cute red hair just like hers and grandma and grandpa got her a little doll with a stroller. She managed a cheese with each one but didn’t actually play with them too much. Her energy level was REALLY low!

She ended the night with a few blueberries for dinner.

Happy Birthday sweet thing. I promise this isn’t where it ended for your birthday celebrations! We made up for it.

Out with the old in with the new

We replaced out countertop in the kitchen. We LOVE it. I have more pictures but we are still working on a few things so this will have to do for now and I will put the FULL kitchen makeover a little later (or a lot later depending on how long it takes us!)

The Magic of Television

On this night (a couple months ago) I decided I would give this a try… I put all the clean clothes on the bed as I washed them throughout the day. That night after Luke had left to his meetings, I popped some popcorn and put on a movie for the kids. Having them all contained and entertained I started folding the clothes. By the end of the movie and after I had put the kids to bed I came back to take another picture….

It was a perfect plan!

Micali’s update

I found some pictures that I haven’t managed to get on the blog of Micali. She has totally been loving Kindergarten. Other than her getting sick all the time I really have enjoyed having her go and then come home and tell me all about her great day.

I love this family picture she drew. It is from the 1st quarter. It was given to us by her teacher at her first parent teacher conference.

This next picture is a timeline of “special” events in her life. Sadly it is actually a collection of the few pictures I have actual prints of. Everything else is digital so we had to go with what was available for this project.

 

Her Christmas program was really short. I laughed at one of the songs---Decorate the tree (repeated like 6 times) and a few other words. She did have a speaking part though that she memorized and said it with good confidence. I definitely like what school is doing for her socially. It helps her out of her comfort zone a lot.

 

This store she made on our first snow day Dec. 1st. She had a lot of fun finding items she would like to buy. She was learning how to order her numbers from 1-10 now being almost March she has been counting to 100 for quite a while. I am amazed how fast she is learning both in math with patterns, fractions, time, money and reading-phonics, blends, sight words. Her little brain is just like a sponge right now.

We had a lot of fun together making her valentines for her class. I thought it would be fun for her to make them instead of just getting a box from the store. She loved it, and she said her classmates said they were SO CUTE!