Best friends!

This is a picture of Mikayla with her best friend Matthew.  As you know, Mikayla broke her arm 8 weeks ago.  Well, two days before Mikayla was scheduled to get her cast off (it’s off now!!!), poor Matthew broke his collarbone. 

His mother (who I have been friends with since middle school) and I couldn’t resist the great picture opportunity.

They are definitely quite a pair!

Circus Fun!

 

This past weekend, Jeremy and I took Mikayla to the circus.  We had a GREAT time.   Mikayla on the Marta train.  She thought it was so much fun to ride the train down to the show.  It seemed to be much less convenient this year than it was last year.  We had to change trains about four times (not an exaggeration).  Apparently, because of budget cutbacks, they don’t run as many trains on the weekend.  It was pretty annoying.  She had fun though. :) Mikayla got a mommy and baby Bengal Tiger as her souvenir – now that is the face of one happy little girl!  Mommy and Kayla. Picture of the tight rope acrobats – they walked (a rode) on that like they were walking down a sidewalk.  It was pretty impressive! My favorite part was the elephant show.  They are such big animals that you would expect to be clumsy, but they were so graceful. Mikayla’s favorite part was the tiger show.    They were neat to watch, but whenever the growled and showed those (BIG!) teeth, you quickly remembered they just weren’t big kitty-cats.

We had a great time together and can’t wait until next year when Gavin will be old enough to join us.  Now that will be an adventure!

Some more snow fun!

Last night, after it stopped snowing, I went outside and got a final “total” as to how much snow we got – 3 inches!  I have seen that much accumulation in years.  We have had so much fun playing in all of this snow. 

Also, a fun fact that I heard yesterday.  The local weather man said that for the first time in documented history, there was snow in ALL 50 states.  I thought that was pretty neat.  We headed out early this morning to play with Daddy a little bit before he had to go to work.  It’s amazing how much energy those two little ones have at 8:30am! We had some fun sledding down our icy driveway. Kayla also made some top notch snow angels.  We don’t usually get enough snow on the ground to actually be able to see a good outline of the angel – this one turned out great! We tried to make a snowman, but had some trouble.  The snow was pretty powdery and wouldn’t pack together.  So we ended up making more of a snow hill that I tried to sculpt a head out of at the top.  Jeremy thought it looked more like an Oompa Loompa snowman.  The kids were happy with it though, so that is all that mattered. After playing outside for a while, we came inside to enjoy some cinnamon rolls (with the icing dyed red for Valentine’s Day) and hot chocolate.

After eating lunch and putting Gavin down for a nap, Kayla and I headed back outside for some more fun in the snow before it all melted.  The good part about the snow starting to melt, though, is that the snow was a good consistency for making a snowman. First, we made this one in our backyard.  The sun doesn’t hit back there as much as it does in our front yard, so Mikayla is hoping that he will stick around for a couple of days. This one, we made out of the snow hill.  I carved out his bottom half a little bit and added to the top – I think it turned out pretty good! As you can see from the pictures, the snow is already starting to melt almost as quickly as it came in.  It made for a fun couple of days and lots of memories, though!

Snow Day – AGAIN!!

Today, we were blessed with snow in the south.  This is the second time this season.  I wasn’t too sure when the day started if we were actually going to get any.  We didn’t see our first snowflake until about 1:30pm.  By the end of the day, our home looked like this. This is off of our back porch at 2:30 pm.

This was at 3:20 pm.4:20pm

And, finally, at 5:20pm.

When we first went out to play at 4:15, there was about an inch on the ground.

By 5pm, we were already up to 2 inches.  We got some more snow after this, so I thinking we ended up somewhere between 2 1/2 to 3 inches. 

Unfortunately, Jeremy had to work, but I got the kids bundled up and we headed out to the backyard for some fun in the snow.  They had a blast!  This was much more pleasurable than our previous snow this season.  It was as cold and there wasn’t that much wind.                   We had so much fun have snowball fights, catching snow on our tongues and pulling out some of our usually summertime toys to have some fun in the snow.   We plan to head out early tomorrow, before Daddy has to go back to work, to build a big snowman.  We have a front yard of untouched snow that is ready to be played in!

So thoughtful….

Gavin is really starting to exhibit some sweet and caring characteristics.  This afternoon, Mikayla was in time out for, well, not listening (no big surprise there :) ).  She was pretty tearful, and when her timeout was over, I went to get her and Gavin followed me.  He looks at her and says…

“See-ka crying?  See-ka sad.  What’s wrong, See-ka?”

Then her proceeded to give her a hug to try to make her happy.  Nothing makes me happier than when my children show that they truly love each other and are concerned for one another’s happiness.  It was so sweet.

Gavinese

Gavin has always had a cute little language.  It first started out as a serious little babble that was impossible to understand, but so cute to here.  Now he is saying more words, but he definitely still has his own little language.  Here are some of his words and the English translation for them.

See-ka – Kayla.  (I love hearing him say this first thing in the morning.  “Hi, See-ka!  Hi See-ka!”  He is so genuinely excited to see her.)

Ha-see – Haley (our big grumpy dog)

“Chee-bell” – Tinkerbell (with a five year old girl we have a lot of Tinkerbell stuff around the house)

“Re-pack” – Rescue Pack from “Go, Diego, Go!”

“Mow, Mow” – His name for Baby Jaguar from “Go, Diego, Go”

This may be continued as more fun words make their way out.   :)

My week in pictures

I just love my sweet and goofy children….

Gavin doing some acrobatics.

Mikayla in hopefully her last cast!  This is her third one…she has one stubborn little bone that is taking a while to heal.  Thankfully, though, this one is waterproof.  Bath time is MUCH easier

I loved this!  Gavin and Kayla were laying next to each other “reading” books. I’m so glad we have a tolerant dog.  She may not like anyone else, but she sure tolerates a lot from the kids.