Snow Day!

Today is a snow day!  Ella's preschool was cancelled, for the first time all year (first time it was closed on a day that she was supposed to go).  Our poor girl cried and cried when she went to get dressed for school and I told her it was cancelled.  I will someday remind her of this when she is praying for a snow day in high school.  She had a daddy/daughter pizza dinner at school tonight and that was also cancelled.  Poor girl.  I hope they reschedule it soon!

I made the best of the day with the kids all cooped up inside.  We are still in our jammies (me, Hannah, and Hailee), we made cookies (and ate them), colored pictures, and watched some TV.  I NEVER make homemade cookies, like never.  I generally just buy the ones you break apart and pop in the oven.  It was nice to make them from scratch.  I am really hoping this is our last snow if the year.  I am SO ready for some nice weather!

Many of you may not even know we have a dog.  Yes, this is the often times forgotten about member of our family, Chloe.  She is cute, but I sure do hate when she gets snow all over the house when coming in after a big snow fall!

My little cookie baking helper!

Cookie approved by Miss Hailee!  Although, I don't know what cookie would not be approved by this girl.

Ella and Hannah coloring together

Some cookie packages for a couple neighbors.  I wonder when today I will get out to deliver these...

This photo is from last night.  Ella now likes me to read to her from her Bible at prayer time before bed.  Love, love, LOVE that this 3 year old has so much love and interest in Jesus.  I like to think we must be doing something right ;)

Valentine's Day full of love!

We have been celebrating Valentine's Day all week!  I feel like all I have done is made cupcakes, signed Valentines, prepared for parties, made more cupcakes, and signed more Valentines! 

On Wednesday was Ella's preschool Valentine's party.  I had the opportunity to be the party helper in her class!  Ella was so excited to have mom come in to her class and help out.  I was pretty excited too.  I helped each child pass out their Valentines in all of their classmate's little bags.  All of the kids were super cute and so proud of the Valentines they had brought for others.  I also liked being in the class to watch Ella play with others.  I have been dying to be a "fly on the wall" ever since she started school this year.  Ella did not surprise me at all..she played with dolls, with her other girl friends, and listened well to the teachers.  What a fun morning we had!

Today we had another Valentine party with friends.  The kids all did crafts, ate Valentine treats, and had fun playing!  Tomorrow morning we have yet another Valentine party with more friends.  Both of these parties include all of the kids, Hailee and Hannah too, so I am happy they get in on the fun also!  I'm pretty sure I am sick of sweets and treats, but I don't know that my kids could ever be!

This weekend Paul and I will have some time alone, with no children.  We are looking forward to sleeping in, relaxing, and spending time together.  I feel like in the life of a family with 3 young children, or 3 children of any age for that matter, it is sometimes difficult to find time for one another.  Thankfully, I have parents whom are more than willing to spend some extra time with their little granddaughters to give Paul and I some much needed gain-our-sanity-back time.  We are very much looking forward to this weekend!

I picked up a couple small things for the girls for Valentine's Day.  They each got a little Minnie Mouse and a couple books.  They loved opening their little gifts early this morning.

Fun in Daddy and Mommy's bed!

Enjoying some cupcakes at one of the little parties we attended.

Then they woke up from naps and had a package with little presents from Grandpa and Gammy!  How fun!

What a fun day!

Happy Valentine's Day to all of our friends reading!  We hope you had a day full of LOVE!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was just as great as Christmas Eve.  We woke up in the morning, opened Santa gifts, took our time getting ready, let the girls play a little, and headed over to my Aunt and Uncle's house.  My parents, brother, and sister met us over there.  We had a great day once again!  The girls loved playing with so many new things and were so good all day.  We could not have asked for a better holiday!

The girls woke up to this in the morning.  The note was Santa's doing and Mrs. Clause didn't know about it :)

There was no way Hailee and Hannah were letting any cookie go to waste.  Hailee took one and shared the other with her sister.

Let the gift opening begin!

Ella was so happy and excited with each gift.  It was so cute and fun!

Hannah, showing us a gift.  She squeeled after each gift that she opened.  It was so funny!  She loved presents!

Busy babies.

Mama and Hailee

Hannah's favorite gift was this shopping cart.  She pushes it all over every day, waving, saying "Bye, bye!"

Mommy and the babies

Hannah and Hailee kept sitting on these ledges on the house.  They must look like seats to them.

Daddy doing what daddies do best:  opening the toys and putting them together!

Notice the real waffles on the picnic blanket.  Cute.

All of the girls got a dress up outfit and doll.  They all wanted their outfit on and wanted nothing to do with the Christmas outfits I had intended for them to wear.  We let them be and headed off to my aunt and uncle's with two Cinderella's and a Belle!

Playing with cousin Erika.  They love her so much!

Daddy and Hannah

Hailee moved right on to open Uncle Don's gifts when she was done with her own!

Brad and Erika

Erika and Shelly

Hailee makes this hilarious face all the time now.  I think it's her "I'm trying to make a cute smile because I know you're taking a photo of me" face.

Me and my sweet girl Ella.

The best family photo we got all day.  Well, the only one at that.  Notice Ella is still in her gown.  The twins had been through the gowns, their Christmas outfits, and now pajamas and Ella is still in the same gown.

Paul and I.  I have no clue what kind of face he's making.  I think he's trying to be cool.  Ha, love you babe!

Christmas Eve

Well, I really wanted to just post once for Christmas Eve and Day, but I didn't want to bore you all with the amount of photos I wanted to share!

This year we stayed here all throughout the Christmas holiday.  Yep, that's right, no traveling for us.  We started a tradition Ella's second Christmas (her first one she was only 3 months) of making it top priority to be home, just us, on Christmas morning.  This has made it somewhat difficult in past years with both mine and my husband's families living out of town.  This year we were lucky enough to have my parents down in Columbus for the holiday.  There was no driving home at 10:00pm Christmas Eve and no two hour car ride after Santa gifts were opened on Christmas Day.  It was lovely. 

Christmas Eve my parents, brother, and sister came over early in the day.  We opened gifts, ate, and had fun all day long.  We left the house early evening to attend the Christmas Eve service at our church.  It was so great.  I know I've said it before, but oh how I love our church!  The service was just beautiful!  I came home with a heavy heart, focused on exactly what it should've been that evening.  Christ's birthday and His love for us. 

Enjoy my favorite photos from Christmas Eve!

Ella was SO excited to start gift opening!

All of the girls loved opening gifts this year.  We literally had to do nothing (well, besides clean up).  Last year we pretty much opened everything for H&H but this year they were pretty good at getting each gift opened all themselves!

I love this photo of Hannah.  I don't know why.  She just looks cute :)

Hannah and Auntie Leah (or Auntie Ya-Ya as they call her)

Gammy and her grandbabies

This is a Lalaloopsy dress up outfit.  I don't even think Ella knows who that is, but she sure did like the outfit (and looked super cute in it too)!

Hailee insisted on getting this dress on herself.  Needless to say, she looked like this for a good ten minutes before she finally asked for some help.

Then there's Hannah.  She was just naked.  Opening gifts naked.  Who knows why.  I think she eventually put on a dress up outfit too.

Love this photo and love these girls!  Play Doh ice cream making!

This house was for all of the girls from my parents.  They all LOVE it!  Paul says it was the best gift bought this year.  It has definitely gotten the most use out of by everyone thus far!

I love this photo.  Hailee is Uncle Ryan's buddy (or Uncky Rynie as they say).

The best photo I got before church.  Yeah, they weren't feeling it.

This photo is hilarious to me!  This was right before we all left for church.  I love everything about it:  Hailee trying to get away from Paul, Ryan and dad staring off into space (actually it looks like dad is giving me a dirty look!), Leah looking annoyed at whatever mom is saying :), who knows where Ella is (I think at my feet), and Chloe trying to get through everyone.  Love my family!

4 Years

Last Thursday was mine and Paul's 4 year anniversary.  It seems like longer than 4 years ago that we started this journey together as husband and wife.  Maybe it's because a lot has happened in that short amount of time?  It's probably more like because a lot of kids happened in that short amount of time!  Ha!  Ok, not a lot but 3 in 4 years is probably more than the average.  :)

I can honestly say that I cannot imagine even one day without Paul in my life.  He is my everything.  He is my support.  He is my partner and my very best friend.  He holds things together when I'm about to lose it.  He is such a great daddy to our little girls.  I could really go on and on.  I look forward to a lifetime of memories to be made with my husband.

We are both hoping that next year we can take a short getaway for the big 5 year celebration.  The past few years have been spent doing, you know, the usual...delivering babies, planning and celebrating birthday parties (Ella's birthday is only one day after our anniversary), and having more babies.  We did get out for dinner this year though, which was very nice. 

I decided to post some wedding photos of Paul and I.  This decision was mostly based on the fact that we have barely no recent photos of the both of us!  Maybe that should be a goal for the upcoming year:  to take more photos of us to go with the hundreds that I take of our children!  Enjoy!