Happy 1st Birthday, Paige!

On February 2nd, our Paigey Lou turned one! We had our good friends, the Fitgeralds, over to celebrate her birthday. We had an easy dinner and moved on to chocolate cake for Paige and banana splits for everyone else.

She was actually pretty tentative with the cake. I think since it wasn't in obvious pieces, she wasn't sure where to start.

We not only had our friends there, but we had the ipad with Jake's parents on Facetime and then my mom on Facetime watching as well. It was pretty funny to feel like grandparents were "there" and a bit trippy to hear their voices on our birthday singing video.

Once she got a fork, she warmed up to picking it apart. She also decided at some point to pick up the plate and put it on her head. The chocolate cake was so sticky gooey that it stayed on the plate, but it managed to decorate her hair.

 Yum!

 After a quick bath, we quickly opened presents with the tired girl and sent her to bed.

 What would we do without our squishy Paige? We love her so much and are having a ton of fun  watching facets of her personality become apparent.
Happy Birthday, my Sweet P.

Hole in the Fence

Who needs a family dog when you can play with the neighbor's dog through a hole in the fence?

They feed her sticks.

Sometimes Tessa plays with the third grade girl through the hole in the fence as well...

Busted Dryer

I bought my KitchenAid clothes dryer at a Desert Industries Thrift Store in Bountiful, Utah over ten years ago for $25. What a steal!

Two roommates, a husband, and three kids later, the thing finally kicked the bucket. RIP, Dryer.

Until we could get a hold of our newly purchased dryer, there was a load that needed drying. So, I came up with this beautiful idea:

It rained that night.

We hooked up our new dryer a couple of days later, but certainly were able to decorate the house in wet laundry before then.

Sleepy

Fighting that morning nap only got you a morning nap somewhere else, Love Bug.

January Grandparent Visit: Part 2

Since the museum closed earlier than we thought it would, we headed over to the cattle drive park in Dallas.  I thought it sounded a little odd, but it's actually quite an impressive collection and arrangement of statues. It's not exactly a place to go and picnic, but it's fun to look around and makes for an interesting view in a downtown area.

 Very soon after this following picture, Tessa reminded us that she had to go potty and had to go NOW. There wasn't an outhouse or a McDonald's or ANYTHING that we could get to in less than six minutes. I started scouting trees and bushes, because you gotta do what you gotta do, when I felt that Paige was leaking out of her diaper. Aaaaaaughhh! It was a pee party!!! I tossed poor Paige and her overloaded nappy to Jake and took off with Tessa as two men suddenly showed up in our previously empty park and watched us run around trying to find a spot where they couldn't see us. Thanks, dudes. Needless to say, it wasn't a pleasant experience, but kinda funny.

 Afterward we took a longer drive out to a BBQ place to eat. I wasn't the nicest about it. I'll admit it. It was farther than I thought, and when we got there, the whole line was filled with only men. The line started outside where they smoke the meat, and I felt like we were crashing some lodge fraternity carnivore party or something. Other women showed up later, but I was initially less than thrilled with the prospect of entering the place. It ended up being just great, and most importantly, we filled our tummies with tastiness.
Grandma took us shopping for some Paigey birthday presents one morning and got little light up toys for the older two. Here is Cole with Iron Man's spinny light head:

 Gma and Gpa went to watch part Tessa's dance classes.

 My favorite here is clearly the blonde boy in the back.

 Go Tessa!

 Here we have our last night of the visit pics:

 We're so grateful they took the time to come and see us. We had a nice relaxing post holiday visit before our new year's schedule kicked into gear.

And here we have what became comically typical --Paige staring stone faced at Grandpa when he would talk to her or try to make her smile, and then a Paige smiling at him and showing personality the second he turns his attention elsewhere.

January Grandparent Visit! Part 1

The sun may shine most of the time here, but January is still January. It brings its fair share of grey cold. So, having Jake's parents come to stay with us was a huge bright spot in what could have been a post holiday blah. Hooray to them! Grandma and Grandpa M finished their church mission at the beginning of December, so we hadn't any "in person" time with them in the last year and a half beyond our Nauvoo trip. We're so thankful they could come and play.

Tessa still had some days off of school when they came, and we really took it easy. It's hard not to take it easy when you still have kids who nap (one twice) --it slows the day down quite a bit.

One evening before dinner, the kids just needed to get out and move, so everyone took a walk while I worked on dinner --which was awesome. I never take a quiet dinner preparation for granted. It's amazing how much faster I can move.

So, on the walk:

 Maybe Cole's lips look like that because he's cold? I dunno. That kid has a million faces.

 Oooooh, Yo Gabba Gabba. When it was on, I thought, "Oh, no. This is such an obnoxious show." But then, they started singing a song about giving a baby some space and getting out of its face, and I realized it's brilliant. We sing "Try it, and you'll like it," from that show to Cole sometimes, and it works magic, so I am giving Yo Gabba Gabba some serious credit.

 We drove to McKinney one day for lunch. It's not like there aren't a ton of places closer by, but we decided we'd head to The Pantry because we felt like it.

 The new Science and Nature Museum in Dallas is called the Perot Museum. It's amazing. Because a year membership cost just a tad more than we were paying to get in that day, we got a membership. Hooray! We didn't even get to two floors before we had to leave, so we were very glad that we've got the year to really explore the place.
The Lobby (waiting to get the membership sorted out)...

 Those are water molecules on the ceiling that rise when you walk underneath them. Dancing water, they call it.

 Space exhibit:

 Dinosaur exhibit:

 These are only a few pictures of the exhibit, and they don't come close to doing it justice. It's gorgeous. The kids had watched Night at the Museum for family pizza night the week before, so they were super pumped to see the dinosaur bones, and they were not disappointed. When they turned the corner and saw the huge T-Rex and the Brontosaurus type o' dinosaur (I'm so scientific), eyes bulged, and mouths dropped open.

 A massive sea turtle hanging from the ceiling. Very cool.

 Mammoth:

My little dinos (watch out!): 

 Grandpa trying to get Paige to do more than stare at him:

 This was on the robotics level. The kids had a blast with all the stuff they had to do there. There
was simply not enough time, which was okay, because we've got a year, eh?!