Angry Birds

No, not the game Angry Birds. But the part of our day where I took the girls to go feed the ducks at the local park and it was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's famous movie The Birds. To be honest, I don't really enjoy feeding any animals and I definitely forgot to let my girls know that geese can be mean and they bite. Insert Madeline into the picture. Poor girl went right up to a fat goose and it snapped her little fingers. The look of shock and fear on Madeline's face will always be unforgettable to me. I wasn't sure if she was going to punch the goose in it's face or cry. She chose punching the goose. Just kidding. She cried. Bawled. You would've thought the goose ran off with her hand in it's mouth.

I thought she might be scarred for life from this experience, but needless to say she asked the next day to go back and feed them again. Maybe she's seeking revenge.

The bread carrier. 

Walking with our neighbor Louisa to feed the ducks

Lining up for food

Our Valentine's Day

Happy Love Day! For some reason this year I actually cared about Valentine's Day. Typically, it's just another day for me, but maybe with Tom missing it last year, I wanted to make it special for him and for the girls. 

They loved their new books!

When Tom woke up he found goodies everywhere he looked. We hid candy and little prizes all over the house and even in his car. All of them had a note attached as to why we love him so much.

I took the girls out to breakfast for muffins and smoothies. They were perfect dates:)

We went to story hour at the library.

When we came home, Tom had left us cupcakes from the bakery downtown. I don't have a picture, but they were delicious! We decorated for the candlelit dinner we were making for him that night: Chicken Francese which I do believe is our favorite dish. The only picture I have though is the aftermath of the dinner!

This was a heart banner the girls had painted earlier.

We spent the rest of the day crafting and reading the new books we bought them. 

And of course we needed dessert so I made root beer floats. Tom decided to make his float in a Mas beer mug. 

He spoiled all of his girls with lots of awesome presents and for the first time since I was a teenager, I didn't think Valentine's Day was such a silly holiday. I actually enjoyed my entire day.

Baby Testers

We no longer have Riley to test out all of the baby equipment so the girls use their dolls instead. I am sure Riley is looking down from doggie heaven and smiling...grateful she is no longer around to be used for such silly jobs;)

Cravings

My pregnancy cravings got the best of me and I was about to order a $56 King Cake straight from New Orleans as Fat Tuesday approached when I thought about the local grocery store here and I remembered seeing them there years ago. We trekked out in the rain just to hunt for one. Luckily, my memory is still pretty awesome and the store had a few left. Don't ask me why I only bought ONE. It was gone before the end of the night. I am not ashamed though. I did share a little bit. 

 

Picture Wall

Even though we only have a few months left here, I couldn't take looking at the empty wall above our antique table. It drove me insane on a daily basis. I hate the feeling of not being "settled". I know we will never truly be "settled" until Tom retires from the Army, but I made a promise to myself that with each place we move to I want it to be as much of a home as possible. Hence, my need for hanging things up on the wall. Now, in a normal house this is probably an easy task. But not in a 100+yr old home whose walls have been painted over 100x and probably layers and layers of plaster just keep on adding to it. We needed hammers, drills, velcro...it was a task. But we love it:) That's our last name at the top as well. My mom made it for us as a Christmas present this year. Each letter represents something from our lives or family i.e the P is a photo from my Grandma's front porch railing that my Uncle Glenn took for my mom. The last I is from the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany where we visited a few times while living there. I cried when I opened it. Such a meaningful present!

I love how they just watch and learn. I think I told them to put the earmuffs on from all of the cursing we were probably doing while completing this project;)

Forgotten January

I don't know how January came and went and I forgot to post about the little happenings in our lives. I am really envious of my other blogger mom friends who post almost daily. I used to be like that. Maybe I will be like that once we move and live in a more interesting place. But for now, I am sure there are only so many pictures of my kids eating cookies, playing at the park or hanging out at home that you can handle. ;)  I just finished uploading some more photos of January that I had taken, but forgot to include on here. To summarize:

Ella's hand family. But not our family. She drew my best friend Bridget's family. 

Usually sleep is peaceful for these two, but I happened to check on them and they looked a mess! 

Nesting. Tons of nesting. And early spring cleaning. Apparently this was clean out the girl's closet day.

Now this is a peaceful sleep. Right on mama. It's rare, but I always relish it when it happens.

28ish weeks here? 

The girls were missing their Uncle Bud who always made them S'mores when they lived at home. I decided we would make our own:)

And it's a messy, messy treat. So messy. 

The girls love eating those Cuties (clementines) and they decided to decorate my belly with a face from the peels. 

Tom put up with going to an endless amount of stores to begin the clothes shopping for our sweet boy. I never knew I would love shopping for a boy as much as I did!

Ella wanted to take everything out of the bags and "set it up" to take a picture. 

Ella said this is our family portrait. Including her baby brother. Boys on one side, girls on the other. 

She has had a slight obsession with drawing Disney Characters lately!

Oh dress up again! She called herself the Princess Witch (that's Ella's old witch Halloween costume from when she was 2.)

Just wanted to end with a sisterly love picture. They melt my heart!

Mornings...

on the weekends are generally pretty lazy around here. Can you tell by the number of cups that are starting to build up on the window sill?