Trip to the Luces!

Micah- almost 6, Emma- 4, Drew- almost 4, Hannah- 2 1/2, Reese- 15 mo, Haddie- 7 mo. Several time outs. Lots of creative indoor games. One daring trip to McDonalds for 5 snack wraps on a 10 degree day. One very noisy trip to the Kouts Library. Only a few tears and tantrums. One incident of a prowler in the sugar bowl during "naptime." Zero major accidents or broken bones. A trip to the Luces: Priceless.

Me and my BFF Jen- no, we did NOT have time for makeup... or showers.

Alpha & Omega

Violet Mercy Nottingham made her debut on January 31st at 5:15 p.m. We lost our precious Great Grandma "Gigi" and were in town for her funeral. But what a blessing to go meet our new little niece/cousin that very night! She is a beautiful, healthy alert little thing and we are so happy to have her in our family!

Aunt Autumn introducing Violet to Winter, Emma and Asher.

Could you just eat those little piggies?!

Tight squeeze

After finding Emma under her bed at 8 a.m. eating a bag of Swedish Fish, I should've known it was going to be one of those mischievous days. This is what I walked in on when I noticed that Emma had been quiet for quite some time.

Snow- finally!

Every day Emma would ask, "Mommy, what season is it?" I would assure her that it was winter, but she was just not convinced since she had not seen snow yet. Well, we finally got it! Emma couldn't wait to get her hands on that snow. We had fun making snow angels and a snowman, but have since been told that we made the snowman wrong. Oops. Neither of us knew about the snow rolling trick.

Mmmmm... brownies

Stir...pour...lick batter off your leg.

Another indoor activity- Children's Museum!

The winter has hit us with a giant slap to the face. Makes us even more thankful for those 60 degree days in December! Thank goodness for our membership to the Children's Museum- the kids love it. Sand, water, blocks, play food- none of which mommy has to clean up. :)

Reese being a big boy... so close to walking!

They loved this big box... the second I turned around to take Emma's picture, Reese had crawled head first out of his little hole and was off!


Don't look back, buddy!

So happy to be somewhere besides our living room...

Chuck E Cheese!

What better place to go? Sugary pizza, crazy running children, the hope of getting enough tickets to buy a plastic spider. Reese and Emma had a blast with the Warner kiddos... check it out, but note that capturing the older ones on film is quite difficult!

Reese rather enjoys these little rides...

Just another expression of glee on Bob the Builder. :)

Reese with his buddies Makenna & Kai.

Our new camera!

Such little lovie dovies... this is on our new camera we finally got!

Christmas in Richmond!

Then it was off to our Nottingham family side for Christmas day! Our special surprise was having Gigi (Grandma Retha) come to visit from her new home at Friends Fellowship. We were all so blessed to have her there! Our new family pasttime: the game Apples to Apples. :)

Christmas in Iowa!

You would think we drove across the country the way Reese acted. Nope, just to Iowa. :) Once we got there it was a frenzy of eating and game playing (and some sickness spreading around) with the Gross family. We had a great time hanging out and the kids loved getting to play with their cousin Seth. The trip home was 10 times worse and made us appreciate the drive Scott & Heather make even more!

We were back in our beds on Christmas Eve so we could wake up on Christmas morning and do stockings with Emma and Reese. How fun! (I wish we had pictures to share of this special moment, but our camera is on order- bummer.) Reese got a life-sized Curious George (which we have decided is his twin) and he enjoyed tackling George to the ground. Emma's highlight was her Play-Doh... ah, the simple joys of being four.

SuperEli

Last week we took a short trip to Colorado to visit our friends Jon, Whitney & Eli Mires. Reese had a blast playing with his good pal who is just 6 weeks older. We're hoping Eli's firstborn motivation has rubbed off a little on our Reese. Notice how in both pictures, Reese looks a little stunned as he watches Eli do his neat tricks (i.e. walking). Reese was under the impression that only "big" kids do that sort of thing. We have faith in you, little buddy.

We also met Luke Weaver, the precious new little baby of our friends Ryan and Sally. Sooo cute!

3 Amigos

Emma and two of her best buds (and cousins) Asher and Winnie enjoying some pizza.

Princess Wishes

What more can a 4 year old girl ask for? After getting an ad in the mail about this Disney Princess on Ice show, Emma proudly displayed it on her wall, not knowing that I'd already gotten tickets to ACTUALLY GO SEE IT! She was beside herself when I told her we'd get to see these dazzling beauties in person. So, we went with Emma's good pal Macy to see Belle, Ariel, Snow White, Jasmine, Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, and of course Cinderella. The girls totally loved it!

Shuffle up and deal

We had a pretty kickin' Poker Night last Friday. Lots of yummy desserts and appetizers were consumed as we whittled down our 20 players until 2 a.m. when Mike Gore (you may have mistaken him for Sasquatch) won it all. He was asked/forced to give the $135 winnings to a charity and decided to split it up between Indy Young Life and our church's mercy ministry. :) What a guy!

P.S. The Nottinghams showed a great effort, taking 2nd-4th place! So what if Josh and I watch "High Stakes Poker" religiously?

Can you believe I'm 1?

Friday was Reese's 1st birthday... yeah, we can't believe it either. A whole year! We started out the morning with a birthday serenade in his crib, followed by birthday pancakes. Then off to Play-a-Lot (a place that has a whole bunch of fun stuff to play with) ... Potato heads, legos, Thomas the Train. Doesn't get much better! To honor the curious George in him, we had a George party on Saturday with family. He was as polite as could be- smiling at and playing with each of his gifts. What a peach!

Trick-or-Treat

Emma has been talking about Halloween and trick-or-treating for weeks, so this was a big day. It wasn't enough to be in costume- she instisted on us calling her Ariel all night. Reese the dragon played along with our little game even though he didn't get any candy out of the deal! We had fun going from door to door with our good buddies Macy & Makenna. Macy and Emma raced like Olympic sprinters, pushing each other over to ring the doorbell as Makenna dragged her Wal-Mart bag full of candy along the sidewalk. Reese rode in style on Daddy's shoulders and may be the only one who stayed warm under his thick dragon costume. :)