High Five

Aiden (blue) and Chris (green) take center stage as they dance, sing and perform at Amelia Park Children's Museum.
Motherly love. Our friends Juliet and Kameron at the "park" on Saturday.
Take it away Aiden.
The Daddies at the craft table with Chris and Livia. I'm not sure they would appreciate hearing me call it "crafts!"
Chris and Kameron doing what boys do best.. trucks, trains and car driving.
Chris found Cali hiding in her newest spot on Friday. In the boys animal basket in the bottom corner of their closet. Smart kitty - stay far, far away, only next time not in a spot located in the boys room!
Aiden's mixing up some early morning surprises on Friday, staying busy while Mommy was on the phone looking for a plower. He was so busy he even figured out how to open the caps... should have known better!
Christopher and his case of the snowy mittens.
Snow piled in the yard higher than the boys. They could literally disappear!
My boys enjoying the winter wonderland.





It's officially official. ALL of my xmas and holiday decorations are down. Sadly, I still had my garlands outside, mainly because I was too lazy to trample through the snow to get them. Today, I braved the 4 feet of icy snow and brought them inside to defrost and thaw out. My main motivation was that I am moving on to bigger and better holidays in anticipation of the boys upcoming birthday celebration. As I mentioned in my last post, my planning has begun and boy am I having fun making decorations and doing menu planning.

Thursday, oh snowy Thursday. We had some plowing drama that kept us all at home. Our wonderful, not so wonderful plower decided to just not show up... AT ALL! So... Mike was stuck at home with the 15 1/2 inches that we got and ended up snow shoeing to a meeting that he had in town that afternoon. Dedication at its best! I started to get nervous because the oil that I had ordered a few days earlier was supposed to be delivered but they were unable to make our stop because we weren't plowed out and I knew we were cutting it close with having enough to heat our house given the extreme cold temps. The joys of home ownership. We decided to make the most of being home and stuck in the snow so we ventured out for over an hour to play on Thursday morning. Chris wasn't so sure about the snow, especially when he got snow on his mittens and rubbed it in his own face - lesson learned I guess. Aiden is a snow man! He LOVED the snow and I am pretty sure he would have napped outside had we given him the choice. Chris warmed up to the idea and before we knew it, we were outside enjoying our second venture in the snow before it got dark. What a great way to pass some time.

Friday we woke up and were still buried in the snow with no signs of our plow man. That's where the fun began. We left messages with no return calls. Uggh. Really after 3 years of plowing for us, you can't even return our call? So.... Mike was lucky enough to be able to get a ride to work and I began my frantic chain of calls to find a new plower. Our oil delivery had been reschedule for that day and I knew we couldn't wait until Monday to get the delivery. After several calls, I found a willing plower who came within an hour. Phew. I was also able to beg the oil company to hold off until later in the day and it all worked out. The boys and I even managed to slip in a quick trip to the library just to get out of the house.

Saturday was a busy, super fun day. We met our friends the Lockes for a nutritious, delicious breakfast at Mrs. Murphy's. We had happy little tykes when they all got to pick out a donut of their choice. Happy adults too, yum! We then packed up and headed to the Amelia Park Children's Museum in Westfield. What a fun place. There was something for everyone and I think all of the kids and adults enjoyed it. Its always great to see the kids exploring, sharing and checking out new experiences.

We headed home for nap time which was boycotted by A & C. Uggh... Knowing it was going to be a long afternoon without sleep, we were happy to have a surprise visit from Mammie & Grandpa Hopkins and Great Grammie Tag. The boys got an awesome early birthday gift - a new vehicles rug for their bedroom! What fun. We enjoyed their visit and the boys moods thankfully livened up.

We were scheduled to have 2 year old birthday pics take for A & C but were nervous about how they would go over given the lack of sleep so we rescheduled and will be heading back to Target this afternoon. After Mammie and Grandpa's visit, the boys got some TLC as Dziadzu and Grammie Pt showed up to save the night. We were THRILLED to have visitors all day as it kept our monkeys happy.

Mike and I enjoyed a night out while Grammie and Dziadzu watched A & C. Mike has received tickets to the Springfield Symphany Orchestra and we decided to check it out. It was fun and quite entertaining to watch not only the performers but also the crowd. I had never been and enjoyed it (even though I had to admit to Mike that I kind of thought all of the music started to sound the same, lol). It was something different and something fun. The experience definitely made me feel old as I looked around to realize the median age was at least 60 +. We were lucky enough to have seats that were in the 4th row in the orchestra so being so close really made you appreciate how talented the musicians are.

This morning Mike and I had nursery duty at church and had several unhappy campers, thankfully none of them were ours. Its always nice to see your kids playing well in other settings and around other kids. It's a bit of a proud parental moment I guess. We are hopefully that we will get the boys pictures taken tonight and I am very, very excited to relax and watch a lifetime love/valentines day movie on tonight at 9 pm. This week brings many fun things so we hope the weather cooperates. Be good to us mother nature! We are excited for some fun playdates!