Summer says hi!

Summer getting up

Summer's 9 month pictures

Summer turned 9 months old today so I celebrated and had her pictures taken.  Lucky for me she was in a good mood and did a great job!  I had a hard time picking my favorites...which one is your favorite?

Kayla and mommy working out

Daddy gets hit by snowballs

Dogs in the snow

Snowballs flying

Summer in the snow

Snowball fight

Summer looking in the mirror

Kk reads to Sam

KK loves to read books to Sam. She has learned though that it is best to read to Sam when she is up high. When she reads to her on the floor Sam will just keep crawling over and trying to take the book away. I think it is so cute! What a great reader KK is and how fun for Sam to listen to her big sister read to her!

Sam's first driving lesson

Sam was sitting on Daddy's lap in the car while I was in subway getting us sandwiches. I thought it would make for some cute pictures. She is looking over her shoulder to see if there are any cars behind us. Then she checks her mirrors!



She checks one more time before she backs out! Now she is already to go! She is telling me to put my seat belt on!

A river runs through our driveway

Crawling everywhere

Second tooth

Sam got her second tooth last night...

Sam's first playdate

Valentine's Boxes

Here are the girls on Valentine's morning. I tried getting pictues of all three girls but the baby wasn't really cooperating.


Aly and KK look great though! I braided KK's hair the night before and had her sleep in it. Her hair was all curly. It looked really cute! The only way I could get a decent picture of the baby was to take one of her all by herself!



KK had to make a castle for her Valentine's party at school. Aly wanted to make one too! Aly chose yellow for hers. KK chose her favorite color green.



KK got Yoshi and a box of Sees candy from Mommy and Daddy for Valentine's Day. She was so excited she ran and got her Super Mario costume and put it on!



Aly got a Build A Bear dog and a small box of Sees candy from Mommy and Daddy. She also got a present from her BFF Tommy! Look at the necklace he made for her! She loved it and said it was her favorite present!



Here is the box he gave her. It had chocolate kisses, candy hearts, the necklace pictured above, and some rings. Her first Valentine's present from a friend!

Valentine's meal and traditions

It is very important to Aly that we have chocolate covered strawberries every year for Valentine's Day. Daddy was so thoughtful that the Friday before Valentine's he had a package of chocolate covered strawberries from Sharis Berries sent to us. You have to eat them within 48 hours according to package directions so we had them finished before Valentine's Day. Besides, I hate to say this but our home made chocolate covered strawberries are much better! Sharis Berries have beautiful presentation but their chocolate tastes waxy. They probably have to for preservative reasons!



Here is a picture of my home made strawberries! Maybe next year I can put more effort in and make the presentation look better. It would be fun to make white chocolate drizzles and such! Hubby made the delicious steak and lobster tail! I know this may sound stuck up but we don't go out to dinner much. We find that we cook meals just as good, if not better at home. Besides it is way cheaper! The steak and lobster dinner costs about $15 each. That same meal with as large of lobster tails and big steaks that we had would be a $50 dinner each in a nice restaurant.

Taking a family of 5 out to dinner is too expensive anyway. We pretty much can only afford Chilis or Carrows. We sure can eat much better at home.

Sam got her first tooth

Sam had a rough night's sleep last night. I had no idea why but this morning I checked her mouth and found the sharp edges of her first tooth! It has only just poked through so I can't get a photo of it! She is 8 1/2 months old!

Lots of Snow!

Check out our burried Toyota Corolla!



Ed tried plowing the snow so we could get out! We had tickets to Disney on Ice and no matter how hard Daddy tried, he couldn't get us out! We were so sad! We couldn't change the tickets either, we just lost our money and never got to see the show!



Look at all that snow! Our deck is almost buried!



KK had fun playing in it!



Aly made snow angels!

The month of February brought a lot of snow for us! In fact we got over two feet of snow. We both think it is the most we have ever gotten since living here for the past 8 years. The storm brought so much snow that we lost power on Thursday at 5:05 p.m. all the way through Sunday at 1:25 p.m. Now that was a long time to be without power! What made things worse was that we were snowed in as well! We live at the bottom of a steep gravel road and no one on our street could make it to the top! Many tried too! Even with chains and 4 wheel drive! First person was finally able to get out Sunday afternoon after some snow had finally started to melt!

I have to say, KK handled the power outage very well! She just played with her toys and found other ways to entertain herself. The baby did good until it got dark each night! We started going to bed around 7:30 every night during the power outage! Aly had a harder time! She missed TV and the lights! We were lucky though that we have a wood stove and were able to build fires to help keep us warm! We even used the wood stove to make coffee and heat up some canned food!

I love a good snow storm but I have to admit, it is much more enjoyable with the power on! The girls said they were ready for spring and didn't want it to snow anymore!

New bedrooms

Aly and KK have their own rooms now! They are both so thrilled. They no longer have to fight over who made the mess in their room and who needs to clean it up! Plus they both get to decorate their rooms the way they want to. KK is in love with Tinkerbell so she chose that as her theme. Aly still loved Littlest Pet Shop so she chose that.



We seperated the bunk beds. Kayla has the bottom bunk. We will use the top bunk for Summer since it has railings all the way around.



Aly is using the daybed. She is most excited that it has a trundle bed so she can have her friends over for a sleepover!

Aly's writing test

Here is Aly's second grade writing test. She received a score of 4 which means she exceeds grade level expectations. They score the papers a 1,2,3, or 4. Good job Aly we are so proud of you! BTW both girls got outstanding report cards with all the highest marks possible in each category.