Carpet Disaster!

So after the previously mentioned pedicures, Sadie and I cleaned up the nailpolish and put it in the soaking tub to be taken upstairs to our bathroom. Our stairs have a little ledge--very conveinent for setting things on, but also in reach of the kids. The nailpolish happened to be sitting on this ledge Sunday night....

Sadie, Kinnick, and I were on facetime with the CO cousins and Marc was in the kitchen making dinner. This left Macey unsupervised and she decided to have a little creative fun... On the wall...

And the stairs--4 stairs to be exact. All this on our brand new (not even 2 months old) carpet! Surprisingly I didn't overreact too much. A little paint fixed the wall and trim. As for the carpet, we got to find out just how good the warrenty company is to work with (pretty good actually!) Our carpet has a 10 year warrenty that includes having a tech come to our home to treat the carpet. If the stain does not come out the carpet will be replaced. The tech was here the following week; however, to summarize a long story--he didn't treat the carpet. (He was going to charge me for it.) We now have a different tech scheduled to come Monday. As for the stains... we shall see!

Thus is life with young kids!

Nee Nee Weekend

The weekendbefore Valentine's Day Aunt NeeNee came for a visit. The kids were way excited to see her! We kicked off Friday night with pedicures by Sadie. This is one of Sadie's new favorite activities! The kids also had fun watching "A Dophine Tale" (their Valentine present from Aunt NeeNee.)

Saturday we decided to brave the weather and take another trip to the zoo. We had so much fun on our prior trip we wanted to go back with Marc. It was much colder this time (more like what winter weather should be in Chicago!) The zoo was practically empty which was kind of nice. We spent lots of time at different indoor exhibits.

Macey kept telling us she was scared of the "stinky rhinos" and she would hide her head in the stroller--so funny! We read about how Rhinos will shoot pee out behind them as a way to keep other animals away (we even got to witness it!)

We of course had to spend some time in the play zoo (not enough time) and all of the kids came out with some sweet face paint. All three of them slept the 45 minute car ride home. Saturday night we had homemade pizza and watched Cars 2.

After church on Sunday, Stephanie was nice enough to paint Macey's toenails for her before she left. Macey was thrilled! Love you, Aunt NeeNee!

Zoo Trip

January 31st: This was another first for me--a trip to the zoo in January. In Jan & Feb Brookfield Zoo offers lots of free days each week. When my friend Erika asked if we wanted to take a trip to the zoo to celebrate Audrey's birthday we were more than happy to go! This is our whole crew: Sadie, Audrey, Macey, Man (Scott), Colee, & Kinnick
Audrey & Sadie are about 8 weeks apart, Colee & Kinnick are 4 months apart, and Macey & Man just 6 weeks apart. We usually get together about once a week and the kids have a blast playing together!

We enjoyed great weather. We spent a lot of our time at indoor exhibits but it was nice to enjoy the fresh air also. It's great to be at the zoo when it isn't super crowded and everyone is not hot and crabby.

We packed a lunch and were able to enjoy an inside picnic during our visit.

Audrey gave these pants to Sadie b/c she had two pairs. The girls were way excited to see that they both wore them!

We ended our day in the "Children's Zoo" and really could have spent the entire day here. The kids always love painting faces and playing in the vet area.

My little "Tiger"

But you've never seen a vet with make-up like this!

Macey is well familiar with this "tool".

What a great way to celebrate Audrey's 6th birthday...

Disney On Ice

January 28th: I surprised Sadie with a visit from her friend Mikenna (from Streator) and a trip to Disney on Ice. Neither girl knew until the morning of what their surprise was. They didn't really care because they were so excited to see each other. We went to a lunch time show. We got there early so we could get some snacks and find our seats. We were up high, but the girl's loved it anyway. This show was called "Dare to Dream." We saw the stories of "Princess and the Frog", "Cinderella", and "Tangled." Sadie's favorite was of course Tangled. Both girls especially loved the ending when all the princesses came out in their fancy dresses.

Sadie asked LOTS of questions the whole time (typical of herself!) She started to get bored during the end of Cinderella but was excited when Tangled started. We both loved watching the skaters fly around using Rapunzel's hair.

We let each of the girls chose one treat before the show. Sadie took over 10 minutes to decided. We had to step out of line and I had to explain to her that all the booths had the same items for sale. She is very proud of her spinning Repunzel light and still plays with it often.

This was a first for both Sadie and I. We had a great time although Sadie later informed that "going to the Disney on Ice show messed up all my plans of things to play with Mikenna." I guess Mikenna and Stephanie will have to come again soon!

Macey's Big Girl Bed

January 17... Once we got moved into our new house we decided to move Macey into her big bed. The girls have bunkbeds--Sadie on top, Macey on the bottom. They had been sharing a room since we moved into our temporary house, but we knew that moving Macey to a bed would probably create a bit more drama... we were right.

We decided to give it a try but move Macey back to a pack and play (in the guest room) if it wasn't working. Night 1--we put the girl's back into their beds 3 times then decided to call it quits. Macey moved to the pack and play. Night 2--we put the girls back into bed once and they fell asleep...
Ever since she's slept in her big girl bed every night! I still put her in a pack and play (in our room) for naps. This allows Sadie to have quiet time in her room. I will probably continue this until Sadie is in Kindergarten (as long as she will stay in the pack and play!)

Some nights are better than others... Any time Sadie gets up Macey is quick to follow. Some nights Sadie gest frustrated b/c Macey won't stop talking or b/c Macey keeps trying to climb up into her bed. Other nights Sadie pesters Macey and tells her to get out of bed and try to open the door. We've found them both asleep in Macey's bed on multiple occasions.

I'm thankful these sisters get to share a room... share night time whispers & giggles. I know there will come a day when they might want there own space but for now I will cherish those giggles!

PS--Yes, Macey still has her paci... hopefully not for too much longer!

Snow

First off, I feel the need to date these posts because I'm so far behind. These pictures were taken on January 13th... that's right, one week after we were playing at the park in jackets, we were bunndled up to play in the snow--crazy winter! In fact, this is the only time we really got to play in the snow this year. We had planned to take the kids sledding and build a better snowman (see below) but we didn't get more snow. (It did snow the weekend after this, but we were recovering from the flu and working on house projects and didn't make it out.) Macey was so excited--she was pointing out the window when I went to get her up in the morning. She kept saying "Snowman, Mommy!" She loved getting into her snow clothes...

Macey didn't last too long outside because she immediatly pulled her mittens off. She also thought it would be cool to trade her hat for a bicycle helmet.

Kinnick loved trying to make snowballs--too bad the snow wouldn't pack at all. He threw it anyway.

This was our attempt at a snowman. First snowman at our new house!

Pictures of our House

Sorry to get your hopes up... I could more accurately title this post "Reasons Why I am NOT posting pictures of our House!" These pics were taken several weeks ago, so it's not this bad anymore, but we still have a lot to do... Dining Room

Living Room

Kitchen

Garage

Kids' Bathroom (at this time we still had 3 bathrooms and our bedroom left to paint... now we're down to only one bathroom-the smallest one!)

Our Bathroom

Our Closet

Okay--Seriously I couldn't handle this much clutter for too long, it's mostly taken care of now. The boxes that were in storage were unpacked and put away fairly easily. It was all the stuff we had at John's house that made such a HUGE mess. We literally stuffed it into our vehicles the best we could and unloaded it here (I think it took 3 "stuffed full" trips plus lots of smaller loads). I've been so busy with living life and trying to get our house more presentable that blogging has really not been a priority. I'm so sad that I haven't had more time to blog, BUT I am finally caught up on all my past posts and ready to move forward. Make sure you check out Christmas and my post about Wrigley. I promise I will try to do better and that includes posting some real pictures of our house in the near future! Also... stay tuned for Macey's 2nd birthday!