January 10

I babysat a friend's little girl yesterday morning while she was was having a test run at the hospital. Kayla and Elliott kept each other entertained. By the way, I didn't put them in the dog crate. They kept taking books and toys in there to play. I think Kayla thought it was a playhouse.

While the 2 year-olds were occupied, I finished this project. It's a ruler/growth chart. My friend Tracy made one and I thought it was such a clever idea. This way if we move to a new house, we don't lose all our markings as the kids grow through the years. I wish now that I had bought a piece of wood that didn't have so many imperfections (knots) because the stain is really dark in those areas and I think it will be a little hard to read the kids markings. PS - Tracy found this idea on Pinterest and now has me hooked on the site! I am going to my friend Annette's today to have her help me make another project from Pinterest. I will share that one when it's finished!

Who needs a couch to watch TV!?!

January 9

Yesterday after church Clay and the girls joined Clay's family for lunch at a Japanese Hibachi grill to celebrate Joe's birthday. I stayed home so Elliott could take a nap. Clay said that Kat was very nervous about the grill/flames.

Julia gave us makeovers yesterday, using the makeup she got from her makeover Saturday. I think I need to teach her the "less is more" theory.

The girls snuggled up to watch a movie last night. As you can see by Lucy's arms and belly, she is starting to fill out! She's on her way to being a chunky monkey.

Funny Julia Story: Julia wanted to watch the "squeakquel" to the Black Stallion. Clay had to explain to her that the sequel to the Alvin and the Chipmonks movie is called the Squeakquel because chipmonks squeak... and that it's a play on the word sequel.

January 8

Here are the pictures from Julia's birthday party last night.

January 7

Happy 7th Birthday Julia!!!!
Happy 27th Birthday Joe!

After Julia, Kat, and Elliott went to bed, I snuck into their room and put streamers on Julia's bed. I also blew up a bunch of balloons, but decided to leave them in the family room. I was originally going to have them all over Julia's bedroom, but then got worried that if Elliott got up in the middle of the night, he might wake everyone up by stepping on a balloon.

Julia's breakfast request was pancakes. We sung Happy Birthday to her (which is why Kat looks funny in these pictures. Apparently she sings big and loud).

Then we took Julia to the mall for a birthday surprise - a makeover at this new store called Club Tabby. They do nails, hair, and makeup for girls. Julia chose to have a Rainbow Punkrocker style. After seeing Julia get her makeover, Kat decided that she wanted to use her own spending money to get the Princess makeover.

Then we went to the Disney Store and Julia spent some of her Christmas/Birthday money on a doll and a nightgown. The Disney Store employees found out it was her birthday and gave her a birthday button and kept calling her Princess - tell me that didn't go to her head! She chose Texas Roadhouse for lunch, but when we told the waiter it was her birthday, she told him she didn't want them singing Happy Birthday to her. She doesn't like to have attention drawn to herself. Because, you know, a 7 year-old with rainbow hair isn't an attention grabber?

After dropping everyone off at home, Julia and I headed to the grocery store to pick up her cookie cake. She also picked out her plates, napkins, etc for her family party tonight. I usually make a homemade cake and decorate for the party, but it's been a little busy this year.

The birthday party decorating committee

January 6

While the girls were getting ready for school yesterday we noticed that 1 - Elliott was nowhere to be seen, and 2 - he was being quiet. Both are never good signs. This is where we found him...

We had lunch with Katrina and Ryan (4 months old)

January 5

Right after Christmas, Clay and I went to Hobby Lobby and bought this table. I've had my eye on it for awhile, and thought that I would use gift cards and/or Christmas money to purchase it. It had a ding in the corner, so they gave it to us for 66% off. I ended up only paying a little over $60 for it (with gift cards, I paid less than $20 out of pocket) - score! My plan is for the girls to store their book bags on the bottom shelf and their gloves and hats in the drawers. The next item on my agenda is to put some coat hooks on the wall so the floor of my hall closet doesn't look like a coat monster threw up everywhere. Someday I will put a lamp and some picture frames on the table, but that's not likely to happen while we have small children in the house!

This is the picture that is hanging above the table. It's our family tree. Clay got this for me for Mother's Day 2010 and Liz added Lucy's name for me. I love it!

January 4

I had some quiet time with Lucy Monday, so I snapped a few pictures. Do you see the dimples in her cheeks when she "smiles" in her sleep? Love them! Can't wait until she's old enough to give us some real smiles.

What do babies dream about?

January 3

Last night we all went to Julia's gymnastics class. It was my first time getting to watch her. She really is a good little gymnast (she's been a monkey since birth though). After 3 lessons, the coach feels she is ready to move up to the next level. She gets to start working on back handsprings next week. She is very excited.

The girls wanted to have a tea party lunch yesterday, so they set it all up.

Three days ago we were at the zoo enjoying the nice weather. Yesterday it turned to winter with a dusting of snow. It was 18 degrees when I took the girls to the bus stop this morning. Brrr!

Yesterday was Clay and the girls' last day home from school and work. In the 3 weeks since Lucy has been born, Clay only had to work 3 or 4 days. I am curious to see what my new "normal" is going to be.

January 2

We went bowling with Mamaw and Bapaw last night. It was alot of fun.

Elliott really enjoyed his first time bowling.

January 1

Happy New Year!
Here's to hoping that 2012 is a little less eventful and more relaxing. Who am I kidding!?!

Lucy (aka Lucy Goosey, Little Lucy, "Oosey") is 3 weeks old already! She's still not even supposed to be born yet, but it seems like she has been with us forever! She's a really easy, content baby.

Lucy got her first bottle last night and she took it like a pro (this is exciting because Kat and Elliott never would take bottles, which meant I never got to go anywhere without them for the first year). I will say that pumping the bottle for her was, ummm... interesting. I had an entire audience watching me (including all 3 kids, Clay, and Gus). I felt like a Dairy Cow at the State Fair! PS - that piece of material draped over Clay's shoulder is his childhood blanky. Seriously.

We had a great time last night ringing in the new year. I saw on a friend's blog from last year that she had activity bags for her kids to countdown to the new year. So I copied the idea. Starting at 5pm, every hour (until 9pm - I had no intentions of staying up until midnight and my kids are too little for that anyways) the kids got to open a bag that had an activity for us to do as a family.

• 5pm we had dinner at "Mommy's Diner". I make a menu of all our leftover foods in the fridge and then then kids go through and pick what they want for dinner.

• 6pm Family Movie Night (Ramona and Beezus - one of our favorites!) with some movie candy.
  

• 7pm - We had a movie intermission to make ice cream sundaes

• 8pm game time - Elefun (as you can see, Elliott had more fun wearing the nets than playing the game)
  

• 9pm (we actually bumped this up to 8:30 because the kids were getting tired), we had horns, noisemakers, etc and had a countdown.

I also copied this idea off a blog (Our Best Bites). I filled these balloons with jokes, coins, and a few had dollars in them. The kids got to pop them and get the goodies out. Next year I am going to make the New Year's Tree too.

All in all it was a really fun New Year's Eve. I think we will make this countdown activity a tradition.