Hanging with the girls

Lately I have been spending a lot of time with the girls. Josh has been traveling more for work and with his new position he will be traveling even more. The best thing we do to get through this is to have structure to our days and just trying to find fun things to do. We do craft projects, jump in the bounce house, play dress up, watch movies and hopefully Spring will be here full time so we can play outside more. Last week we had a sunny but brisk day, so we had a picnic at the neighborhood park and then played at the playground with our neighborhood friends. This resulted in a 3 hour power nap by the girls, which was awesome!!! There's nothing better than playing outside.

In mentioning the bounce house, we set it up in the basement so the girls can bounce off steam. They took a quick break to "pose" for this picture! Peyton is fearless in this and bounds headfirst down the slide. This has taught me to ensure there is a foam pad at the base so we don't have any ouchies!

There's nothing quite as fun as eating a blue raspberry laffy taffy that turns your tongue blue!!! Jenna kept running back and forth showing her mommy and daddy her blue tongue. At one point she even tried to lick daddy!

I don't think I could have imagined Peyton wanting to dress up at this age but she gets the biggest kick out of wearing her big sister's dress-up clothes. Here she is sporting the Snow White look. The only accessories missing were the ring, satin apple purse, and ribbon necklace. Not quite sure where those things are at the moment.

Next she wanted to wear the Cinderella outfit. Too funny and as with the previous outfit she is just missing the ring. I have a feeling all of the dress up accessories got put into the satin purse and have been put into a "safe" place that even I cannot find them at the moment!

Wow I cannot believe how fast time is flying by. I can't believe it has been over 2 months since I posted something. I guess I have gotten caught up in finishing each day that I hadn't realized how many of those days had past. Let's see what has been going on...

The first weekend in January a group of my sorority sisters and their families came to celebrate 2010 at our house. There were 9 kids all under the age of 4 staying here: Bennett Sanborn (3), Jenna (3), Ava Morris(now 3), Henry Phillips(2), Caroline Harkness(1 1/2), Noah Sanborn(1), Maddie Morris(1), Peyton (1), and Grace Phillips(now 4 mo.). We laughed about how much things had changed when every time you turned around there was a little one under foot. It is so amazing to me that we all still make the effort to get together even after all the years and changes in life.

Here's Jenna and her gal pal Bennett playing dress up as two little princesses!

Next we have Jenna, Bennett, and Ava who were having a blast playing with the little couch.

Then we have the only group shot we could semi-manage which shows Peyton, Bennett, Henry, Jenna, Ava, and the back of Caroline's head. They were watching cartoons and once they realized we were going to start taking pictures, chaos broke out.

Then came Peyton's first birthday. We invited our neighborhood gang and my folks for "cake & cocktails" to have fun spending time together and let the kids play. Yet another crazy time with a lot of kids running around. It was so much fun watching Peyton have her first taste of sugar and boy did she enjoy it. The video is hilarious and at one point you can watch her just bend down and take a huge bite out of the icing. By the point of this picture though she had had enough and was ready for her "triple b": bath, bottle, bed. You can almost see her saying, "I am done get this off of me!!!"

The next day Peyton had the best time playing with all of the balloons we had decorated with. She also got the biggest kick out of the punch balloons we had given the kids because she could hold the rubber band straps and run with them! This picture is hilarious as it shows not only her joy but the amount of static she created with them and her hair.

At the end of January we had a "huge" snow storm hit our area. I say huge because we don't get a lot of snow in this area and it doesn't last long. It started snowing on a Friday night, so we got Jenna bundled up and went outside to play in the snow, make snow angels, and have fun. By the morning we had 5-6 inches on the ground. Keep in mind what it looked like outside and this is what Jenna came down stairs wearing in the morning:

Apparently the freezing cold outside did not bother her at all since this is what she was determined to wear. However, she did not want to go outside at all that day. I guess she had enough of the cold and wet on Friday night. By Sunday we had convinced her to go outside to play with our neighborhood friends. A couple of the kids had inner tubes and we soon discovered that our backyard is AWESOME for sledding/tubing down. You have the first hill then you hit a ridge and get another hill down the back side of the house.

My favorite moment was when Josh decided he had had enough of watching the kids doing all of the tubing and he had to give it a shot. I think the kids were shocked and excited that he actually did it, since the other dads don't usually play with the kids. He takes off, then you see them chase after him, and then they all celebrate that he made it the whole way!

In mid-February, Grandpa Pete, Grandma Deb, and Great-Grandma Betty came down from NJ for a visit. Josh and Pete went down to Daytona, FL for the NASCAR races, while the girls all hung out in NC for the week. It was so special to get to spent the time with Deb and Gram. The girls loved having them around and it was special getting to watch the bond grow even more with everyone. Unfortunately snow brought the trip to an end as they had to head home a day early due to a "clipper" that was headed towards NJ and they needed to get home prior to the snow coming again.

Now we are in March and I am ready for sun and warmer weather. That will mean we get to play more outside with all of our friends. Playing outside in the fresh air results in sleepy girls which brings long naps...like the 3 hour one the girls took today which let me make this post!