Dress Up

The girls got all dressed up and wanted their pictures taken. These dress up clothes are part of their Christmas loot.

"Olivia the Pig" had to be part of the portraits too. We have been collecting the "Olivia" books and our Olivia just loves them!

Of course, we had to try for a picture of the trio. The only way we could get Marcus in the picture was to bring his dump truck in...

I don't think I've taken his picture in the laundry basket yet...doesn't every baby need their picture taken in the laundry basket?

Liquid Gold

It's still snowing...we had to check it out yesterday for a short time. The kids were just dying to go out and play.

Emma just loved it! She even went out to plow with Daddy for a while yesterday.

Look at Big Red...we've already cleaned her off but it just keeps snowing! In case you haven't heard, just after Thanksgiving, Marc lost his job at Avista. They laid off most of the groundsmen so that left him without a job. We prayed for snow since he kept his plow accounts from last year. Well, our prayers were answered...although he is exhausted (he plowed for 7 days straight...most days were literally 18 hour days too!)...it's nice to know we still have a double income right now. He hasn't given up on lineman work though, he's applying EVERYWHERE and hopes to get a lineman job by spring.

In the meantime...we are just enjoying the snow (even Olivia...ha, ha).

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas at home yesterday. Unfortunately, due to the snow, we stayed at home this year instead of joining the family at Grami and Poppi's house. We made the best of it though and had a lot of fun watching the kids. This year the twins actually figured out what Christmas was all about. They were so excited, it was hard to get them to go to bed the night before. They must have been good little boys and girls though because they sure were spoiled by Santa :-)

A LOT OF SNOW

So, we've got a lot of snow...we even made national news...pretty impressive. Marc has been busy plowing everyone in the city and has not had a chance to remove much snow at our house. So, I decided I would work on the back deck while the kids napped today. They were nice enough to sleep for 2 hrs...here's the before...

...here's what I got done. I think it might be time to put the summer furniture away...we do like to make the summer last as long as possible! Ha! I actually did go back and finish getting the snow off the table and I put the furniture in our shed too while the kids watched me from the window.

Tucker is crazy about snow. As I flung the snow off the deck, he stood below and jumped and snapped at it as if he was trying to catch it. Crazy dog (he does the same thing with the water coming out of the hose in warmer weather).

Right as I finished shoveling, it started to snow again! We seriously have over 3 feet here and in town. I've never seen this much snow in such a short time and I'm from Montana! The kids are dying to go play in it, but I'm afraid we'd lose them in that much snow!

Santa

We took the kids to see Santa on Saturday. Needless to say, we ended up with another family picture this year. Marcus did quite well. He looked at Santa for a while and then looked around at everyone else...he didn't even cry once. Olivia would not go near Santa. Emma did ok, she gave him "5" when the picture taking was done, but she had no interest in sitting on his lap.

Here are the girls while we were standing in line. They were pretty cute and excited but the closer we got to Santa, the more nervous they got.

Marcus was just excited to be out and about.

Emma did some good posing for Mommy.

Marcus just climbed all over everything. At one point, he even knocked over the chain fence that was there. It took us all a while to figure out how to get it back up.

We did attempt to do some Christmas shopping too but that proved to be impossible with 2 two year olds and a one year old. Too bad because we really haven't even started and the snow is making it impossible to go out lately too. Oh well, we've always been last minute shoppers and we always get it done so I'm sure this year will be no exception.

Mommies

I was cleaning up the legos tonight and Marcus decided he wanted to join them in their basket. He thought he was pretty cool...

While I was putting Marcus to bed tonight, the girls were playing really well in their room. They were reading to each other and singing to each other and also tending to their babies...what good mommies they are!

Snow Day

Or at least it was supposed to be. We broke a record yesterday and today...the most snowfall in a 24 hour period. I didn't actually hear how much we got, but it was a lot. The whole city was shut down. Unfortunately, I didn't know what to do this morning and I actually went in to work. We left the house at 6am, made it to daycare by 7:15 and I actually got to work by 8 (it only took me an hour longer than my normal commute). Come to find out, I didn't have to show up at all. Our office was closed. We have a little over 100 employees and 17 of us showed up. Really, we do need a better system to let us know when the office is closed. I actually worked until 2pm and then headed home. The roads are horrible. It did stop snowing around 3pm, but it just started up again, so maybe tomorrow will be a snow day :-)

Emma actually enjoyed the snow for a little bit.

Then she got her jeans all snowy and didn't like that much at all.

Olivia wasn't impressed...she was looking at me as if she was saying "put the camera away Mom, I'm cold and I would like to go inside!" I really didn't make them stand out there too long...I just wanted to give you an idea of the amount of snow. The piles next to them are from the actual snow, not piled with a shovel...that is how much snow is on the ground. Downtown is just as bad too...they actually shut down the malls and the hospital announced they were cancelling all surgeries unless it was a necessity to save a life...now that's a lot of snow!

My Little Helper

So, do you think we bake enough cookies? You thought I was kidding when I said I loved cookies. Well, we made peanut butter cookies tonight and Olivia was right there to help in true Olivia fashion. She was so cute, I had to grab the camera. She had to do her little taste test of course...

Snap, Snap, Snap goes the camera...Olivia is still eating the dough...Mommy really isn't paying any attention to her...I'm just trying to capture that perfect picture...

Suddenly I realize...Olivia is literally eating the cookie dough by the handfuls. She just stuck a whole cookie size piece in her mouth here...I finally made her stop. That Mother of the Year Award I was trying so hard for just slipped away :-)

She was extremely helpful though. I just handed her the fork to make the criss-crosses and away she went. I didn't have to help her at all. The cookies tasted great too as they always do :-)

Christmas is Coming

Daddy brought a Christmas Tree home last night so we decided it was finally time to decorate for Christmas. Marcus wasn't too sure about having a tree in the house.

Emma took the tree decorating very seriously. She placed all of the decorations on the bottom of the tree herself...I didn't help at all. She was so cute, she'd put a decoration on, stand back and look at it and decide if that was really where she wanted it. She actually did move some around for a while.

She was so proud of her tree. She even asked me to take a picture...I didn't have to pose her or anything. You can just see the pride in her little face.

Marcus is actually doing really well with the tree. He basically checks it out every once in a while, but for the most part, he leaves it alone. He does love the Christmas books that came out though. My little reader...

Olivia had to try out the Santa hat. She did really well decorating too.

So, this is what Christmas looks like at our house this year...

Notice the stockings on the back of the cabinets (I really need to get a fireplace)

Happy Holidays Everyone!!!

Snow Baby

We finally got some decent snowfall last night. Our little outdoors boy wanted to go out and play so bad today...so, I decided to try out his snowsuit and take him out while the twins napped.

He was so happy to be outside. It is super cold today; the wind is blowing hard and the snow is literally the texture of ice.

But little Marcus insisted on staying out and demanded to be pulled in the sled. He kept pointing like this as if to say "Forward Mom".

I think Tucker was happy to see him too. Oh the love between a boy and his dog :-)