best of both worlds

There is so much else going on in this video besides the girls singing. It makes me laugh every time I watch it. Enjoy!

ft menzies

Audrey had been making "forts" with the couch cushions and pillows. This had only consisted of her putting everything in a pile and laying in the middle of everything to watch TV. In walks Daddy. He proceeds to get out every single blanket we own and use the couch as the main support. Before the night was over there were 2 mop handles and countless twist ties used for reinforcement. Sadly, the fort didn't make it through the evening, the "entrance" required you to crawl through only, Lucy did not quite comply to this rule...
Night 2:
So I guess Travis aka the fort architect slept on it and came up with some new design ideas for the girls to try again the next night. Notice how the new fort is in the middle of the living room now instead of on the couch. Also notice that tape is now being used in addition to the ties. Oh and now the fort has a name "The unicorn friendship boys and girls club, no strangers allowed". This fort lasted the whole rest of the week. The girls (and Travis) had a blast.

Things have been moving slower than usual around here lately...

...the web master is looking into it.

staycation

This weekend we packed up and headed out east all of 20 miles to Coco Key Water Resort.
Sometimes it's nice to get away even if it's just for a night.
We had so much fun just the 4 of us, splashing a playing and exploring the place.
I forgot my camera, yet again. And I was ok with that. It let me enjoy the moments with my girls rather than wait for the perfect shot.
Funny thing is though, Audrey packed her camera - which is my old camera - so Trav did get it out while we were at the baby pool on the last day.
It is always interesting for me to see how differently the girls handle the same situations. Audrey is very fearful of the water and it took her most of the day to warm up to the slides.
Lucy was by far the smallest one on the slides and had absolutely no fear of the water at all. She was climbing the stairs all by herself, Audrey could get about 3 slides in to Lucy's 1.
Every time Lucy got to the top Audrey would announce to the rest of the kids "let my little sister in" she was such the line cutter.

shoe whites

Lucy got these "dress up" shoes for Christmas from her Grandma Cheryl. They are actually from the Snow White Halloween costume set. She absolutely loves them. She calls them her "shoe whites" and there is a very good chance that if you came over, she'd have them on.

valentine's

I try to send out Valentines every year. I am not as obsessive about them as I am the Christmas cards, but so far I think I have done pretty good at sending them out.

This was a big year for us. Not only was it the first year that Lucy "participated", but it was also the first year that Audrey wrote her own name. 34 times.
That's thirty four times.

We actually started on this about 3 weeks ago and have been writing a few at a time. Last night was the push for the grand finale. I heard things like "my hand hurts" and "I'm tired" and "I don't like him I'm not giving him a valentine" and even "It's not fair that Lucy's name is easier than mine" it was a very valentine-y evening.

She did enjoy sealing all of them with stickers.

Here's a picture of some of them before they got sealed. I love seeing the variety in the way she writes her name.

Email from my mom:

Lucy's new phrase today: "oh, my g'nuss!" "g'ma! Oh, my g'nuss!"

surender

After years of struggling with the finances, I surrendered control of the checkbook to Trav. My mommy brain just couldn't focus on something like that anymore. My all or nothing attitude had caused me to get frustrated more than once and therefore just give up, put everything on auto-pay and basically ignore the rest. In a a few short weeks Trav had managed to get us pointed in the right direction and we were actually starting to get ahead.
While in Oklahoma with my parents and the girls for a funeral I get a call. Travis is okay, the car is not. It's totalled.
I guess maybe this is God's way of telling us that getting ahead is not necessary right now. That maybe keeping up is just fine for a while longer.