Snow Fort!

We have a snow fort in our front yard!

Molly and Alex were working to make it a little larger on the inside.

Molly crawling out of the snow fort.

Cory got in to help them clear out extra snow. I think he was having a pretty good time. :)

Snowball Time!

I bought these red snowball makers/throwers on clearance at Target last March. Molly and Alex never got a great opportunity to use them until now because the snow has been too fluffy or too icy, etc. Today it is sunny and 30 degrees (balmy, right?), and they FINALLY got to make snowballs. :)

They LOVED how quickly they could make snowballs and throw them at each other. Here Alex comes to get Molly with one.

Perfect snowball!

I love the look on his face. Hee hee hee.

Another Missing Tooth!

Molly lost her third tooth (first one on top) a couple of weeks ago! She suddenly looks so much older, and she likes having the hole in her mouth where her tooth one was.

Yesterday, I told her I needed to get a few more photos of her with her current smile before the other top middle tooth falls out. It is really loose. As a side note: I never realized how many adults are kind of freaked out by loose teeth. A LOT of people have trouble watching Molly wiggle her tooth, and, if it starts to bleed, then even more people are grossed out. Interesting.

Alex's Art

I LOVE Alex's drawings. The people he draws are about the most adorable stick figures I've ever seen. :)

One day he wanted to write the names of some of his friends.

Alex found this pony sticker and decided he wanted to make a picture for Molly. He said he wanted it to say "Birthday Party Fun", and he asked me to write those words down for him on paper so he could copy them. I love how at this age they don't really understand that we only read from left to right. I love the guy with the hair/beard. :)

Original art by Alex, who digs in our craft drawer and glues random things on paper.

Alex's obsession

Alex is completely obsessed with Super Mario Brothers. He plays it both on our wii and on his DS, and it seems to consume 90% of all of his thoughts.

Alex talks about Super Mario Brothers all of the time when he's not playing it. He gets so excited when he beats Bowser and gets to a new world. One night, I got home when Alex was getting ready for bed. He ran downstairs to tell me all about how he and Daddy beat some part of the game. He was going on and on, and I decided it was time to capture it on video. Alex can talk and talk and talk about Super Mario Brothers. It's pretty funny. :)

January fun

Silly faces and happy kids in new pajamas they got for Christmas!

Alex love legos!  He built a lego house with a little help from Mommy

Christmas in SD (catching up)

My side of the family. Merry Christmas!

Alex with Uncle Nick

Tyler with me

Grandpa took the kids out sledding and to play in the snow. He's pulling Alex on a sled in this photo. About 2 feet of snow fell over two days, and the kids LOVED playing in it!

More Christmas (catching up)

Molly was happy to get to feed her baby cousin Tyler a bottle.

Here are all of the great grandchildren with Great Grandma Ruth.

Uncle Lee was sweet enough to play Littlest Pet Shop with Molly. She loved it. :)

Alex was excited to try out his new Hot Wheels Track with the cool color-change cars.

The Gingerbread House

I'm going to catch up on the blog. I didn't realize I still hadn't posted all of the Christmas photos!

When we first got to my parents' house, Molly and Alex decorated a Gingerbread House using a kit we had purchased on the way to SD. They loved it!

I helped Alex put lines of frosting down the gingerbread.

Molly and Alex loved decorating the house with candy.

Almost done!

This is what happens when Mommy asks them to smile nicely with their finished gingerbread house. Silly kids!

Valentines and Love Languages

Molly and Alex have very similar personalities, and sometimes it's scary how much Alex seems like a boy version of Molly at whatever age he is at the time.

One of their big differences is that Molly's top love language is gifts, while Alex's is physical touch. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should read Dr. Gary Chapman's book "The 5 Love Languages."

Probably because of her love of gifts, Molly tends to be a bit of a hoarder. She feels like everything anyone has ever given her is "very special" to her. Last year for Valentine's Day, she decorated a shoe box. She brought her shoe box full of valentines home from school. That first week, she looked through her valentines probably at least five times, reading each one carefully and returning them to her box. Every time I cleaned her room, I tried to get her to toss the box full of valentines, but she couldn't stand to part with them. She looked at them from time to time, too... she didn't just forget about them. I think it was October before I finally tossed her box while she was in school.

Of the 5 Love Languages, gifts definitely comes last for me. I also like organization and dislike clutter, so I struggle a bit with Molly's hoarding tendencies.

This year, Molly decorated a small paper bag for Valentine's day, and her bag full of Valentines is sitting on top of her dresser. I wonder how long it will have to stay there.

Alex decorated a small paper bag in his preschool class too. He brought his bag home after his party on Monday, looked at all of the valentines, and picked out the few pieces of candy that were attached to some of the cards. Then yesterday (without any suggestion or prompting from me), Alex dumped out his valentines and looked through them. He picked out the two pencils he had gotten and picked his favorite 3 valentines. He brought the pencils and the 3 chosen ones to me and said, "I want to keep these. I do not want the rest." He had no problem picking up the ones he didn't want and putting them in our recycling bin.

I was impressed! Yay for a non-hoarder!

More Christmas Fun!

Decorating the tree!

Setting up the Little People Nativity set.

Madeleine and Alex (with Leah in the background). The kids were all playing while they waited for the church program to start.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Christmas Programs!

Alex had a really fun Christmas program at his preschool. If I showed you a photo, all you'd see is just a sea of preschoolers, though. I don't have any photo-editing software that would allow me to easily circle him so you could find him in the crowd.

Our church had a really great children's Christmas program on Sunday. The kids did such a great job! It was a pretty long program, with a skit, a shadow puppet show, narration, and songs. Here is just a short clip of one of the songs:

Alex's 4th Birthday Party (2)

The kids played a few games. Here they are playing "Robot, Robot, Droid!"

Here is the robot after they played, "Pin the antennae on the robot".

The kids loved hitting the pinata. Eloise hit it hard and made the legs fly off!

After a pizza lunch, we all enjoyed cake and ice cream. Alex loved his party!

Alex's Party (1)

Alex wanted a Robot-Themed birthday party, so that is what he got.
It was really fun!


He REALLY wanted a Robot pinata... and that isn't something you can just go buy, so we made one.

Here's the cake I made him. He loved it!

Molly and Alex had fun coloring the robot poster for the "pin the antennae on the robot" game.

Yay for the Birthday Boy!