January

New Years Eve was uneventful, as usual.  I think I made it to midnight, but I can't remember.  I was too excited for the next day, when Aunt Shanny and Uncle Tom came to visit with Baby Brendan!  Although he is less baby and more toddler now.  We didn't do anything spectacular- just hung out around the house, and had friends over one night for dinner.

We did venture out on the DART to visit downtown Carrollton.
Someone has a huge obsession with trains!

Other pics from January:

Enjoying Christmas presents: cake Pops from Aunt Col and Uncle Bobby

Color your own bag from Grandma

And of course, Rainbow looms.  Ow the rubber bands.  They are everywhere!!!

A friend of ours was taking care of puppies.
Elia was in hog heaven.,  Can we get one mom???

A Week without the Girls

Saturday Chris drove the girls to Joplin, MO and came back to Dallas all in one day!  Since I had in-service and weird hours all week, I worked it out with my mom that they stay with her all week.  It was a blessing, because there were a few days I wasn't home until 8:30 at night!  This is the first summer ever I have not been to StL, and that hurts my heart so much!  I'm glad the girls could go though.  They had a blast hanging out with Aunt Colleen and Shannon, Uncle Ryan, Baby Brendan, and of course the grandparents.  Uncle Craig was even in StL for a night or 2 for business so they got to see him too.  And maybe best of all, Gianna and Sophia got to reunite twice, thanks to my mom coordinating with Rebecca.  Then, after a week, I drove back to Joplin to pick the girls up.  It was wonderful to see them!

Aunt Colleen and Rebecca's baby, Mary

Love everything in this pic!

Aunt Colleen took the girls to the Magic House!

We found a park in Joplin.  Glad to see Ry!

WE stopped on the way home near Lake Eufala- prettiest place in OK if you ask me!

 The next day (Sunday) we hit the ground running- taking the girls to the park with the dog.  This is their latest trick- DarDar running next to G on her bike, while Elia tries to catch up.

This was literally seconds before Daria took off across the street and almost got hit by a car, 

just so she could say hello to another dog across the street.

Then we had a back to school mass and came home to get ready for the first day!

Adult Time- ATL

Megan arranged for babysitters to come over 2 times while all the adults were in town.  We went out to dinner on Friday night and then to Sweet Water Brewery and The Vortex on Saturday.  So fun to be with my sisters too!  We missed Colleen and Ryan of course!

Bro in Laws

Book Ends.  Chris photo bombs.

*can't fix my wonky pictures... sorry!

Cousin Camp- ATL

With school quickly approaching, I am finding less time to look through pictures and create videos and lists like I did for our AZ trip.
 We have put more miles on our beautiful minivan since March than the average family does in a year!  I am so blessed to have 2 months off a year where it is possible for us as a family to do such fun things and see family etc.
We were home for a week in Dallas for 6 days and then we re-packed the car and drove to Atlanta.  Chris flew back to Dallas to work all week and then flew back to Atlanta to help me drive back to Dallas.
Megan and I had been scheming since our visit to ATL last year to come out and do some cousin camp.  I found a lot of stuff on pinterest and sort of themed the week "Dr. Seuss."
We read Green Eggs and Ham, and then made "green eggs and ham" using dyed green pudding and Nilla wafers.  Huge hit with the littles.

We read Red Fish Blue Fish and did a graphing project with rainbow goldfish.

We read The Lorax and did some sweet and condensed milk painting.  Very fun for the kiddos, but the painted papers stuck to themselves and got a little smelly by the next day.

Sorry this Bday card never got to you Uncle Ryan.  It was too sticky and smelly!

Aunt Shanny's genius Shark-Nado picture.

Another thing we did was put white roses in different colored food dye (I couldn't find carnations) and after 3 days, 3 roses were dead, 1 was very light pink and 1 was very light green.  Sort of a flop.  Don't always believe pins from pinterest!  This is a lie!

We did Christmas in July and read The Grinch that day. 

We skyped Grandma and she read them some Christmas stories.

We read Fox in Socks as well but I had no pictures for that.  It was nice to put a little structure in the cousin's mornings.  We re-read a lot of Dr. Seuss at night too.  What a fun week!

Birthday Surprise, and Fossil Rim

Over Memorial weekend, the Marschners came to visit!  Shannon basically woke me up at 2:30 in the morning and totally surprised me out of sleep.  Their flight was supposed to get in much earlier but bad weather had them circling and their rental car situation went from bad to worse(no car seat for Brendan even though they had reserved one!!).  So Chris snuck out of the house with a car seat around 1:30 and got them back here to wake me up.  I think Tom, with Chris' help, had been planning this since March!  I honestly thought I was dreaming when she came in and sat on my bed.
There really is nothing better than spending time with my twinnie, but its even more special when we get to be together on our birthday!  We sort of just hung out and did fun kid stuff, like the splash park and walks around the neighborhood, but the highlight was Fossil Rim.  I have been wanting to go there since I heard about it a few years back, and it was pretty fun!  Feeding animals from your car?  Elia was in paradise.
With our awesome new minivan, we were able to scrunch all 4 adults and 3 babies in one car!

Love

Loving the new sunroof

Prob my fave pic of the day!

Little loves!

StL Weekend Surprise

All of the sisters COMPLETELY surprised my mom this weekend for her birthday.  Megan and I flew up to St. Louis.  She left the boys at home and brought sweet baby Anna.

On Saturday, we had brunch at Aunt Shanny's, and even did a craft. 

A Valentine Wreath

Then we went and saw Les Mis and out to dinner. 

It was wonderful, and the first weekend in a while I have been away from the girls in a while.  It was good to kiss their sweet faces when I got home.  Lovely Weekend.

January

It was a busy month!

 

Playing with Christmas presents

Dentist Appointments

I used to wear this coat and muff!  Elia and mom went to Milwaukee for my dear Grandpa's funeral.

Sister-Cousin Pic

Played as much as we could on MLK day.