Reading to my girls (and Jack)

My dad gave Ava a set of the American Girls "Kit" books for Christmas and we are reading through them at night. It always starts out with me and Ava and sometimes Jemma (who surprisingly enjoys them or at least enjoys staring at the cover!) but Jack always joins in too!

Have I mentioned I like football?

And this makes me giggle. I'm not a huge Steelers fan but they are the only guys left that I like (even just a little bit).

Ava Blythe

Lately I have been unable to stop staring at this girl...she is growing up and changing almost every second. Ed and I constantly look at each other and say one of the following: "she is getting so tall...she is getting so smart...she is getting so grown-up!" The other night we were reading together and she squeezed my hand and said, "we're good friends, aren't we?"

Happy Birthday Stephen!

Stephen's birthday was actually over a week ago but we finally celebrated it with the family. My kids get very anxious when one of us has a birthday without a "proper" celebration. Stephen of course did his own grown-up thing on the actual day but Jack and Ava kept asking when his "kid party" was going to be. I actually brought my camera just to get a picture of the birthday boy and then totally forgot to take one!

These two dug right into Susan's mousse cake. Regardless of the weather, Ava had to be in proper party attire...a skirt and a bow in the hair. She was a little concerned that Stephen would wonder why she was wearing pink to his boy party but he didn't seem to mind.

Calling all runners....

It was a balmy 37 degrees when I woke up this morning and I decided to head out for my first outside, in-the-cold, non-treadmill run since having the baby. In contrast to my last outside run waaaay back in March, an easy 8-miler in the morning before catering an evening event, today was a sad, slow barely-made-it 4 miler followed by flopping on the couch until my poor baby was hungry enough to force me to get up. Six weeks ago, the owner of my gym promised me I would have "no problem" getting back into shape after doing absolutely nothing for the nine months I was baking sweet Jemma. She was wrong. But it's possible that I might make it eventually...with a little help. Which is why I am starting a little running group and you're invited. I'll give you the basic plan here in case I have any readers who may want to join and then I'm actually going to call and harass those of you who I know run (or have at some point in the distant past...Rachel, Signe, Annie, Shawna...I know you're out there!). Our main goal this Spring will be to run Bloomsday (an immensely fun, HUGE, rowdy street race of 7.2 miles) the first weekend in May, the secondary goal will be to run the CDA 1/2 marathon on Memorial Day weekend. I will be posting all the details and much more on another blog that is invite only but the more the merrier so let me know here or by email if you're interested. Quick note, the only group runs will be the Saturday morning long runs so there is very little time committment involved (although you will have to do some amount of running--at the gym, outside, or in your basement--during the week and I will post my workouts in advance so you can follow those or do your own. And I steal mine from Runner's World so they should technically work--I'm not actually the one making them up!) and those runs will be mostly out-and-back runs so you can head home at any point if you want to run less or you have to feed the baby or go to the grocery store! More importantly, you do not have to live here--you can keep up with us on the blog and if you make it for Bloomsday or CDA that would be great but you can train for something local also. Let me know if you are even slightly intrigued and I'll send you the blog invite. I don't care if you haven't run in years, I promise there will be reasonable work-outs, good information, and a chance to hang out--even if we're too out of breath to actually talk!

Here's Ava stretching out with me after one of my last runs early last Spring--I must have known it was coming to an end when I made Ed take this shot!

Kicks and Giggles

Jack and I heard Jemma give a little giggle yesterday. Sadly it was not for us but for this ugly red bird that she spends much of her time talking to.

And the thumb is officially out of the closet. She also has to rub her head with her other hand which is cute now but could cause us some problems when her hair starts to grow!

Movie Night!

This year we gave the big kids movie tickets for Christmas, so yesterday we headed out for the big show. Jack got to tag along because he is so darn cute (and he's free!). The movie was less than spectacular (and scary!) but they liked it and hey, they were just happy enough to load up on candy and popcorn!

They all "paid" for themselves.

Yes, we had the theater all to ourselves! Look how intent they are and the movie hadn't even started yet!


This sweet pumpkin stayed home with her daddy.



Rachel, this part's for you...on the way home we had this conversation:
Will said something about his house and I said we knew the people who lived there before him.
Will: No you didn't.....really? who was it?
Me: the Madsons
Will: the Madisons?
Me: No, the Madsons. Tage and Simon...
Will: Tage? Simon?
Ava: Hey we know them.
Kayte: they used to go to the park with us.
Me: and Violet...
Ava: Violet? I love Violet.
Me: and Ben.
Will: No not Ben, he's our boy.

Back to school!

Ava went back to school today and while she was super excited, Jack was not so much. Here they are right before she headed out the door and right after I got this shot his little lip popped out and his eyes welled up. Don't worry, a little hot chocolate cheered him right up (especially since it was served in Ava's special mug!)

Closet thumb sucker

Jemma started sucking her thumb just minutes after she was born and then within a couple days she gave it up. But for about a week now I have been pretty sure that she has been sucking it in the middle of the night. (Ava was a serious thumb sucker so I know the signs!) For one thing she now sleeps up to 10 hours in a stretch and every once in awhile on the monitor I hear her cry for a second then some slurping sounds and then she conks out again but I have been unable to catch her in the act till now. Sure enough, she slides her chubby little hand down the side of her face till her thumb pops in her mouth (this can take several tries!). Here's the proof!

More snow!

Ed's at it again.

Jemma is spending the day in her jammies!

She LOVES her big sister!

Jemma wears a dress

and she's looking quite pleased with herself.

Ed to the rescue

Paula and Joe had quite the adventure yesterday involving a massive tree branch, their car, and a power line (see her blog for details). Ed and his chainsaw came to the rescue. Jack and Will were of course besides themselves with the excitement of it all. Ah, boys and their toys.

"After"...almost

Paula asked for an after shot of Ed's big project but first let me explain. Since Jemma was born, we have been filling her closet with Christmas gifts galore and any random baby gift she has received and can't use immediately. I figured I would clean it out some day and that day finally came this week. BUT in order to clean out her closet, I needed to move our luggage under our bed, which meant the stuff under our bed needed to go to the laundry room, which meant the laundry room stuff needed to go to the hall closet, and, yes, the hall closet stuff needed to go to the garage (just wait till I start Ava and Jack's closets!). The garage, however, was already full of stuff (and seriously I'm not a packrat--I purge like this often! I have no idea where it all comes from!). So Ed (and Jack!) set out to make me wall-to-wall shelves in the garage, perfectly measured to hold the maximum amount of storage tubs.

Making progress inside.

Still a disaster outside.

Ta da!

To be fair to me, I have actually used all of this in the last year, in fact I think I could plan multiple weddings without having to go to a single store! So, some reorganizing down, much more to go. Gotta love January!

This one's for Ed

Ed doesn't think there are enough pictures of Ruby on our blog (she is after all part of the family you know). So here she is in all her doggie glory. The thing about Ruby is that once, a long time ago, I loved her almost as much as Ed does but then we had one, two, three little babies and dealing with one more wiggly, sometimes-stinky, bundle of hairy enthusiasm is usually more than I can (or want to) handle. Last night we went to "Marley and Me" and I give it two big fat thumbs up. The book was fantastic so I wasn't thrilled about seeing the movie but this could be the one movie actually better than the book. Some bits felt like they may have been filmed in our house (!) and while you won't find me letting Ruby lick my face any time soon, I will try to give her a friendly pat now and then.

Helloooo 2009...

Our new year started with a lot of snow,

a lot of love,

and the first house project of the year (yea! more on this later).