We bought ourselves a little something....

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas for a good long time.

And maybe you noticed that there is not actually a house there, yes? Let's call this plan G. Plans A through F fell through in spectacular fashion...one after another, giant doors that seemed so right, slamming shut at the very last minute. Plan G was a very nice surprise that has been crazy smooth (just the way I like it). In fact when we drove by and saw the sold sign before we had actually paid our money, I was pretty sure that they had gone and sold it to someone else. But, nope, it's ours. And the house will hopefully not be too far behind, although the next step will be trying to get all the neighborhood dogs to stop pooping here. We like to keep our expectations small, ya know?

This face...

the lashes

the eyes

where's Henry?

there he is!

clappin' for himself

And my favorite: the nose wrinkle

I wish I could bottle some of this goodness and save it for later!

Cuddlin'

Ava's birthday ended with a surprise bout of pink eye. She was super bummed to miss school the next day when she was supposed to bring in treats but a certain someone was so so pleased to have her home all day!

Happy Birthday (beautiful, kind, sweet) Ava Blythe!

Kit!

Jem modeled Ava's new shades

Celebrating with her cousins

Love them!

My first wee baby is 9. Nine. Halfway to eighteen (whoever said that is an idiot). And we like her. A lot. She's so thoughtful and helpful. Nurturing. Kind-hearted. And we're proud of her too. Happy Birthday Ava!

Road Trip!

to one of our favorite places on earth...the Wallowas

sweet Henry

Why we love love it so much:

I read!

all day snackin'

all day snugglin'

walking

feeding the "deers"

sledding on a garbage bag

ice cream cones before bed (thanks to grandpa)

tuckered out and heading home.

breakfast giggles

I love these two.

Basketball!

This is Ava's first year of basketball and she is loving it! It helps that her team is awesome...tonight they won by 20. And while she hasn't actually scored any of those points, it still has to be a good thing to start off her basketball career with all these wins!

Plus, she's pretty darn cute.

January Family Picture!

My one and only resolution this year is to get a family photo every month. We got this one just a couple hours before February started and nobody is too pleased to be in it but hey, it was January and it was the six of us!

It's been a long couple weeks

and this is not an unusual sight.

The view down the hall...

She's almost nine...

how did that happen?

sunshine and legos

what more do you need?

Cowboy Day!

Seriously, the highlight of Kindergarten.

Jack and Sara with Grandma and sweet Mary there...she and Jack are kindred spirits. He thinks he might marry her one day but if not, they "will always be friends".

change of plans

Remember that night we were going to do nothing at all? Well, we headed out for pizza and decided to stop for a haircut for Jack (yes, Ed usually buzzes him but we like to do a big kid cut every once in awhile). Jack looked so awesome, we threw Henry in the chair for his first big cut:

He sat perfectly still but halfway through, his bottom lip came out and stayed till the very end.

And then we decided to do Jemma too:

She was less than thrilled.

Ava was disappointed we didn't do her too but I cannot bring myself to cut that girl's hair. Which is funny since I have a distinct memory of being in third grade and wanting to grow my hair out and my mom wouldn't let me and I thought when I'm a mom, I'm going to let me kids do whatever they want with their own hair. Ha.

Ed and I headed to Vegas for a quick (work!) trip last week. I was literally running so crazy that I didn't even have time to think about this trip till we were on the plane. I was hoping for some serious downtime but it ended up being a pretty crazy trip. Usually when I tag along on a work trip, Ed works and I hang in the hotel room with room service and pay per view but this trip included lots of events for the wives (seriously, sometimes his company reminds me of "The Firm"...you know, "the firm encourages families"...ah, I love that book.) Anyway! We had some amazing dinners and great tickets to Cirque du Soleil. And a whole lotta small talk. And let me tell ya, I am never more aware of all my lost brain cells (thanks to my little monkeys) than when I am at these kinds of events. On the last night I ended up seated next to one of the top top guys (and we're talking about a billion dollar company here) from the Switzerland headquarters and after a momentary panic (brain search...how do I know nothing about Switzerland?), we ended up chatting for hours about ski chalets, bilingual nannies (he has them, I don't) and the beauty of one year-olds (that one I know). Ed and I did get a couple hours together and here's the proof...my camera wasn't working so these are all from Ed's phone.

We watched the end of the Superbowl at the Venetian and then hit Cabo Wabo for dinner outside (don't be fooled...it was chilly but that's a heater behind his head and we were eating outside no matter what), then we walked the strip and ran into Buzz and Woody:

That one's for Jack.

We had one quick lunch outside again--the best thing about Vegas is that you can sit and watch people for hours.

After the last meeting, we had about an hour before we had to get to the airport so we squeezed in one last thing...the NY NY roller coaster:

(we got in trouble big time for taking this picture!)

Last shot....the temps hit 70 as we were leaving.....