What's up?!

It has been a while. We have been enjoying 'normal' life around here. Phil has been on a schedule where he is home between 5-6:30pm every night. What a great thing to have family dinner together every night. He has been gone on Thursday nights for his church calling, but hey I don't want to have to cook dinner every night- right. He has only had to work one weekend since we came back from Christmas so we have been getting in some fun family time.

We haven't done anything super crazy, it is winter in Iowa, but it has been fun having time to clean the house, play, and relax. It has been nice.

McKell has been doing her thing- play dates with friends from school, sleepovers, dance classes, cheer camps, birthday parties, and of course school. She got a great idea that she should be getting money, I told her it was called an allowance. She thought $5 a day sounded good. After laughing out loud I told her we would figure it out at family night. We came up with a little list of chores to do and then she gets $1.50 a week, Alyssa $1.00 (.25 a year). McKell isn't too thrilled with this since she won't be able to buy anything for a while but you have to start somewhere.

Alyssa's teacher sent me this email-

" I'm thinking Alyssa is well on her way to knowing how to win a boy over. Today we were taking turns describing the cool things our robots can do, and when it was her turn she stood up and said, "My robot makes cookies...STAR WARS cookies."
And all the boys were suddenly way more into her robot than anybody elses.
Then, at snack time, Isaac sat down next to Alyssa and was like, "So what is your name again? I forgot."
Luckily all of this is happening right in time for Valentine's Day. "

I thought this was super funny since she has never even seen Star Wars so I asked her about her robot. She told me it made these cookies and I asked her if they were good and she said "Yes, very good. Boys really like them."

As you can see she is still our funny little girl, actually she is getting big. I can't believe she is so old. She loves Teek to death, we sure hope it doesn't literally happen, but sometimes I wouldn't be surprised.

Nate has learned how to catch the ball. We are ready to sign him up for little league. He has added a few words to his babbling and just yesterday actually said two words together, "Mom, up!" I know its not much but for him it is a LOT. He got a little spider man ball from Target and carries it everywhere. He sleeps with it sometimes and after his nap it is still clutched tightly in his little arm like when he went to sleep. He LOVES his sisters and now has the knowledge that he is bigger than Teek. He still doesn't like when Teek chases him and bites his pants.

We had a great time with friends at our Super Bowl party. Have been enjoying fun birthday parties with friends. I love my every once in a while girls night out movies (He's just not that into you is SUPER good (not you mom)).

I have been doing a kit by Becky Higgins, her 365 kit. It will be my scrapbook for 2009. I take a picture and journal everyday. It is awesome!

Valentines are getting done for the girls classes. I realized I have not one picture printed for the year 2007 so I have been trying to edit and print these pictures, wow that sure takes time. So I am trying to get some stuff done before baby arrives, hmmm I still need to figure out his birth announcement.

So we have survived the bitter cold January and have enjoyed the 2 days of warmer weather. I just hope spring comes sooner rather than later.