Pinkalicious

My girls have gone crazy over this book within the last two weeks. We checked it out at the library and they want it read to them each night. Last night Adalie begged for us to make pink cupcakes today. I went out and bought the stuff and we made the cupcakes!

More of our Girls

More things to remember about our girls......

Adalie:
The last few days she has been so sweet!! Hallie has been having a hard time going to sleep at night since we have been back from North Carolina and Adalie being the sweet big sister that she is has been letting Hallie sleep in her bed. She talks so sweet to us and Hallie and tells us she loves us. She has been extra cuddly with Nate and he has been thoroughly enjoying that.

Adalie likes to take care of me. One day I was laying in m bed and she came in and put a blanket on me. She told me she got the blanket from the forest while she was there looking for a husband. She found a husband and he was in the living room watching a "daddy movie".

Nate has tried to explain to Adalie many times that humans have muscles and that we eat the muscles of animals (I know, graphic for a 4 year old, but she has so many questions that we try to just give it to her straight). Well she still didn't get it--or didn't like the answer. So I was explaining that we DON'T eat human muscles (but yet we have muscles), only animals and it is okay. Her response, "No Mom, okay this is how is works--we eat chickens and then their muscles slither down our arms and that's how we get our muscles". I left it at that....


Hallie:
She has become quite the comedian in our family. She makes us all laugh so much! A few days ago she while we were eating dinner she snuck over to the garbage and spit out her food. Nate attempted to discipline her:

Nate: "Hallie! Don't spit out your food. Do you need to go sit in your room?"
Hallie: "But dad wook (look) at what I can do" she had piggy tails in her hair and started swinging them back and forth. Nate ran into the other room and laughed because he didn't want her to think she could win him over so easy.

Hallie monitors Nate and I when we are driving in the car. She watches our every move to make sure we are "being nice to each other".  If she sees a problem she will intervene. On the way to church one day I said something smart alec to Nate and immediately I hear from the back seat "Mom you look at me, now you say sorry to daddy!"

One morning Nate, Hallie, and I were laying in our bed and Hallie was telling us which people were boys and which were girls so Nate said, "What about Adam Lambert" she said "boy". Then he asked, "what about Lady Gagga".....Hallie looked confused and asked, "What does a Lady Gagga mean?"

Life is Good!

Well I would have to say that life is good! Just after Christmas I was dreading coming back to South Bend to finish school. Of course I want school to be over, but I was having a hard time with the city of South Bend (not the people). We live in a TINY run down apartment that has new nasty smells each day!! Nate being in school for long ours and possibly adding more to his plate with an internship. However, I am happy to report that all of the good around us makes up for the tiny apartment and surroundings. I LOVE the people here and have so much fun! I have made a great group of friends who I will be sad to leave in a few months!!

There is also other good things happening in our family! #1 Hallie is potty trained!! It feels sooo good! I love that I don't have to change poopy diapers!! I think I am about 90% confident in Hallie's potty training which is pretty dang good if you ask me. This Sunday at church was the third Sunday that Hallie has gone diaperless and this is the first time I was not nervous about leaving her and an accident occurring.
In addition Nate is working his butt off networking/applying to jobs. Hopefully something will come up soon. We know it will eventually, just not sure when. As for me I read this new book about being organized (you know its January, all about weight loss and organization) and I have been following the steps provided in the book and it has REALLY helped me in so many ways. I think this has helped tremendously in living in a 500 sq ft apartment.

Because of all of the organizing I went through Adalie's gigantic pile of clothes and pulled out the ones she does not like. The majority of them clutter her room and dresser and she never wears them. So now she has only a few outfits haha. Oh well. I have learned that if I ever buy her anything new that she HAS to be with me to decide which ones she likes. So now I have brand new clothes that fit her and are stored away for Hallie. Here is the sad part of this story....so awhile ago I noticed blisters on her toes. I assumed it was a one time thing so I ignored it. Then months later I noticed it again and decided to act on it. I has Adalie try on about 6 pairs of her shoes and they were all SO tight on her. I felt so bad! She never said anything! All of those shoes were either size 8 or 9. So I bought her a new pair of boots online that she wanted that were size 10. When they came in the mail we discovered they were too tight! Basically she wore size 8 for so long that she was up to size 11!! How sad is that?! Anyways she is down to 3 pairs of shoes that fit until her new boots come. Oh and lets not forget I did close to the same thing with Hallie. She had 2 pairs of church shoes and they were both WAY to small! She got new shoes last week!

 It's not everyday that they are cuddling so I had to capture it

 Hallie trying on my boots 

 22 weeks (I don't think I was this big with my girls, yikes)!

Hallie started a mini preschool with her friend Hannah once a week and this was her first day.

Sledding

Yesterday we went sledding with our friends the Coates and Perkins. The kids had so much fun and lasted longer than I expected!

 

 Getting ready to leave and jumping on our new sled the air mattress, I know, white trash

 Sisters

 The family

 How many kids can we fit on the mattress? 

All of the "big" kids racing each other. Each time they raced someone fell off....however only a few tears were shed.

Hoarder!

So Hallie has a ritual every bed/nap time! She has to put everything in her crib before she will fall asleep. This has been going on now for a about 2 weeks. She often sleeps with Adalie at night (until we move her into her crib after she is asleep) and puts Adalie through the mess. Adalie is not really a fan, but puts up with it.

December

 We had a very eventful December! It will all be in pictures and not in the complete right order.....

 

During finals week I went to the Nutcracker in Chicago with some of my best friends here. All of our husbands are in the MBA program together and will all graduate this May.

Lauren, Heather, Shelley, me, Amy, and Aimee

 

 At Nate's parents house in North Carolina, getting ready to bake Santa some cookies

 Decorating cookies for Santa

 Ready for Bed on Christmas Eve!

 At Virginia Beach just before the New Year

 Virginia Beach

 I love this picture! 

 We were staying at an Army Base in Virginia while we were visiting some American history sites. The girls climbed up into the windowsill and started talking on their "phones" and it was pretty cute.

 Yorktown, VA 

 Williamsburg, VA. This was Thomas Jefferson. All around the town there were people dressed in character and you can talk to each of them and basically get a history lesson. It was really fun and probably my favorite part of Virginia.

 Kitty Hawk where the Wright brothers made their first flight

 More Kitty Hawk...

 One of my old friends from High School, Corina,  lives about 2 hours away from Nate's parents house so we took a day trip up to see her family.

 

On our way home from the break we stayed in a cool little hotel just off of the Ohio River

 Ron and Vickie's house

 Christmas Eve dinner (so good)!!

 Christmas morning

 Vickie and Ron at Yorktown

Finally, all except Ron in Williamsburg, VA

4 Going On 16...or 20....

Tonight Nate and I went out on a date so our good friends Brad and Shelley watched our girls. As the time to leave was approaching.....
Me: Adalie get ready, we are leaving to Noah's house
Adalie: What! We are going to Noah's?! I gotta change, I need to put some pretty clothes on!

She came out in a dress and frantically needed my bracelet, some bows in her hair and some make-up. As we were waiting for her to get ready (which was taking a long time) ....
Me: Adalie come on lets go
Adalie: Okay, I'm just putting on my lip stick (she got some play make-up for Christmas)

While she was getting ready Nate kept telling Adalie she can't get married and her firm response was, "When I am older I am marrying Noah!"

Then as we were getting ready to walk out of the door she had to run and put a scarf on in order to complete her outfit. Shelley took the two of them to Chuck E Cheese and they had a ball...during this "date" they named their first child "Jello" and even after a small spat they claimed they were still getting married!! Oh brother!!! This is only the beginning!!!

It's a BOY!

We found out just before Christmas that we are having a boy!!! We are SOOO excited!!! I watched Nate as we learned it was a boy and he was doing all he could to stay seated in his chair. He was holding Adalie on his lap who also REALLY wanted it to be a boy and she was so excited trying not to scream! We have been loading up on boy clothes since then thanks to friends and a little shopping!!

Thanksgiving

Finally I am updating our blog!

For Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to visit family in Utah. It was a short trip and we did not even get to see all of our family and most of our friends. We will hopefully be back soon!! I also did not take ONE picture with my camera!! Luckily my sister-in-law Sami took them all for me!! I guess I will use the excuse that I was still suffering from a little bit of morning sickness and so I didn't care enough to pull my camera out.

 Kaiden and the girls in their fort

 Grandma teaching her primary lessons (Adalie's favorite)

 Gardner Village

 On the train to see the lights downtown