A few of my favorite things

The girls have been doing so much lately. Here are a few things that I absolutley love that they do:

Addie asks if we can play Dr. every day before she takes a nap. So cute.



Macie gets excited about learning. She now knows how to write almost all of her letters. She loves to write her name and is asking all of the time how to spell things.



Addie said to me today: "mom, put my shoe on right now! or you will go to time out" sooo funny



Macie loves to try and lift Addie up. She tells Addie to get onto the couch and then has Addie fall into her arms and she carries her around the room. They both love it and think that they are sooo funny.



Addie has an ongoing joke. First, a little background, when Geoff went to Oklahoma for his interview, he taught Addie how to say Oklahoma. When she said it, we would all laugh because we thought that it was so cute. Now whenever you ask her a question, like, what do you want for breakfast, she will say "Oklahoma cereal" and then start laughing her head off. She truly thinks that she is sooooo funny. It is quite hilarious.



Macie likes to put her arm around Geoff and smoosh their faces together and then say "best friends" She truly thinks that they are best friends. So cute.



Hearing Addie say "oh man" in the right way. Hilarious.

Macie calls her teachers at school "Mr.Kate and Mr. Erin" instead of Ms. Kate and Ms. Erin. She just can't figure out the Ms. thing. It is really funny and I love to hear her say it. In return, her teachers call her "Mr. Macie".



Watching Macie and Addie play and laugh together...melts my heart.



On Monday when we were doing family night, I was getting ready to do the lesson, and Macie jumps up and says, I want to do the lesson tonight. (Geoff and I looked at each other shocked, because we have asked her to do this before and the answer is always no.) So she runs upstairs and grabs a paper that she made in church. It was a picture of the manger scene. She then proceeded to tell us the whole story of Jesus and who was there in the manger. It was such a sweet little moment. She was so proud of herself and now says that she wants to do the lesson every week with the same picture. :)



Macie has a such a sweet and loving way about her. She truly cares for those around her and wants to be everyone's friend. She is very responsible. She makes her bed everyday without having to be asked and cleans up her room as well. She loves to surprise me with her clean room on a daily basis. I have to close my eyes and walk into her room and act completely surprised. (Which I do, and I act EXTREMELY happy every.single.time. becuase I want to encourage her to keep doing it! So far it is working!) She says that she likes to do it because she knows that it makes me happy. What a sweet heart.



Addie is a fire cracker. She is hilarious and knows it. She has quite the sense of humor on her and will be making us laugh our way through life. She is almost impossible to get mad at because she always trys to do something funny and make you laugh or you just have to say it in a more serious tone and then she listens. She loves her mommy and loves for me to hold her. I could hold her all day long and it still wouldn't be enough for her. She acts kind of shy around new people, but then warms up and is fine.



I love you girls so much and just want you to know how you were at this age and what types of things you did.

Things we've up to

We have been having a great time lately. The past few weeks have been full of fun. There has been alot of snowing. Alot of singing and dancing, and alot of playing with dad. Addie has been to the Dr. for her 2 1/2 year old check up and has gained 3 lbs which puts her at 26 whole pounds. She has also grown an inch since July. So she is now in the 25% for height and 5% for weight. Growing girl. Macie started doing ice skating lessons. She has been for 3 weeks now and is liking it. She gets better every week. Alot better. It is fun to see her grow in different areas and try new things. Although she still says that she likes dance better and wants to get back in a dance class. Dancing to Hey Now.Addie's awesome hair!! Static!!Macie dancing. She is always very serious when she dances.Macie's splits!Addie's balancing move. (She fell over about .2 seconds after this!)Sisterly Love! I am in LoVe with this picture!!! So Cute!Burying dad under all of their toys!!! Can you find him?Geoff reading the girls some stories.
And last, but not least, a movie of the girls singing to Phantom of the Opera: I.LOVE.IT. It is seriously hilarious!

Sledding

Yesterday we went sledding. It looked like a good day. Then we stepped outside and the sun went away and when we got to the hill....it was FREEZING!!!! We were able to get a few pictures in the little amount of time that we were there. Addie got to go down once before she and I headed to the car to warm up. Geoff and Macie stayed out for about 10 more minutes getting their last runs in. Macie could have stayed there all day. There is something about being a kid and just having a good time despite how cold it is. I couldn't even feel my hands, so I am sure that hers were freezing!
Macie coming up the hill after heading down all by herself. Last year, that wasn't even an option. This year we had to beg her to let us take a turn with her!! She is just getting soooo big!Geoff and Addie trying to stay warm and waiting for a turn on the sled.All three of them going down the hill. Addie was ok in the beginning, but then about half way through, there were some girls who were not paying attention and Geoff had to "put on the breaks" as Macie said. (AKA...put down his feet to slow down). Anyways, when he put his feet down, a bunch of snow flew into Addie's face and she was not happy!! One turn on the sled was all it took for her to know that she did not like it!Macie coming up the hill again. She went down by herself and here she is telling Geoff that she almost ran into those same girls, but then she "put on her brakes" and wiped out and got her face wet in the snow. She even said that she yelled "watch out" to them, but they did not listen!Here she is going all by herself. So brave!

Dodge Ball

Back in October Geoff played in an intramural dodge ball tournament. We went to watch thinking that we would only be there for about 1 hour. (They did this same thing back in February and lost after only 2 games, so we were only there for about an hour and we were expecting the same thing this time!!) Little did we know that they would go on to WIN the entire thing!!!! We were so proud of him and the other dental students!! They were pretty stoked as well. They were particularly proud of the all girls team that they beat which allowed them to win more than the original 2 games!
What made it even more fun was that we were in this little area with all of the kids for about 4 hours watching!!!
When I say little area, I mean a little bench with a screened in window!! So much fun!! (Actually the kids did really well and just ran around and played together, it didn't really seem like we were there for that long.)Here is Geoff in action. Way to go babe!! We think that you are just sooooo amazing!

cell phone

Tonight at dinner Macie gave us a glance at what our future would be like. She had a play cell phone and came down to dinner talking on it. She then got about 4-5 more "phone calls" from her friends during dinner. When I asked her what they were calling about she said they were all so excited about the sleep over they were having tonight that they had to keep calling her. I had to actually ask her to tell her friends that we were eating dinner and that she couldn't talk right now. Then to make it even more real, I had to actually threaten her with taking her cell phone away because she wasn't eating and was "talking" on it to much.....Is this really what we are in for?!!

House For Sale

Our time here in Cleveland is nearing an end and the time has come for us to put our house up for sale. It is a bitter sweet thing to do. We have truly loved this house, the neighborhood, and all of the memories that we have here, but we are also excited to move on to new things. Here is the house blog for anyone interested. If you know anyone moving to the Cleveland area...let them know about my house!! http://www.barnumhome.blogspot.com/

2011

Happy New Year!! We had such a great New Years Eve!! We started off with going ice skating!! There is a rink here in Cleveland that is outside and is free. You just have to rent the skates. It is a synthetic rink, which means that the ice is not real, it is actually just some type of boards that click together to make a rink. To say that it was interesting is an understatement! It was very hard to ice skate on, but it was still alot of fun!! Geoff and I had a good time, and Macie loved it. We are now thinking of putting her in ice skating lessons to see how she does. Here are some pics...
Macie getting on the ice for the first time.Addie running around the ice rink.Macie and I skating together. At this point my legs just kept spreading farther and farther apart. I.could.not.stop.laughing!!Macie trying it out on her own. She actually did a pretty good job.Geoff and Addie taking a break. Love this picture!

Then later, the Welch's came over and we had a little party for the kids. They got to run around in their pj's and play horns and noisy toys and march around in a parade.Here are the kids doing their noise parade!Outside ringing in the London New year!! (We counted down to the London New Year for the kids! They loved it!!)Doing some silly string!And some bubbles!The Welch'sOur first family picture of 2011!! (technically it is our last family picture of 2010, but hey, now it can be both!)

Then Later, after the kids were sleeping, we threw a little adult party. It was way fun and was a great way to ring in the new year!

Happy 2011!! We are excited to see what this year has in store for us! There are sure to be many big changes, but we are ready and can't wait to see what they are!