Our new life...

 WARNING this is going to be a long post...

We have finally started to feel a little settled here.  It has been harder than we expected.  I think the twins especially have had a hard time.  I didn't put them in preschool here for a variety of reasons and they started missing structured activities and their friends.  Heather came back with me from Christmas to be my part time nanny so she is with them three mornings a week, they have fun doing school and crafts with her.  Also, in a effort to help them find a social life, I signed Addy up for ballet which she is LOVING.

first class

I also signed both of them up for Gymnastics a couple weeks ago and that is a highlight of the week for both of them.  The greatest part is that there is a great play area at the gymnastics place that we can use because we are paying for the class.  We have spent quite a bit of time there waiting out the rest of winter.

Our first friends here are a family with 4 yr old boy/girl twins and a 5 1/2 yr old girl.  Perfect combination for all my kids to have a friend.

Eva and Addy

Marcus and Eli

The snow from Nemo lasted for a while, I built the kids a great ramp to aid their sledding.  Sadly, they were not interested in sledding past day 3.

We had a fantastic Valentines day.  Kids get so excited about every holiday (today we all wore green to church for St Patrick's day, and Katie kept asking why they weren't saying anything over the pulpit about the day).

Katie and Jaxon getting her cards ready for her friends.

Valentines Day Katie got up early and got dressed in her carefully planned outfit. (She made the crown in art class at school.)

Addy also had her outfit planned out days in advance (her pants have little hearts all over them, and her hair clips are hearts).

Marcus didn't really care what he wore, but we put some red on him.

I promised the kids we would make heart cupcakes when Katie got home from school.   Poor Miss Addy got sick at some point and fell asleep while we were making them.  Katie wrote her a note and left it on her.  (It said; "Dear Addy, I hope you feel better soon.  I'm so sad that you are sick on Valentines day.  You feel asleep.")

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Addy woke up in time to eat a cupcake for dinner.

In my effort to help Marcus and Addy not be so bored, I have had to step up my game.  (Thank goodness pintrest has come to my rescue.)

We made puffy paint one day.  They had way more fun mixing everything together then they had actually painting.

Jaxon, hanging out, being the angel baby that he is while we worked

Last week Katie had a snow day and  I came downstairs to find this.  The kids had decided to follow a recipe in the Fancy Nancy Beauty Salon book and made a foot scrub.  They also tried to make a honey/banana face mask, but luckily I showed up before that happened--I told them that would have to wait until it was warm enough for us to do it outside.

We have also been having a lot of dance parties around here.  Marcus likes to put Bob Marley on the CD player and the kids dance forever.

Marcus has spent a lot of time working on his moves, he has some pretty good ones.

Mark's sister Emily (and Mike and Rosie) came to visit last week.  We had so much fun hanging out with them.  The kids loved having Rosie around.

Rosie watching the kids dance, trying to figure out what they were doing

Marcus put a bracelet around the mop and called it Rapunzel, he ran around with it like this for two days.

Last Sat was a nice day so we headed to the local park to play for a while. 

And lastly, Addy is just getting funnier and sassier each day.  Every thing that comes out of her mouth is entertaining.  A couple days ago I was doing a reading lesson with Marcus, afterwards we headed to the kitchen to start lunch and I found Miss Addy had already prepared her own lunch--apple, tangerine, and spinach.