how to survive a rainy week

So we are super bored around here. It has been raining and cold all week and we have been inside way too much. Mary sent the girls a rainy day survival pack, it has lots of crayons and Paint. Violet loves to paint and color but Claire really loves to finger paint. It's even more fun if you get to be nakie while you paint because then you get to do body art too.

our little "butting" artist. ok now you know how bored I am I am making up unfunny puns :)
what?

Also, since Peter doesn't get home till 7 it has been a real struggle to get dinner made without a big fight, a tantrum and some destruction, so I decided we needed something cool to keep in the kitchen to keep the girls entertained while I made dinner. A little plastic tote filled with play sand and some sand toys and cars and animals and little plastic jewels and bugs and you've got an indoor sandbox! I know you think I may be insane but the girls are pretty good about keeping the sand in the box and they loved it! They sat for 45 minutes straight while I made dinner.

I buried a bunch of stuff in the sand and the girls had so much fun finding everything. Claire found an elephant!

Also on thursday we got to sneak over to the cider mill after preschool with Olivia and Rachel. There were baby goats born that morning and they were so precious! My camera was at home so maybe Rachel will share some pictures on her blog later. The girls had a blast and of course we had some donuts. We left just as the rain started and a field trip of preschoolers showed up. Just in time! So we are surviving our boring rainy season, but we are really anxious for some sunny weather! Hope you all are well. We are ready to count down to August when everyone will be here.

Oh kids

The girls have been having bedtime at the same time the past couple of weeks and we usually have a quiet show going on the mini dvd player to help keep them quiet while they fall asleep. Well Claire fell asleep right away and I went to check on Violet. She had the light on, and was standing in Claire's crib watching the show! Claire slept through the whole thing.

I cannot believe that our little Sam is 3 now. I was pregnant with him when we moved to Houston and to think we've been here over 3 years now, that seems like a long time. Around Christmas time the boys got really into dinosaurs. For Sam's birthday we went to the Dino museum and they both got model dinosaur bones.

We opted out of the traditional cake route for Sam'e birthday and went with blueberry muffins instead. He's not really a cake guy, and that is okay, we really didn't need a big birthday cake to eat up.

We had a great time with the Flynn family. Our kids really took to Kya, especially Sam.

Allison and Kya got along really well, as well as 8 month olds can get along. They are very cute.

Kya and her buddy Sam, he is such a softy when it comes to babies.

That is about all we've been up to. The boys are taking swimming lessons and Wesley loves them! Sam is a little more leary of the water, but hopefully he will get it someday. Growing up in Washington we never really HAD to learn how to swim because honestly I never really remember going to a pool. But here, swimming is the thing to do in the sweltering summer sunshine. So we learn to swim. I wish I could swim. It looks really fun, and it is good exercise too!

What a cutie :)

Kya is starting young :)

A weekend at Seaside

Of course I did these backwards but I'm not going to fix it because Claire is sitting on my lap so my time is limited. Anyways, we went to Seaside this weekend with my Dad. We had so much fun, even though it is February and was cold for a lot of the time, we had a great time when it was sunny out. Here is a picture of Peter at the beach.

On Sunday morning we headed out to the beach to play in the sand, the girls had so much fun and loved digging in the sand and chasing all the seagulls.

V had to ride every pony in seaside.

Having a tea party in a toy store.

Claire playing in the arcade, little girls don't need quarters to have fun at the arcade. They both had a great time pretending to drive.

There was a carousel at the mall and we got there very early and so we rode several times. This picture was on Sunday when V had already gotten used to the ride, on Saturday she was less than enthusiastic about the whole thing and didn't stop crying till about midway through the ride, she got upset when it was time to get off though.

a beautiful sunny day at the beach :)

taking a morning walk on the beach. We were there really early and the sand was frozen. The beach was so quiet that morning it was so nice. The waves were on mute or something.

the frozen sand. Don't worry it warmed up really quickly. It was actually a really sunny weekend.

The girls in the bunk bed eating pizza and watching a movie before bed. We'll just ignore the fact that they stayed up till 11 that night....aren't they cute in their jammies?

V on the carousel for the first time, this was when she was first realizing she was having fun.

Claire on a sea horse. Claire loved riding the carousel, she just sat there and quietly said "weeeee" the whole time. so sweet.

we also went to the seaside aquarium, it is a small aquarium but the girls enjoyed feeding the seals and touching all the stuff in the touch tanks.

V on the boardwalk Saturday morning.

V riding her bike outside our cabin. she prefers to just be pushed but maybe soon she will pedal for us :)

Our camera is starting to go so some of our pictures don't turn out so we have taken a lot more videos. This first one is of the girls feeding the seals at the aquarium. Don't worry they don't always stay in that tiny tank. it was so much fun to feed them. They would clap their flippers and splash and bark. it was cool to be so close.

These next two are of the carousel and the bumper cars. Claire is too young to do bumpercars so just V went. Again she didn't realize she was having fun till midway through.

These two videos are of Claire barking out our cabin window....I don't think there was a dog. And another of her chasing a seagull on the beach.

this video is of Violet running in from playing in the waves. She had run out their with Gpa and realized the water was FREEZING! so she ran right in to give her Dad a hug.

We had so much fun on our weekend at the beach. It was nice to get away for a weekend.

While I was surfing the web

I was aimlessly wandering around blog land this morning. V is at school and Claire is having a tired morning and wanted to watch a diego....I on the other hand have tons to do, I'm just not doing it. Procrastination is my best skill. anyways i found a wonderful blog post that I wanted to share. here is the link, it's marriage advice and I thought it was great.

http://www.martawrites.com/2010/04/wedded-bliss-5-bits-of-advice.html

Hope you are all having a great week.

Flowers in February

Ok so it has been rainy and gray for far too long. About this time every year I am done with winter and ready for some sunshine. So in my Vitamin D deficient state I went and bought a couple flowers to plant with the girls so I could have something spring like to look at in my kitchen.

Violet and Claire had so much fun helping me plant my flowers, they got out their sand shovels and filled the pot up for me. I was wanting to do this outside but it was pouring down rain that day so we did it in the kitchen.

two girls and a bag of dirt, what more could you want :)

Violet has been taking pictures with my camera and this is one she took of me the other day. I think it's getting to be time to replace our camera, thank goodness for tax return season!