Flowers of the month

As part of my Xmas gift, Matt got me flowers for every month of 2014. I managed to not take a picture of the January flowers, but they were beautiful. They were Costa Rican flowers and reminded me of our trip there. This month, I received orchids, which reminded me of our wedding reception. :)

White out

Could barely see out my window at work yesterday! For some reason, it made me feel very claustrophobic.

A few more pics

I am always snapping pictures or videos of the girls... I'm trying to get more of them on this blog.

From yesterday - this is how I found them after their nap
Avery had taken her shirt off and Morgan was giggling - typical

This is what I like to call "mullet pigtails"
She still doesn't have much hair up front

Loving the fact we finally have two of these chairs

Such helpful girls
Love to put away (and take back out) the groceries

Valentine's Day

We celebrated Valentine's Day with our annual brunch at Theresa's house. Gets crazier every year with the addition of more kiddos! Luckily, Theresa's house has a big playroom and loads of fun things for the kids to play with.

Valentine's Day card for Daddy

Getting ready for our annual Valentine's Brunch

Beautiful flowers from my three favorite Valentines

Moms and kids at our annual Valentine's Day brunch
(me, Avery, Morgan, Lauren and Mason, Grayson, Erin - row 1
Kayla, Hany, Corina, Shannon, Theresa - row 2)

Dads and kids at our annual Valentine's Day brunch
(Grant, Matt, Lee, Matt, Ross)

My little Valentine Avery

Princess Avery - such a little girl
Both girls had a blast playing with Lauren and Mason's toys

Random pics from Matt's phone

So, I finally uploaded the pics from Matt's camera and found a few fun ones to share...

At a wedding last fall

Before - Matt did an experiment to see what the girls would run to first

After - Avery picked the dolls and Morgan picked the stacked toys

Thanksgiving pic - the girls and their 2nd cousin Quinn
(who was born less than a week after them)

At a HUGE xmas tree display in Ohio - gymnasium filled with pretty trees

I think she liked it!

The girls like to eat!

Matt was watching the girls and hadn't seen Avery for a bit
Turns out she was sitting in a box at the end of the hall

Hey Dad - what's up!

Got the fire gloves on to fry up the turkey!

Random

I love looking back through my phone at all the pictures I take every day.

Avery was laughing at cousin Grayson

Cutie-patootie cousin Nolan  

Avery loves sitting in the laundry basket

We made footprint pictures for the grandparents.
I think they ate more paint than they painted with!

The girls LOVE LOVE LOVE bath time!

Pigtails!

The kids love cell phones!

Avery loves to take her clothes off

And she loves to wear her coat around the house

Starting the Christmas tradition of
putting together toys for the girls

Avery and Daddy

We go through a LOT of food!

Avery took the top of her onesie off
and accessorized with "bracelets"

Wearing Grandma's scarf

The girls are infatuated with jumping on the couch!
We had to move their bed mattress by the couch, so we'd have less injuries.

Love these little purple cowboy hats!

I love these shirts!

Hanging out on the top floor of our building

Hanging out on the top floor of our building

Avery loves to wear hats!

We got a new arm chair for the girls. I thought it was going to be big enough for them both to sit in, but it's not. They fight over it all the time. I tried to order another one, but it's on backorder. Hope it comes in soon!

Playing catch up

So... what has been going on with the Plothows since Thanksgiving? Here is a quick recap:

• HGTV filmed an episode of House Hunters in our condo in early December. We were one of the other two not-picked places. The people had already bought a place in Lincoln Park, but were going to do the show, so they needed two additional places for them to walk through and pretend they were considering. (Sorry if I'm ruining the show for you, but that's how it works.) They filmed for an entire day at our condo. Apparently, they do every shot three times (like they walk through the front door three times, they check out the master bedroom three times), so that's why it takes so long. The episode is going to air sometime in March or April. We're supposed to get a copy beforehand. If they don't bash our place too bad, we'll let everyone know when it's on. :)
• We had such fun over Christmastime at Grandma and Grandpa D's place. It was a crazy few days with three toddlers and little Nolan and all of us in the house. As is our Christmas tradition, the guys fried a turkey (and a chicken), which were delicious! And Matt and I kept our family tradition of matching PJs. We all got such nice gifts from everyone. Aunt Erin found a big bouncy house and we blew it up in my parents living room for the kids to play in. The girls LOVED the slide on it! The girls were so worn out by the time we left that they slept the entire way back to Chicago from Rochester (um, that was their Christmas present to us!)

Trying to get the 3 kiddos to sit in chairs for a picture. Fail.

Our Christmas card picture

Matching PJs on Christmas morning

Our little Santa Avery

Morgan cuddling with Regina

Mommy and Morgan

Mommy and Avery

The girls HATED Santa

Our little silly Santa Morgan

Playing outside - Avery didn't want to leave the driveway.
Morgan was all over the place! This is their personalities to a tee!

• We rang in the New Year in comfy clothes with make-your-own-pizzas and yummy libations. The Wilkens came over and the three little ones ran through the house screaming and laughing at each other. They really enjoy playing together. I was worried our neighbors would complain! Their path of destruction was down our long hallway and back and then around our kitchen island. They must have run this path 50 times. The kiddos all went to sleep and the adults relaxed and watched the ball drop.

Morgan didn't like the noisemakers

Looks like she's partied a little too hard!

• I'm back to work full-time now. Since the girls were born, I had been taking Fridays off work. It was nice to have the extra time to run errands or catch up on stuff around the house. But, it was only supposed to be temporary, so back to working Fridays I go.
• The girls had their 15 month check up in early January. They had to get 4 shots, which was no fun. Add to that the fact that Morgan was SO tired and just wanted to nap... well, it was meltdown city for her. She cried the entire time after her shots until we put her in her car seat to go home. She was asleep before we even left the doctor's parking garage! Morgan was 32" and weighed 24lb 15oz (90th percentile for height and weight). Avery was 31" and weighed 24lb 5oz (60th percentile for height and 85th percentile for weight). Both girls are healthy and doing great!

• The girls had a great visit with Grandma Ruth recently! They put puzzles together, snuggled, played with toys and read lots of books!

• Our favorite little neighborhood place, Holiday Bar and Grill, closed. Hopefully, they will be opening back up in a new location soon. They are still negotiating, but hoping to stay in the neighborhood. We spent many a Saturday morning there with the girls for brunch. They would keep our favorite table reserved for us each week!
• And the best news is... we SOLD OUR CONDO! Got an offer in December, but it wasn't serious and we weren't able to come to a deal. So, that was disappointing. But we got another offer in January and after three showings and negotiations back and forth, we were able to come to a deal with the buyers! Keeping the place clean and tidy with two little destroyers running around was not easy. I am so happy that part of the process is over!
• Oh, and related to that... this past week they came to do an inspection. Remember that we have a 2 bedroom condo in a building that is not even that old. The inspector took 3 hours looking through our place! I can't even imagine what the report is going to look like. Our realtor said she doesn't think they found anything major, so I'm expecting a laundry list of small crap. We should find out in the next day or so. 

I'm sure I'm missing lots of stuff. My goal for this year is to try to maintain this blog a little better. I really do want the girls to be able to go back and read through this someday and look at all the pictures. It's been my baby book for their first year and hopefully will continue to be a good place to document their lives. :)