Snow

It finally warmed up enough to play outside in the snow. The girls had been begging for days. They loved breaking off all the icicles from the playset.

And one of their favorite parts of playing in the snow is warming up afterwards. They cranked up the fire and sat in front of it while downing their hot chocolate!

Dinosaurs and Sharks, oh my

We went to the Dinosaur Time Trek: Shark Edition this weekend with my sister and brother's families. I wasn't sure what to expect. I had told the girls I thought there would be face painting. Morgan said before we went she wanted to get her face painted like a t-rex and Avery said she wanted a purple pterodactyl. And surprisingly, those were two of the six or so options at the face painting station. So, the girls were really jazzed about that!

There were lots of activities, like digging for fossils.

And a few shows. This was so freaky - a guy was wearing a skeleton and walking around. We got our picture taken with him.

Avery found the craft table, of course. She made a little dinosaur to take home.

Here the girls are at another show with Dino Babies.

Not only were there dinosaurs, but there were sharks!

They had another fossil experience where you sifted out the fossils and matched them up to a sheet. Each set of fossils had teeth, snails, etc. for you to find. Not sure what we'll do with them, but we got to bring them home.

Morgan spent a lot of time watching this t-rex. It was moving around and would roar every few seconds.

We couldn't leave without checking out dinosaur poop! There were holes you could stick your arm in and feel inside. It was warm brown playdoh type stuff inside. So gross!

Afterwards, we went to a nearby McDonald's with a play place and let all the kiddos play. The girls were exhausted after all this and took a nice nap!

Date night

We had Lily come babysit again, so Matt and I could get out for a nice dinner away from the kiddos. Lily is a teenager we met at the chili cook off a few months back. She is really sweet and the girls love her. Its nice that her parents are right down the street if anything happens while we are out.

I like to try new (to us) places around our area, so we went to Parker's for dinner. We both liked our meals a lot and we even got a free dessert. Score! And we ran into another WTW colleague that Matt has worked with. He was there for his mom's birthday. Funny, because on another date night we had run into a colleague of ours at RBK. We don't really know that many people in DG, so it's crazy that we run into people we know when we're out.

Does he have gigantic hands? Or is that the smallest bottle of tobasco ever? ;)

Last week

Last week was a rough one for Morgan. She picked up a nasty cough/cold and was not feeling well for a few days. She seems to get higher fevers when she's sick than Avery. It's sad to see her not feeling well, because she's normally so active and in a good mood.

I kept both the girls home from school because I thought if Morgan felt better, Avery could keep her entertained so that I might get some work done. Turns out, I was entertaining them both a lot because they were going a little stir crazy being holed up in the house for so long.

This was one activity I set up that actually killed some time.

Her fever finally went away on Saturday and it was like she did a 180. Back to her normal self, except for the nasty cough which is sticking around.

Pump it up

A classmate of the girls, Ronan, had a birthday party at Pump It Up in Lisle. We had never been there before, so the girls were really excited. We spent the first half of the party in the dark room with black lights. The second half was in a room with more fun, but regular lights. Then, there was a special visit from Skye and Marshall from Paw Patrol. So much fun!

Avery was determined to get to the top of this. You have flags and have to try to attach them to the velcro dots. She spent most of her time working on this!

The second room had big jump-ies and slides and a little obstacle course.

All the kids love Skye and Marshall!

After all that playing, we had pizza and cake. Here are Avery and Morgan with the birthday boy (top right) in the big birthday chair.

A few random pics

Just a few pictures from a week in the life of Avery and Morgan...

So, this girl here loves getting her picture taken. We were walking out of Hobby Lobby and Avery yells at me "Hey, take my picture on this bench!". Um, ok. Ha!

Morgan graduated to the next level at swimming lessons. She mastered the "flip to breathe" level. Not sure what they do at the next level. We will see! She's such a fish!

This girl has not learned how to eat jelly toast without getting it all over herself! Every.single.time!

Thanks to You Tube, the girls wanted to take their duplicate LOL Dolls and "customize" them. Avery made us buy air-drying clay and lots of other random crafty things to "custom" their dolls. They had a blast doing this.

Crazy eyes! We have no idea where she gets her artistic talent from, but she is really creative!

I think Morgan's goal was to pile as much clay and sparkles and goop on her dolls!

When Daddy works late all week...

We get to go to McDonald's for dinner!

Avery loves these kitty cat ear muffs and wears them all the time. Ha!

Chillin'

On New Year's Day, we took it easy. Lots of couch time watching My Little Pony with a little football mixed in.

Happy New Year

We spent New Year's Eve at home in our comfy clothes hanging out with the Wilkens'.  Our countdown was at 8PM-ish. We did have a balloon drop and a toast with champagne (and ginger ale for the kids). I think everyone was asleep by midnight. Ha!

The girls showed Aunt Erin their new karaoke machine. I think the three of them sang for about an hour!

We put glow sticks on the kids and let them run around the basement with the lights off. They loved it!

We kept it casual and ordered pizzas. The kids were quiet for about 15 minutes during dinner. But other than that, it was the usual chaos.

We had a balloon drop off the balcony again. The kids love this! We do it about 3 or 4 times, then they drop the balloons down on each other. We also set up laundry baskets in the foyer and they try to drop the balloons into the baskets from the balcony. They could do this all night.

Then we had a toast! The kids all thought the ginger ale was spicy! They don't get a lot of carbonation, so it took them a few sips to get used to it. But, they all wanted more.

Avery and Grayson were talking about how the ginger ale felt on their tongues