Snow!

Altus didn't get left behind by the cold snap that moved through the country. We actually got snow! My tomatoes, bell peppers, and annual flowers probably didn't appreciate it, but our little girls did. Claire got all bundled up and went outside to check out the fluffy white stuff. She even got down in the snow and made a snow angel. Maddie liked looking at the winter wonderland from inside the house but was totally uninterested in playing in it after she discovered that snow is, in fact, still a cold thing.

Snow Angel

Ice skating on the back patio

It was over 70 degrees today, so I would imagine this will be the last snow for us until next winter!

Maddie's haircut

Our little Maddie likes to suck her right thumb. This leaves her left hand free to do her OTHER favorite activity: twirl her hair. Unfortunately, she ends up making some pretty big knots in her hair with all that twirling and then she gets annoyed and pulls out the knots. This left her with a rather punk-rock sort of hair do, in which one side was significantly shorter than the other. I finally took her to the salon today to see what they could do, and the gal there evened it up nicely. So Maddie got her very first big-girl haircut today - a cute little bob.

What got her here:

Before - notice the one pigtail is longer

During the haircut

After - and they gave her Smarties candy (her favorite!)

It's a ... baby!

We had our chance and are keeping it a surprise! I went in for an ultrasound on Tuesday and got our first look at kiddo #3. Very cute, and pretty sedate for a 21-week old baby. The tech got lots of good looks and said that she knew in the first five seconds but didn't tell us (per our request).



All checked out well and baby's heartbeat was 150...

Trip to Chicago

So, what do you do when you get a new car? Well, I test that baby out! Phil had a two-week trip to Alabama so I loaded the girls into our van (with 76 miles on the odometer) and headed to Illinois to visit family. Because there's nothing quite so enticing as Chicago in February/March.

Now, for those of you not familiar with the military there is a certain rule of thumb. Whenever one's spouse goes out of town something major immediately breaks. I thought I'd duck that rule this time by getting out of town myself, but I was mistaken.

We stopped at my friend Sarah's house for the night on the way up to Chicago. Boy am I glad we did! In the morning we came out of Sarah's house and discovered one of my beautiful new tires was FLAT! She's pregnant and I'm pregnant and we were not going to be changing a tire. Thank goodness for USAA Roadside Assistance! They sent a very nice gentleman to change my tire and the lovely Honda dealer by Sarah's house patched up my tire for me that day. Broken thing: handled.

We were able to have a nice visit with them, in spite of the drama. In fact, Claire is STILL talking about Monkey Joe's bouncy house place.