Daddy-Daughter Dance

The base put on a daddy-daughter dance yesterday so of course I RSVP'd for Phil and the girls. Claire and Maddie were really excited about going to a ball with their daddy, especially when they heard that there would be cupcakes and roses there. They put on their new Valentine's day dresses, got their hair done by Mommy, had spaghetti and meatballs at home and then went out for their date with Daddy. They all looked so cute!


Claire told me that I could snuggle with her blankie and watch "Mommy shows" on TV while they were gone.

Each girl came home with a goody bag full of chocolates, a charm bracelet, a piggy bank (courtesy of the local bank), a mini heart-shaped balloon, and one long-stemmed rose. To say they had a good time would definitely be an understatement. Maddie was in tears because she didn't want to go to bed (she didn't want the evening to end!) and Claire just kept gushing that it was the best day ever (she also had a Valentine's Day party at her school, which may have contributed to the greatness of the day). And I got to watch a DVR'd episode of Private Practice without Phil rolling his eyes at me! Fun evening for all!

Last Hurrah

We got the fam' all decked out for the Superbowl ...in our Chicago Bears get-up! We know, we know: the Bears were definitely NOT in the Superbowl this year. But being eternally optimistic Bears fans (is there any other kind of Bears fan???) we're hopeful for next year!

Escape to Dallas

We had a nice little trip to Dallas even though we hadn't done any planning at all. We visited the Dallas World Aquarium, which is really more like a jungle/zoo/aquarium-type of thing. Very neat.

We had dinner with my Uncle Brian, Aunt Cyndi, and their son Grant:

We did lots and lots of shopping: Grapevine Mills, The Galleria, Ikea, Target, Costco, Target again, Grapevine Mills again... We now know that our girls are HUGE fans of malls with carousels and they love to eat at the Rain Forest Cafe. They think it's fun to pretend to cook in the mocked-up kitchens at Ikea. And they highly recommend the play area at the Galleria mall.

Click on any of the above photos to see a few more from our Dallas trip!

Have I mentioned that I dislike camping?

I am no pioneer woman. Let us just be clear on that. And I don't like camping. Camping is cold and uncomfortable. But when the power went out last week after our ice storm, we camped out in our cold house for two days. The girls have always wanted to go "camping" in the backyard, so I convinced them that we were having an indoor camping adventure. They thought it was GREAT! They carried their flashlights around with them and got to sleep in sleeping bags (with various other covers stacked on top to keep them warm). On the first night we had them in the hallway snuggled on one twin mattress while we slept in Colin's room on the blow-up bed. On the second night we all crammed into Colin's room together.

Click the photo above to see more of our camping adventure and some cool ice storm pics!

Even though we did all we could to keep the heat in our house, it got cold pretty quickly. We tried to make heat by boiling pots of water on the stove (which is gas, thank goodness). And running the shower on hot (gas water heater too). Both helped a little, but when we couldn't get the house up past 57 degrees on day 2 I was ready to throw in the towel. Pioneer women had fireplaces in their houses to keep them warm!

I'm glad we bugged out when we did. Here's what the time line looked like:
Thursday 4:35pm: power out due to the ice storm
Friday: Brrrrr
Saturday afternoon: run away to Dallas for Mommy's type of camping - in a nice hotel!
Sunday: enjoy the comfort of heat in hotel; sight-seeing and then dinner with my uncle Brian's family
Monday: Got ready to check out - decided to stay and shop
Tuesday: Packed up to check out - decided to stay and shop
Wednesday: Learned the power was finally back. Checked out, shopped a little more and then came home.

Ice Storm 2010

The local weather folks had been predicting this storm since last Monday. Sure enough, it came just when they said it would and it's just as bad as they predicted. The ice is pretty to look at, but some of the trees in our neighborhood probably aren't going to make it. They're losing branches everywhere!

Here are some snaps from inside - we didn't want to go outside because the branches keep falling down and the trees are making ominous creaking noises. Keeping our fingers crossed that we don't lose power!

Click on this one to make it bigger - the chains on the swings are frozen solid!

Teeth!

Colin has gotten a couple of teeth. Actually, he got them while we were on our Disney trip, but because he's the 3rd kid we're just now getting around to blogging about them. Oops. Anyway, he now has a cute TOOTHY grin. What better excuse to fill up the blog with cute baby pics?

Big cheesy smile

Big goofy smile

In addition to his cute smile, Colin's current talents include rolling each way (and all over the floor!) eating baby foods, feeding himself Cheerios, sitting up without falling over, grabbing items that one would swear are out of his reach, and making cute baby noises/songs. He continues to be irresistible to his big sisters, which is not in his best interest because I'm pretty sure one of them is going to squash him with an overzealous hug one day.

Cute baby noise footage:

Claire's favorite cookie

We recently received our annual shipment of hockey pucks - er, I mean - honey cakes from my mother. The recipe for honey cake cookies has been passed down in my dad's family, and I'm told that my great-great aunt used to make them. I'm not entirely sure how long the recipe has been around, but it calls for hartshorn (ammonium bicarbonate), which is an old leavening agent that now requires a trip to a pharmacy. Not just any pharmacy will do; I think it has to do compounding - your usual Walgreens or CVS will not carry this stuff. Anyway, the recipe is OLD and let's just say the cookies are an acquired taste.

I quite like them now but they were certainly not my favorite as a child. Claire, on the other hand, devoured them last year. When they arrived this year I was curious to see if she still liked them. She saw me take them out of the box and immediately started hounding me for one. I stopped her after she had eaten six of them! Looks like I'm going to have to learn how to make these darned things...

Colin's Bath Time

Colin loves his bath time. Especially now that he's graduated to the "big-kid" tub. It was the splashing in the sink infant tub that got out of hand and necessitated the move. As soon as he hits the water he starts flapping and splashing. Enjoy this quick movie Katie made while I was flying last week!

The Year-end Update (...our paperless Christmas Letter!)

In an effort to save some paper (OK, it's probably more because we're lazy) we decided to put our Christmas letter here on the blog.

It's truly been a wonderful year for our family in our quiet Oklahoma town, and we have a lot to be thankful for. We have been able to spend more time together as a family this year than Phil's job usually allows and we even managed to get out of town a few times for some fun.

Early in the year we took the girls down to Puerto Vallarta for a family vacation. We met Phil's parents AND Katie's parents down there, so it truly was a vacation with family! When we got home we bought a minivan to accommodate our soon-to-be expanded family. Katie immediately tested it out with a road-trip to see friends and family in Illinois.

Later in the year we caught a C-17 to San Diego for a weekend visit. Katie was 34 weeks pregnant, but we managed to see Sea World and the San Diego Zoo as well as visit with some of Phil's family while we were there.

Of course, the kids just keep growing up. Claire had her first dance recital in May. She expresses her creativity with her fashion statements and drawings. She can write all of her letters in upper- and lower-case and can read just about any 3- or 4-letter words she sees. She still takes horse riding lessons, dance lessons, and swim lessons and has really bloomed as the boss -er, I mean- oldest sister of the bunch.

Madeline (aka Maddie) definitely changed from "toddler" to "preschooler" this year. She still sucks her thumb and twirls her hair like she always has. But now she's doing big-girl activities like horse lessons, dance lessons, and swim lessons with her sister and she has started preschool too. She's always looking for a way to make us laugh and is particularly fond of her little brother.

Which brings us to Colin, who joined us this July. We managed to get Colin baptized at our parents' parish in Illinois, where his two sisters were also baptized, via another C-17 space-A trip. His first plane ride was on his daddy's airplane! He is such a sweet baby. He smiles often, loves snuggles and tickles, and absolutely adores his big sisters. He is now 5 months old and sitting up, eating baby food, rolling over, cooing, giggling, and doing all of the things that cute babies do. We really feel blessed to have all three of these little people in our lives. They're so fun!

Katie is still busy at home with the kids, running them to and from their activities. She's the "room mom" for Maddie's preschool class and tries to be active in the spouse's group on base. Phil keeps busy at work and still flies about once a week. He also finds the time to be the president of the parish council at our church. He is able to come home for lunch so often that the girls ask about him when he is unable to make it.

We've had a lot of fun visiting with family this year. Katie's parents have come to Oklahoma 3 times this year (bless you, Mom and Dad!!!) and Phil's parents even brought out Phil's grandmothers with them for a visit to our house (bless you too!). We had a wonderful time with them. The girls in particular enjoyed playing "chickenfoot" dominoes with their Great-Grandma's.

We finished out the year with a trip to the happiest place on Earth: Disney World. We had a wonderful time there, but did receive some really sad news: Phil's Grandma Millie had passed. We will miss her so much and are so grateful to have had that visit with her at our house.

We're pretty sure we just celebrated our last Christmas in Altus. We'll miss it when we leave, but are excited to move to New Jersey this coming May. We hope everyone reading this has had a wonderful Christmas as we look forward to 2010!

Maddie-isms

Getting a good grasp of the English language is hard, no matter how young one starts. We've had a few chuckles while watching our Maddie-kins learn:

"My antennas fell off" - in reference to her headphones while watching a DVD in the van.

"My tummy has a headache" - we assumed a stomach ache (???)

"Can I watch the 'mersha shows?" - Maddie-speak for commercials (she likes to watch them at the end of a DVR'd show).

[low grumbly voice] 'TUMMY HUNGRY!' [back to normal Maddie voice] "Ooo! My tummy says it's hungry." - sometimes her tummy talks to us. He's kind of rude.

"I had a 'vream about ladybugs, unicorns, God and Baby Jesus." - yep, that's what she tells us she dreamed about every morning.

"Can I suck my fum' and 'fwirl my hair?" - when she knows her hands are dirty she'll ask before sucking her thumb and doing the corresponding hair twirl.

Her favorite thing to order at McD's is "chickie nuggies" and she likes to eat "minis" (Mini-wheats) in the morning for breakfast. And her favorite drink is "red juice" aka cranberry juice.

She also has taken all her stories to heart and narrates her way through the day, "...and now her runs quickly to her room to get her dresses. And her runs back to the kitchen!"

We can't give her apples too often either, as her favorite story is Snow White and whenever she bites an apple she falls into an immediate and deep sleep -- usually in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Oklahoma blizzard

We survived the Oklahoma blizzard of 2009! I'm not a huge fan of snow, but I can admit that it's exciting to get snow on Christmas Eve. Here are a few snaps of the white stuff around our house:

Disney World!

We finally went to Disney World! We booked this trip last January, so it really was a long time coming. It was wonderful and magical and we want to go back - NOW! Hopefully we'll be able to go again soon.

We met up with our good friends, the Burks', and their little boy Ethan. And we were able to get together with my cousin Beth and her fam' for a day, too. We were so glad they came down for a day in the parks (though I sure wish I could have snuggled on those kids of hers for a bit longer!).

The trip was loads of fun - but a picture is worth a thousand words, so feel free to click one of the photos to see some highlights! Here's the quick run-down:

Got there Wednesday. Told Claire we were riding the Magical Express (the Disney shuttle) to our hotel. Upon entering the bus she said to no one, "I would like a bottle of water." When one didn't magically appear she told me, "This bus isn't really magic." But it did have a TV so all was good.

Thursday: Magic Kingdom. The girls proclaimed every ride their favorite by saying, "I like this ride as much as It's a Small World!" Ate dinner at the Crystal Palace with Winnie the Pooh and his friends. Maddie was NOT afraid of the characters (whew!) and Tigger fed Colin baby food.

Friday: Animal Kingdom. Loved the Nemo show. Loved the Animal Safari. Got scared of the Bug's Life movie. Got rained on after the Lion King show. Watched the Christmas parade and went home a bit wetter than when we arrived.

Saturday: Epcot with Beth and her family! Rode a couple of rides and then ate lunch with Disney's princesses at Norway's Akershus. Excellent food. Girls didn't notice their food due to their excitement over THE PRINCESSES! Hopped over to Magic Kingdom and caught the Spectral Magic parade.

Sunday: Hollywood Studios. Said good-bye to Beth and gang after breakfast and then headed out. Caught some great shows and Colin and Ethan got to meet Speed (or Lightning?) and Mater from Cars. Went back to Epcot for dinner and froze our tushies off! Isn't Florida supposed to be warm???

Monday: Breakfast with Mickey and pals at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary. Back to Magic Kingdom and some "Fairy Godmothers-in-training" gave our girls a make-over. Once they were princessified, we set off to terrorize Claire and Maddie: Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain. They tolerated the Mansion, LOVED the pirates (who knew?) and Claire warned Maddie off of Big Thunder because it was too scary. Met the step-sisters and step-mother from Cinderella (and they were hilarious!!!) and re-rode Small World, the Tomorrowland's People-Mover, and the Cinderella's Carousel.

Tuesday: Caught the Magical Express back to the airport at 5:45am. After a slightly delayed connecting flight, a scare with losing "Pink Blankie" in our taxi, the drive from Dallas, and a potty break at an almost-impossible-to-get-to Target store... we got home at 9:30 PM.

Whew! Exhausting, but we're ready to go back (after we rest the wallet a bit...)!