Christmas coat

Before the snow completely vanished again, I had to get a few pictures of Olivia in her red Christmas coat. She is such a character and ooh..her dimples are so precious!  Love this girl!  

Family Wausau Day

After several weeks of being cooped up with a cold, I was feeling really antsy about getting out and about.  We decided to take the kids to Wausau for the day for some shopping and food.  I discovered a few months ago that the kids and I can spend hours in Target if I get them a bag of popcorn and set them up in the cart with it.  So, we meandered around Target for quite a while, browsing and picking up a few new items - most importantly a NEW HIGHCHAIR!  I have HATED the high chair we've had for the last four years with an intense passion.  It is the worst designed baby gear I have ever used.  It has a million crevices and cracks where food can get stuck and it is impossible to clean.  So, I was positively giddy to bring home a new one!!

We stopped at a few more stores before heading to one of Eric and my favorite restaurants, The Red Eye Brewing Company.  They use a lot of fresh, local ingredients and have really creative and unique food.  Surprisingly, the kids were AWESOME!  They were so well behaved and used great manners.  I was really proud of them and it was so fun to be able to take them someplace nice and have it be so successful.  

After lunch, we headed to Sweet Lola's.  I've been wanting to go there for a long time, so I was super excited to take the kids there to pick out a few special treats.  Their cupcakes were absolutely beautiful.  It was so hard to decide what to pick!  We brought home six special treats to share and sample and each one of them was unbelievably tasty.

We've been working really, really hard lately with our Love and Logic parenting techniques, and they've been working so well! The few pre-meltdown moments that happened in Wausau were so easily diffused, without force or frustration.  It made a whole day, nap-free activity possible and even fun!  Both of our kids did awesome, and it makes us want to do more fun outings with them!

siblings

I love how they love each other.

Spring in February?!

This has been one of the strangest winters I can remember. It has been unseasonably warm for much of the winter and this week we saw 60 degrees!  The snow almost completely melted and we enjoyed several springlike days outside with the kids.  I couldn't believe the view in front of our house - the baseball field was almost completely melted!  Some years that doesn't happen until late April/early May!  

The snow returned a few days later with a School Closing blizzard.  I guess that's life in Wisconsin...!

Fruit of the Lu

This one just LOVES to put other people's clothes.  Especially underwear. Tonight she dug a pair of her brother's underwear out of the dresser and put them on her head, and ran around giggling manically.  She knows she's hilarious.

This kid

Oh, Nolee Olee, you sure make me laugh!

Doggie sleepover

Last week, our parents left for their annual trip to Mexico together, which meant that Roxy came to spend the week with us.  The kids were so excited to have her here.  I'm not so sure she shared their enthusiasm...at least for the first day or two.  Roxy was not super thrilled being under a constant attack of over-eager petting from the two youngest humans and the almost constant attention from the spotted clown dog.  

But by the end of Day Two, everyone hit their stride.  The novelty of having her here had somewhat worn off and Roxy figured out that she could sneak onto the couch and snuggle in for a nice, long nap.  Sometimes the kids joined her, which she didn't seem to mind too much.  The change in Miles was amazing.  With an older, low key, confident dog here, he didn't bark in the yard or need as much attention from us.  He was far less anxious and much more relaxed, though she did teach him her naughty couch napping habit.  It *almost* made me consider getting a second dog - if only from the perspective that it might make him less work. 

We had to laugh though, because Miles taught Roxy one naughty habit, too.  When Steve came to pick up his beloved companion, he walked over to the gate, and found BOTH of them standing there with their paws up on the gate.  Awfully undignified for Miss Perfectly Behaved Princess Roxy!