Just Another Snow Day!

We spent quite a bit of time outside today in the fresh snow before we have to spend the next few days inside due to the extreme cold coming.  Taylor has been to school 7 days in the month of January and several of those have been delays.  Ben has had speech once since the middle of December!  We're hoping to get back into a routine of sorts soon!!!

Regardless, we had fun in the snow today and went sledding a little bit too!

Changes!!

We've had some big changes around here in the last week!  First, Drew is potty trained!!!  He is doing such a great job.  He still wears a diaper at nap and night, but is almost always dry at nap and even at night some times too.  We also turned his crib into a toddler bed.  He was constantly climbing out of his crib and does not want to sleep in his big bed yet, so this was our compromise.  I wish I could say he was staying in it, but that is not the case.

Next, Taylor got 10" cut off of her hair to donate to Locks of Love.

She LOVES her new short hair and is very proud!

It turned out cute, but I'm still getting used to it.  It makes her seem so much older!

Longest Christmas Break Ever!!!

We just finished up the longest Christmas break!  Taylor ended up having 24 days off!!  The last week of break we had so much snow and cold we were stuck inside most of the week.  Most of these pictures are the random things we did to beat the boredom!

We made snow ice cream one evening.

Despite Drew's face it was pretty good!

Lots of crafts and coloring...

Taylor set up a hair salon one day!

One day we made it out to Sky Zone, which everyone loved!

We signed up for a Crazy Pinz membership and have been doing lots of bowling and mini golf.

Taking a break at the mall....

And more crafts!!!

Snow Fun!!

We enjoyed our crazy amounts of snow for a few days before the freezing cold temperatures set in!  On Saturday we went sledding with the Meyers family at Shoaff Park.  Taylor and Ben loved it!

Here's Cohen giving Troy and Ben a push!

Taylor loved her new sled!

Ben pretty much stuck to the purple sled.

This guy pretty much whined and cried the whole time.

A happy boy!!!

Then we came home and celebrated Daddy's 34th birthday!

The next day the snow really started to pile up.  We loaded up some neighbor kids and went to our friends house at the front of our neighborhood and sledded down their hill while they enjoyed the beach in Florida.

All the kids had a blast....they would've stayed all day!

 



Drew and Elyse....anti-sledding!

He finally discovered he liked the snow....because he could eat it!!!

Christmas Day

The kids were so excited for Christmas morning!!!  We spent time in Crown Point with Troy's family before Christmas and with my family after so we had a long (but fun) Christmas week!

Christmas Eve we got our cookies ready for Santa and fed the reindeer.  Everyone went to bed easily and they all slept until close to 8.

Santa came!

 Taylor was first up and was excited to see a new bike from Santa!

 Drew was next up and also got a bike!

 He LOVES it and rode it around the house all day long.

 Ben finally woke up and unwrapped the bed tent Santa left for him.

 Taylor added to her Lego collection this Christmas.

 Late morning, Grandma and Grandpa Parker, Andy and Martha, Great Grandma, and Aunt Marcy and Uncle Steve arrived.  We had a great lunch together and had fun playing the rest of the day!

Pre-Christmas Fun

We had a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas this year, but the time seemed to fly!  This was the first year we had an "Elf on the Shelf".  The kids named the elf Rocky and they loved him!!!  It was really fun!  Rocky was the most well behaved elf....

Taylor and I went with 4 of our neighbor friends to see the Nutcracker and go out dinner.

We had a great time together!!!

We also made gingerbread houses again this year.  We made them at home and had some problems with cracked pieces but the kids still enjoyed it (I'm thinking we'll go back to Country Kitchen next year though)!

New York City - Part 2

 Friday was a raining day in NYC....we had to tickets to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall.  It was a great show! After that we just did some shopping and walking around as best we could.  On Saturday, we woke up and went to Rockefeller Center to go to the top of the building.  We had great views of the city from the top!

 After Rockefeller Center, we went to see The Laurie Berkner Band put on a kids Christmas concert.  It was a good show also, Taylor really enjoyed it!

The rest of the afternoon we stayed in Central Park.  It was a little chilly this day, but we still had a lot of fun.  Taylor loved climbing the big rocks and the had a neat playground for kids too.

 

 We also took a horse and buggy ride!

 We visited FAO Schwarz next....playing the "Big" piano!

 We ended our day back in Rockefeller Plaza (with about 10,000 other people) to see the tree at night!