Emily and Glenn took advantage of their free movie at the theatre and we were lucky enough to get to hang out with Olivia for a couple of hours.

She was pretty quiet, spending most of the time napping on Lindsey’s shoulder.

Hadley and Zoey Belle were both really wanting to hold her and feed her, but we told them to wait till Emily got back. Hadley accepted this fairly well, but Zoey Belle decided that she was start yelling at the top of her lungs in Olivia’s face.

Emily and Glenn brought supper over for us and then the girls each got a chance to hold Olivia for a few minutes. That wasn’t long enough for Hadley, but eventually she believed that she will see Olivia again tomorrow and that was acceptable.

See the pictures from Olivia’s visit HERE

Well, since Lindsey wrote about how crazy this month has been, I figured I would put up some pics to show what we’ve been up to. You can check out all the pictures from December BY CLICKING HERE.

You can check out all the pictures from December BY CLICKING HERE.

The past few weeks have been CRAZY. We started out our Christmas season with one fun trip to Minnesota to see my side of the family. There were a few sad moments, such as Chris being in Iraq and not at home with us, and our trip being cut short by the weather. We did not get to spend nearly the time we wanted with my dad and his wife, Rachael, but we are very thankful we got to see them for the short time we did. We were able to spend good quality time with my brother Dave and with my mom, so that was also a plus.

Our weather adventures began with our drive home. We left the cities around 8:30pm or so, and didn’t get home until about 5am. I fell asleep in the car at around 2am after finally getting Zoey Belle to settle in and Eric drove us safely home. There were a few scary accidents on the way home, and the roads were pretty bad, but we knew we needed to head back otherwise we would be stuck.

Once we got home we were unable to leave for about 4 days. The snow started in and did not stop. The ice came along with it, and our car is still plowed into our driveway. It is going to take a long time to shovel it out. Our Christmas with the Schmit side was canceled and we were a-ok with that. One look out the window told us we were not going anywhere! The girls had already started to go a little stir crazy, but we knew that it was way too unsafe to head outside. Staying put was good, and it has proven to show us how creative we are with coming up with activities to do inside. Eric and I enjoyed our family time and I think Eric has been thoroughly entertained with spending so much time with the kids. He is pretty good about spending time with them normally, but sometimes he misses out on their real craziness when he is at work. He hasn’t missed out on a moment over the past week and we have been laughing a lot. The kids are also loving their new Christmas gifts and that has helped with us being stuck inside.

We were also fortunate enough to have our friends Gerry and Kallie come to visit from Texas. They stayed a short 24 hours, but were unable to get here sooner due to the interstate and highways being closed. They are coming back in another week so we will happily spend another 24 hours or less with them then.

Overall our Christmas season has been fantastic, but we are all getting a bit anxious to settle back into our routine…whatever that is.

I came home early from work the other day so that I could take the girls out and play in the snow.

Hadley was loving her life and diving in and out of snow banks. She also ate a large portion of the snow in the backyard.

Zoey Belle was having some trouble moving around in her bulky snow outfit and boots. I gave the girls some shovels and they loved digging around in the snow and throwing it.

It wasn’t too long and the cold weather was forcing us inside. It wasn’t all bad, though, as Lindsey had hot chocolate waiting for us when we got in.

So far our weekend is fantastic. Eric and I really had no plans for the weekend, and it has been awesome. We began the weekend with baking some cookies. We had already done round one of our cookies, but since there are work parties coming up and more Christmas parties, we thought we should get ahead and get some more done. Our cookies were an experiment because I used a new recipe, but I think that they turned out great. They were even easy enough for Hadley to help with and not have them be a disaster. Although by the end of the day the kitchen looked like a bomb had exploded.

Then during nap time, I was able to sneak away and see Olivia again. She is just such a little angel.

Once I got home we were able to frost our cookies and get things cleaned up. Then we moved onto more important things like decorating our Christmas tree. We are trying to keep it inside this year, which we haven’t done in the past because we have naughty kitties. We will see how long it lasts in the house, and when we actually end up moving it onto the porch. I am also going to wrap up some boxes to put under the tree and that way we can “test the waters” with real presents. I don’t want the girls to dive into their gifts too soon.

After getting the tree decorated we all enjoyed some hot chocolate and then the kids were off to bed.

We had a fairly successful church service this morning, other than Zoey Belle having a lot of energy. Now this afternoon we are planning on resting and just spending some good family time together. It is supposed to snow here sometime today, so we will see if we break out our snow pants!

She made this up and has been saying it for a week now.

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Bottle.
Bottle who?
Drink.

Then she laughs hysterically. I’m such a proud father.

Yesterday I was talking with my older brother and he came up with the PERFECT description of Hadley. He said, “She is always one step outside of where you want her to be.” That just about sums up our day (and Hadley’s life thus far.) Today she threw a mega tantrum. It was epic. It all began when I went to pick up Hadley from dance. She had asked me to babysit her dog and bring it to her at dance. Well, in between squeezing another car seat in our car and loading two one year olds in the car with all their winter gear on, somehow, I forgot. You would’ve thought she was a bull and I was waving a red flag at her. We managed to get out of the door of the dance studio, with all three girls. Then, as I was loading them all in the car, Hadley was throwing a fit, and Zoey Belle fell out of the car and hit her mouth on the concrete. There was blood. I was focused on getting one kid in the car, so I could help Zoey and all the while Hadley is yelling at me. My blood began to boil and I got the serious “mom” look but my stare at her was not enough to quiet her down. So now, I have two out of three kids crying and screaming, one is bleeding and the other is threatening me because I forgot her stuffed puppy. They were finally all loaded and strapped in (thanks to Eric who was leaving a meeting at the time and came to help us). As we drove home, Hadley got even more mad because she couldn’t get her gloves on. The next thing I knew, she had thrown her gloves into the front seat with enough force to bounce off the windshield and onto the seat. Once we were home, Hadley stood outside of the car screaming about how cold she was, instead of walking into the house. Next, she attempted to slam the door on all of us, so I hauled her to her room and consequences were given. I left her to calm down and eventually it was quiet. When I went back in to talk over what had happened, she was nude. All the way nude. I had the hardest time keeping a straight face as we discussed all the events that had transpired. What an odd little duck.

So it seems that she still does have some days where she is far from where I want her to be, but the nudity thing just pushes her that one step outside where she is just her own person and does her own thing. I have to say, despite the hysterics, I really do love how unique she is.

And as a side note, Zoey Belle is fine. She does have a fat lip though.

Really, is it December already?

After lunch, I took the girls outside to enjoy some nice weather. It was in the high-50s, so I figured we’d better take advantage of it. Word on the street is that it’s suppose to start getting cold and possibly show some flurries this week.

That being said, the kids played on the swings, kicked the balls around the yard, did some spinning and then got the bikes out.

Pretty soon it’ll be time to break out the sleds.

Lindsey went to work out tonight after supper, so it was the girls and me. We read a few thousand books and then Hadley asked, “May I please watch just a little bit of Batman before bed, please?”. I allowed it. It’s always nice when they want to watch a show that I can stomach.

Zoey Belle spent her time climbing around the couch and playing with their bead necklaces. When it was time for bed, they both climbed straight in and I didn’t hardly hear a peep after that.