Happy Valentine's Day!

When Arden awoke this morning, I picked her up and said "Happy Valentine's Day!" She gave me a big hug and said, "Ohhh, tay tu!" (thank you!) She can be the sweetest thing...sometimes. :) We had one of her favorite things for breakfast: dinosaur oatmeal. After Adam got home, I handed out the "goodies." I gave Arden flower barrettes, a fleece hoodie, and marshmallow kitties. I gave Adam a new picture frame for our wedding photo (it was in a poster frame) and Reese's peanut butter hearts. Adam gave me a Eureka steam mop (YES!) and a rose.

It's been a lovely day. Hope yours was, too!

Here's what Arden wore today!

I helped Arden make a Valentine for daddy. She had lots of fun, and Adam loved the card. Too sweet!

Meredith came over yesterday, and we decorated cookies! I even made heart-shaped no-bake cookies. Delicious!

Mmm...marshmallow kitties!

After the kids went to bed, Adam and I enjoyed a quiet dinner by ourselves. We got Chili's takeout...yummy!

Arden's Super Cute Room!

I had so much fun decorating Arden's room! I knew we weren't going to paint it until she had a big kid bed with big kid bedding, so I really wasn't sure what to do at first...until I discovered wall decals. They're pretty amazing. You just stick them on the wall, and "Voila!", art! They're repositionable, and they don't damage the wall. I became obsessed with finding just the right ones and at just the right price. Those things can be expensive! My obsessive searching paid off, and I totally scored some cute stuff: a tree, flowers, and butterflies. I even got crafty and painted a bird house to hang on her wall. I'm so in love with her room!

The best part is that Arden loves her room, too. The first time she saw her room she said, "Oh, how pritty!" Now, everytime I open the curtains, she says "A pritty room! A special room!" She is my sweet pea.

Hi, I'm Arden! Welcome to my super cute room!

I'm loving these number cards. I hung up a ribbon, and used clothes pins to hang the cards.

My favorite!

I painted the "A."

9-Month Heartbreakers

January was a very busy month. The boys had three appointments: WIC, audiology (hearing), and pediatric. Did I mention they were all within a week or two? It was crazy! Thank goodness for my mom and Lisa from the Health Dept. I couldn't have done it without them!

The WIC office charts the boys' growth based on their corrected age. At the time of the appointment, their corrected age was 6 months 12 days (they turned 9 months old the next day.) So according to the corrected chart, their growth is in the 50th percentile! When they went in October, their growth was in the 25th percentile...so they're growing quite nicely! Thinking back, I think Arden weighed the same as them when she was a year old. Petite little thing. :)

The pediatrician charts their growth based on their birthday. So, according to her chart, the boys are close to the 3rd percentile...a little bit below it. I just ignore her chart. She knows they're preemies and thinks they're doing amazingly well. It's just the way they have to do it.

Rogan passed his hearing test! His right hear failed the test in December, so I was pretty relieved. I really didn't think he had a hearing problem. He's been speaking with consonants for a long time (something Grayson has yet to do.)

Below are their stats and some cute things they do.

Grayson

weight: 16 lbs 2 oz

height: 25.5"

traits: lashes to die for, cute toothy grin

talents: rolls all over the place, hums

Rogan

weight: 15 lbs 13oz

height: 25.5"

traits: sweet snaggle-tooth smile, chubby cheeks

talents: claps hands, speaks baby-talk

I just love how interactive they are these days. They constantly steal each other's toys and giggle when they roll on top of each other.

I must admit they can be pretty fun...sometimes. They're still a lot of hard work, but things are much easier than they once were.

Now if I could just figure out how to get out of the house once in awhile...

Someone Got Into Mommy's Makeup...

SNOW!!!!

It snowed like crazy on Christmas Day. I can't remember ever having a white Christmas in NC, so that was pretty cool. We got several inches! Here are some pics from the day after.

Arden could only look at the snow from inside the house. She had a cold. :(

Catie's Jeep parked out on the street.

I don't know about you, but I really don't want to see anymore winter weather. Bring on the spring!

Christmas Treasures

Every year, Adam's grandma Lewis send something special for Christmas: homemade cookies and ornaments for the kids. She lives in Oregon, so we hardly get to see her. When her package arrives, it's always a special day!

Festival of Disasters!

Arden was really into the lights this year. Whenever she saw lights (even traffic lights), she would say "Ooo, pritty yights!" She loved them! So I thought she would enjoy Tanglewood's Festival of Lights.

The plan was to leave the boys at home with Adam's mom while we took Arden to the park. Instead, we all packed into the van to see the lights. Everything was fine until about 10 minutes into the park. Rogan started crying. Adam's mom took him out of seat. Then Grayson woke up and started crying...so I took him out of his seat. Arden realized she was still buckled into her seat, and she was not happy about that at all! So, I got her out of her seat, and she sat on Adam's lap...while he drove the van. It worked ok at first...until she decided to mess around with the dashboard instead of pay attention to the lights. I thought the outing couldn't get any worse, but then it did. When we exited, we had to pull over to get all the kids back into their seats. OH THE SCREAMING! The boys got over it pretty quickly, but Arden was upset the entire ride home. It was simply a disastrous night.

I do think she was old enough. The boys obviously weren't. They should've stayed at home.

Below are a few highlights before all heck broke loose!

Gingerbread Cookies and Such

We decorated gingerbread houses at our house this year. We used premade kits instead of having Mary Bernice make the gingerbread. Adam actually bought a few haunted chocolate houses when they went on clearance after Halloween, and we used those!

I helped Arden decorate a house. We used only m&ms, because I knew she'd want to eat the candy...and she could easily choke on the other candy. She did some finger painting with the icing and placed a few m&ms on the house. Mostly, though, she pretended to put the candy on the house and then stuffed it in her mouth.

She's too funny!

Here are the finished products! Arden's is the bottom right. Adam's dad put a bit more candy on the roof when I stepped out of the room. haha

Meredith came over a couple days before Christmas. We baked and decorated gingerbread cookies. It was fun!

My dad and Jasmine came over that same day and decorated a house. Arden wanted to help out, too. Everyone had a lot of fun! Can't wait to do it again next year...eh, this year!

Trip to Boone

A week after we moved into our new home, Adam's parents treated us to a trip to Boone to get a Christmas tree. I've always wanted to go to a tree farm, pick my tree, and cut it down. I was super excited! My mom and Meredith stayed with the kids during our trip. They were exhausted by the time we got home. :)

Let me tell you, I would not want to live in Boone. The place is so hilly, and it was filled with dirty snow...not to mention college kids. Yuck!

We did have a great time, though. Friday evening we had dinner at a Thai restaurant. I was afraid of the items on the menu, so I played it safe and ordered sweet and sour chicken. It was yummy! Saturday we took a drive to the Mast General Store. It was filled with all kinds of old timey stuff. We bought a bag of candy...haha. Then we went to the tree farm. The drive up the mountain was kind of scary. It was steep and snowy. We got stuck once, had to back up a little, and then made it up. It was lovely up there. Picking a tree was a little daunting, though. There were so many to choose from! Adam said he didn't enjoy the process of picking the tree, but I had fun. We came home with a beauty!

Boone had its picturesque moments.

The Mast General Store

Icicles!

Tree, trees everywhere! Which one will we choose?

This is the one!

Mary Bernice sprained her ankle a little bit, so she hitched a ride back to the car.

It's beautiful when you can't see the nasty town!

No explanation needed...haha!

Putting ornaments on the tree! It was a real beauty and much bigger than we realized. Gorgeous!