ryder at the rally

musical lunch

one of quinn's favorite pass times is singing (yep she loves to sing and dance, watch out broadway). so now during lunch when jesse or i ask her what she wants to eat, or we ask her to take more bites of lunch, ect she will respond in a song "i would like some hummus and carrots", but in like an opera style singing, oh it's hilarious! jesse and i will sing back just to keep her engaged, but it can last a very long time....quinn will sing about anything!

storybook ballet

well quinn just loves her ballet class, but that doesn't come to much surprise to us, considering she dances around the house just about every day!

her little buddy, liam (i can barely stand watching them together in class, it's just too dang cute).

the girls and their babies

we had so much fun with the girls and all the kiddos, love them to pieces!!

valentine's day rules!

with a full weekend with grandmama and grandpapa, endless amounts of all things sweet, decorations galore, and some home made t-shirts from mom and dad, yep, we love valentines day!

winter fire

a winter fire, i mean how amazing does that sound! since we moved back to wisconsin and the snow has accumulated we have successfully crossed many winter activities off our list (that is the list that includes all the awesome activities children who live in WI must experience), like sledding, making a snow fort, snow angels, ice skating, ice fishing, snow ball fight, snowman, eating fresh snow, king of the mountain, and now the fabulous winter fire! aaaahhhh, it was perfect:0

quinn and her lover boy, liam (he is so sweet with her, it's just too cute)

enjoying the snow, the fire, and the friends. this is what makes winter so magical!

update

so since we've started the new year we have been quite busy! lets see, where do i start. well the most important and extremely exciting news is that quinn took the huge step from "little girl" to "big girl", she gave up her pacifier, yay quinny!! she was very hesitate, but we were very patient and encouraging (realizing that if she's not ready it will just back fire later), so we eventually got to the evening where she was ready, and she has been paci free for 8 days, and hasn't even asked for it!

the next piece of amazing news is that ryder has taught himself to ice skate. he was a bit timid on skates, and actually just preferred to use his boots, until he spent an afternoon playing hockey with a friend (who is a hockey player and can skate really really well). well, that's all it took. the next day we went to the rink and he asked for his skates. he walked down to the rink and asked me to just let him go (oh, and he was wearing a helmet), and walla, he was skating, all by himself! he cruised around for like 10 minutes, falling a handful of times, but getting right back up, and then he raised his arms up and yelled "my dream came true!". apparently he dreamed about being able to ice skate the night before. oh, it was like the coolest and purest moment i could have been a part of! gosh i love being around my children!

and thirdly we are once again searching for schools, man, this seems like an ongoing process around here. this time it's for quinn! i think we've found a few really great schools, so we will see if she gets in (we'll here back in march).

but for now quinn will be starting ballet in one week, and ryder's swim class starts back up, and we are going to make an effort to get both kids on skis this year. so we will continue to be busy bees, but always making time to have fun:)