Prom Queen

It was another day at home and Avery spotted my senior prom dress (the one Mommy wore on her first date with Daddy!) and begged and pleaded to try it on.  So I said why not!

She was very pleased with the first glimpse she saw of herself...

 We basically proceeded with a photo shoot in the dress throughout the house...

Photo bomb by Gray!

 She was very pleased with the "boobies" that were built into the dress..

 What a diva!

Hard to believe that senior prom will be a reality in about 13 years!

Snow/Cold Days

With this ridiculously cold weather, we try not to go outside if we don't have to. We are more than happy to stay inside all day! 

Here are some of our recent indoor activities:

 Taking every single pillow we own and bringing it into Mommy and Daddy's room to create an "ocean" to jump into...

Taking baths in Mommy and Daddy's "big" tub...

 We thought they would hate the jets, but turns out they love them!

We even get some exercise...

I put the treadmill on a VERY slow speed and let the kids walk on it WITH helmets on. They love this as well and beg to do it!

Then we wind down with some movies watched from inside the tent...this last for about 10 minutes.

Hope you are all staying warm!

Cupcake face

I just love this shot that Great Uncle Bobby got of Gray eating a cupcake at our neighbor's birthday party..... he was such as mess!

Bedtime trouble continues....

Grayson has become very skilled at *quietly* sneaking around lately. Combine this was the fact that Avery is pretty much no longer taking afternoon naps (and therefore is really tired at bedtime and falls asleep almost instantly). The result = Mommy and Daddy finding Grayson in Avery's room at night. Avery is sound asleep twirling her hair and Grayson has literally covered her in books and she has no clue. 

Just look at his guilty face....

Professional pics

Ok, last post of the day and then I am all caught up! 

Many of you saw some of these professional pictures on Facebook and/or our Christmas card this year, but I wanted to share just *some* of our favorite shots (they were all great!) from Picture Moments By Kate that were done back in October at Burnside Plantation.  Kate is my sister's sister-in-law, who is just starting out in photography, but is AMAZING! She was generous enough to offer us a free session so we could be her practice subjects.  We were extremely pleased with how they turned out and are hoping to use her in the future so we can avoid the chaotic experiences we have had at Portrait Innovations!  

Check her out at:  

https://www.facebook.com/picturemomentsbykate

What did you do, Daddy?!?!

A few days after Christmas, we decided Grayson needed a haircut. Daddy was not paying attention and just started buzzing...with a #2 instead of the usual #8. He started at the top, so we had no choice but to continue to use the #2.  

It was quite a shock! But fortunately, it has already grown back quite a bit.  We all gave Daddy a hard time about it...we think he learned his lesson!

BFF's

Avery and Grayson have become quite the duo lately.  They certainly have their moments when they don't get along, but for the most part, they really are best buds! Here are just a few pics of them over the past month or so...

 Our latest challenge at bedtime is that we keep finding that Grayson has gone into Avery's room after we put him to bed in his own room.  It was awfully cute the first few times because we literally had NO idea this was happening until we went up to say good night before we went to bed one night and could not find Grayson in his room....

because he was in Avery's room sound asleep.

 And then again another night.

However, the past few nights (and even for naps), we hear Grayson sneak out to head to Avery's room (but not until almost an hour after we put him down, when we assume all is well and we go on with our night).  We go up to find them giggling together in her bed, "reading" books and all of the toys are out of the bins. We asked Avery why she didn't yell down to us to tell us this was happening and she said "it's just that he was having so much fun and I didn't want to disappoint him."

It's becoming a SERIOUS bedtime issue!

The Crazy Adventures of Pickle the Elf

This was our second season with our elf, Pickle, and we had so much fun with him (as long as we remembered to hide him the night before....we had a few mornings when one of us had to sneak down early to put him in a new spot because we forgot to do it the night before!)

Some of these I may have shared before, but these are the highlights.  You may be able to guess which nights Mommy hid him vs. which nights Daddy hid him....

Thanksgiving morning he arrived...

Go into the gingerbread house frosting...

I only recently heard of the pickle ornament tradition, but it sounded fun and perfectly fitting for Pickle to give them a pickle! He left this note rolled up in our tree.

It's hard to see here, but the pickle ornament is to the left of the paper...

One of the first nights he was here, he went into Avery's room and hung from her nightlight.  Our normally awesome sleeper came into our room at 3 am that night TERRIFIED!! Mommy ended up having to sleep in her bed with her that night because we weren't sure what else to do (you can't touch him or he loses his magic!)  The fear lasted all morning and into the afternoon when she was resisting a nap as well. So we had to have a little chat with Pickle...we asked him to please leave her room once she fell asleep.  

 She finally fell asleep and he left the room, apologized, and learned never to go in her room again!

Chilling on the orchid leaf...

Taking a "bath" in popcorn (as Avery put it)

Drawing funny faces on their pictures...

Pooping out kisses onto cookies...

Hanging in the middle of the wall via a magnetic stud finder...Daddy's new toy for hanging things on our walls!

Reminding Avery to do the two things she most often forgets to do after going potty....

Making a snowflake out of Q-tips on our bathroom...

This one is just wrong.... clearly this was Daddy's night!

Getting into the last of the donuts...

Hanging on the doorknob....

There was a lot more interaction with Pickle this year.  Avery spoke to him, sang to him and wrote to him often....

This required a lot more work on our part because she was sad if he did not reply to all of the notes...

But alas, Christmas Eve came and this was his last day with us. We all miss this guy for the other 11 months of the year.  But trust me, you'll still hear us saying "Pickle's watching you!"