Friday Funnies

Rose:
"Madeline was being a raggedy muffin."
I think she meant ragga-muffin, but that was not quite the right context :)

Ava:
"We are fighting a dragon, but he doesn't talk in Spanish.  He growls in Spanish."
Ava explained to me as she and Madeline were playing one day.

Madeline:
"I like playing with Ella, but she's a little cranky in the morning."
Yes, I am afraid that is true, Madeline.

Ella:
I asked Ella who ripped up the papers that were all over the floor and
she said, "They did it themselves."

HAPPY Friday!

Virginia Girls Weekend

Valentine's Day morning, Olivia and I left from Indy to go visit Amanda in Virginia for a long girls weekend. We just missed a big snow in VA the day before, but luckily our flight wasn't affected.  Amanda picked us up from the airport, we went out to lunch, planned our meals for the weekend and headed to the grocery store.  I never knew grocery shopping could be so much fun!

The house Amanda rents with 4 other girls

That night, we made dinner for Chris and two of Amanda's roommates, then painted nails and chatted until the wee hours of the morning.  I don't think I have talked or laughed so much in months!

Saturday, Aunt Martha invited us over to her convent in Woodbridge for lunch. She made us lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and eagle brand brownies. Such a treat!  After lunch, she took us in the backyard to show us this beauty...a snow sculpture of St. Michael the Archangel!  One of the sisters is quite the artist and spent a couple hours the night before sculpting this, with amazing detail.

After catching up, we played a new card game called May I with one of the other sisters who lives there, who is from a family of 10.  I think we were a little loud for Aunt Martha...she kept commenting on how crazy we were.  The other sister said she felt right at home.  What can I say...family brings out the crazy in you :)

As soon as we arrived and right before we left, Aunt Martha took us downstairs to make a chapel visit.  They have a chapel in their house!  She said on snow days, father will come to their house to say mass!  How awesome is that?!  What a unique blessing it is to have religious vocations in the family!!!

After we left Aunt Martha's, we drove around looking for all the supplies we needed to make the awesome craft we found on Pinterest.  After some searching, we found what we needed and put these little babies together while watching Catch Me If You Can.

And some fun pictures with our mugs...

Sunday, after mass, we drove to Alexandria and spent the day exploring little shops along the main drive.  Chris and a few of his buddies from Steubenville who were in town decided to join us.  We did a lot of antique store shopping where I happened to find some great books for the girls!  We grabbed a coffee (or tea) to warm ourselves up and even walked along the water.  Such a pretty place!

Adorable shops along King Street

The menu was spelled out in colorful magnetic letters at a little coffee shop we stopped at

A beautiful restaurant along the water

Chris insisted on carrying all our bags for us...such a gentleman

The adorable engaged couple

One shop we stopped in had these adorable pillows for each state.  I need to learn how to make one for myself.

Chris and his Steubenville buddies

On our way to the airport on Monday, we stopped by Amanda's favorite local bookstore called Hole in the Wall Books.  It is a tiny little shop packed full of gently used books at awesome prices.  It was easy to see why Amanda loved the place.  And now it is even more special to her since it is where Chris proposed to her last September!

Amanda in the corner where Chris popped the question

It really was so wonderful to have an adult, girly weekend with some of my favorite people.  Paul and the girls stayed in Carmel while I was gone, so I knew they were in good hands and having a blast, which made it all that much easier to enjoy myself.  We did miss Madeline not being there though, so I guess we will just have to do it again...bummer :)

Valentine's Week

We took advantage of Valentine's week to do a few themed activities during school.  One day, I had the girls cut out hearts and write one thing nice about each of their sisters.  It was sweet reading what they had to say :)  My favorite was Ava's heart to Madeline, which said, "you are good at being the dad."

We read a story about how Valentine's Day came about.

During math, the girls had fun graphing conversation hearts, adding their totals, and even more fun eating them :)  

The day before Valentine's Day, we had recess duty at Rose's school, so we got to see all the kids in their Valentine gear and get a few pictures.

The valentine's Rose brought to school for her classmates.

Rose and her best buddies: Mebrate and Hunter

We had a special Valentine's dinner that week, complete with a red tablecloth, candles

and heart-shaped brownie sundaes for dessert.

The eve of St. Valentine's Day, I laid out a few treats for the girls and Paul to wake up to in the morning.  I found some cute ideas on Pinterest this year that I used for their treats and made a card for the girls with whatever character they are into at the moment.  Rose, of course, had Elsa on her card and as soon as she saw it in the morning, she ran and hugged me saying it was the best card ever.  I guess Elsa was a win!

For the Husband

For Rose (she read her book in 2 days...that girl loves a new book!)

For Ava

For Madeline

For Ella

We try not to make too big of a deal about Valentine's Day, but it is hard not to when you have kids and you can have so much fun with it!

Roller Skating

Rose's school (New Song) had a roller skating party yesterday.  They rented out the roller skating rink for 2 hours and played Christian music for any and all families who wanted to come.  I decided to take Rose and Ava and leave the other two with a sitter.  Being 27 weeks pregnant, I wasn't getting on any skates and I didn't think I could help more than two at a time.

We met one of Rose's friends from school, Hunter, and her mom and sister for lunch at a sushi place before hand.  The sushi was DELICIOUS!  The girls had chicken and fried rice, but were not big fans.  Can you blame me for trying to culture my children a little bit?!  I didn't hear any complaints when they were served a free ice cream sundae at the end of their meal though.

Skating was an adventure, to say the least!  Ava could not stand up without falling and Rose wasn't much better.  But I guess that is to be expected for their first time skating.  I walked them around the rink, one on each arm, a couple of times, but we weren't making much progress.  We ended up renting these ingenious skating walkers (I don't know what they are really called, but that is what they look like), which totally saved the day.  With the skating aid, Rose took off to cruise around the rink on her own.  Ava took a little longer to get used to it (and a few more spills) before she felt comfortable enough to roll around on her own.

Lucy (a new girl in Rose's class), Eden (Hunter's sister), Hunter, Rose, and Ava

The girls happy to have the skating walkers

Gaining independence

All in all, it was a fun adventure and despite their bruised little tushies, they both left saying they wanted to do it again.