Writing and Playing

Grant has taken an interest in writing his letters. So we have been working on practicing letters by writing words he finds interesting (ghost, spider web, monster, etc). Grant is also writing his name and we are really proud of him! Way to go little buddy!

Maddie is as sweet as ever and she has a sweet tooth (Below she just finished with her chocolate cookie dough facial). When she hears something getting unwrapped she comes over to me and begs. It's funny when she wants something that isn't food. This morning she heard me open the water filter wrapper and got really upset when I wouldn't let her eat it.

Maddie also loves to mimic Mommy. I put her in the sink and she dove into my make-up bag.

She is a very eager to fold her arms and bow her head when we pray. This is a shot of her folding her arms when she heard me say "Fold the laundry".

Flying Notions!

So I want to show off my wonderful mother-in-law's talent. Kathy (Chris's mom) is an amazing quilter and has taken her talents to Etsy!

Check out her shop: Flying Notions

Several months ago she started making these beautiful fabric birds and I was lucky enough to get one as a gift. If you have a moment, check out her shop. She's VERY careful with her work and only uses high quality fabrics. She'll be adding a variety of birds in upcoming days, so if you're interested, check back from time to time. Hooray for Kathy!

We made it just in time for the blizzard!

We made it! We had a rough start to our move to Illinois. We had a direct 3.5 hour flight and Grant did awesome, but Maddie cried the ENTIRE time and so I kept giving her different snacks to make her happy, which ended up being a very bad thing that evening. In our hotel, Maddie woke up and threwup three different times, so we had to request baby bedding 3 different times during the middle of the night. But now the kids are settled and getting more used the cold temperatures.

My little snow angel

On Feb 1, the Chicago area was hit with a huge snow storm. So we woke up to about 3 feet of snow in our yard. In the pic below I am attempted to clear our driveway. Fortunatley, a neighbor saw the dinky shovel I was using and offered to come clear my drive with his snowblower, I happily accepted and when he came over another neighbor and his teenage kids followed to help out! So with the 5 of us, two snowblowers, three snow shovels- we got it cleared in under two hours. I am extrememly grateful for their service!

I threw Grant into the snow and then I jumped in myself! It was a blast!

Maddie in the snow before the blizzard.

Rewind....

This is in Washington when Maddie was helping me pack up.

Grant was "labeling" the boxes for us. AKA drawing pictures of himself on the boxes.

Maddie is sneaking into the drawers of our new kitchen.

For Real- We're moving!

We are moving to Chicago! Quick history. Last June the law firm, that hired Chris after Graduation, informed us that they wouldn't be able to pick him up in Jan 2011, like we were expecting. As everyone knows the economy stinks! We were extremely disappointed and discouraged. So since that time, Chris had been looking for work in different places and a week before Christmas an awesome Law firm in Chicago made him an offer. This was an amazing Christmas blessing for our family. We are very sad to leave family and beautiful Washington behind, but we are excited to have new adventures in the Land of Lincoln. We are flying out in 1 week. So until then I am going crazy weeding, cleaning, packing, recycling, goodwilling, and craigslisting our stuff. We feel very blessed to have this job opportunity for our family.