It's wierd being on the charts

i'm so glad my head isn't all stiched up this year!
Today Olivia had her 2 yr checkup, I always say she is so little, well compared to Jillian, most children are i suppose!!! But, she is still tall for 2 the doc said, so i guess we will have some volleyball or basketball players around here in 10 yrs.
Weight- 30 lbs, 85%
Height-35.5 inches 90%
Attitude- off the charts
Yep, she was firing on all cylinders for the doctor, i swear she must think I am a stage mother or something, cause every time she walks in the door my kids are just sitting there, and a light bulb in their minds goes off, and they act like they are on Broadway. Olivia was dancing, giving dirty looks, laughing, it was like a one toddler play. Good grief, 2 diva's, pray for me please, the teenage years will not be kind, LOL!!!

Last weekend we again went to Timberidge water park in lake geneva, for my bro in laws annual family reunion, it was alot of fun. Jillian finally went on all the slides! I hope she will go on the Cruise's water slide in a couple days, it looks pretty cool!!! OH YEAH, 3 days till DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!!!! so so so excited!!!!!!!! I cannot wait to be laying on beach in the Bahamas, and then on Disney's own private island!!! get me out of this horrible weather, cause i am DONE with winter!!!!

Olivia is 2!

J and her boys
Aunty loves jumping as much as the kids! lol!

Cheese! birthday princess here!

All about Elmo! Livie loves that little red freak

Love the face

My girls

i just can't believe my baby is 2! the time has gone way too fast. She had such a good birthday and party! She has been walking around the house all day saying happy day to me!

the great blizzard of 2011

little piggy stuck
climbing the new mountain in our backyard

kaine and jillian digging tunnels

notice how the lazy "working dog" goes behind the 4 yr old

We are very happy we both are off work today! Only 2nd time in 7 yrs the city has shut down, and yesterday at ryan's work they told them the "never" shut down, well never has come apparently cause they closed at 5am!! whoo hoo, hope the wind dies down and the girls can get outside and play! snow day!!!!

Dress Up Day

Sleddin' with Daddy
Recognize this jacket Mom? :-

So yesterday i had to clean out the storage space because somebody (ryan) stuffed all the girls bins of clothes waaaaaaay in the back. And I need to start getting their summer clothes out for the bahamas and disney in T minus 27 days!!!!!!!!!!! Well, i came accross a box of dresses i have saved, every dress from as far back as my mom's wedding dress to erin' 8th grade dress to my prom dress. Jillian went BANANAS!!! it was like xmas morning!! she wore the dresses around all afternoon, and even to dinner! Aunty's dresses almost fit her, what a midgit, lol!!!

I have to share the recipe I made for dinner tonite, it was soooo good. I love chicken pot pie, and have made dozens, this one, modified with more veggies (shocking i know!) from my feb Martha Stewart is by far the best.

Chicken pot pie with puff pastry

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 tbl evoo
• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 4 potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1/2c white wine
• 1 1/2 c ckn stock
• 1lb of boneless ckn breasts chopped
• couple pinches of tyme
• salt and pepper
• 5 tbls of constarch whisked with 4 tbls. of water
• 1/2 c heavy cream
• package of puff pastry (thawed)
• 1 egg beaten lightly

preheat oven 425. cook garlic in evoo until fragrant, over med heat. add carrots and potato, cook 10 to 15 mins to soft. add wine, simmer 2 mins. add stock, bring to boil. add ckn and tyme. cook for couple mins until ckn cooked. season salt and pepper. add cornstarch mixture and cream, simmer until thick, about 5 mins. transer to baking dish, i use the medium rachel ray bubble and brown, top with puff pastry, it will overlap. brush with egg and cut a few holes in top with knife to vent. cook till golden about 15 mins. delish!!!

The things I do for Aunty Erin

ohhhh, fashion is not comfortable i tell u!

We are pretending its spring

we are over winter, we are ready for warm breezes and flowers!!! So, considering thats months away, the girls pretended the hallway was the sidewalk, we got some flowers at the grocery store, and they stood by the heat vent for a minute!

They are so children of the 2000's!

watchin a movie on the laptop. ha! in the 80's, when I grew up, we didn't even have cable! how times have changed!

Ugh

so we have some type of flu over here, Jillian got sick Xmas eve, and like domino's we all have fallen. Luckily its not the throwing up gross flu, but we sound like a bunch of seals at the zoo. People have been telling me they didn't feel better for 2 weeks from this stuff, 2011 is off to a great start!

2010 was also a pretty crummy New Year's eve, we made it till 10pm and had chicken soup for dinner! Usually we go out for a great meal with friends, but this year was going to be really special cause our favorite Ohio people were coming!! Well, of course they couldn't come, we didn't wanna give Carson and baby mama our sickness. Luckily my thoughtful friend Stephanie texted me a picture of some giant shrimp and yummy steak while they ate at our FAVORITE restaurant ever Butch's!!! Ha ha, she also mentioned they missed us and it wasn't the same without us, and since food has little taste to me right now, all is forgiven!! oh well, there is always another new year's eve, i'm sure it will be faster than I would like!

Hope everyone has a joyful, healthy and safe New Year!! 2011!! I thought I'd be riding around in little jetson spaceship by now! ha!

Meet our newest family members...

Blueberry and Elmo (self explanatory i hope). I hope Santa is gonna come clean their bowl once a week. Ha!

Santa Claus came to town

barbie camper!!
Dinosaurs!

ridin'

i think thats for your babies Olivia!

Princess castle with unicorns!!

so many presents so little time

thanks for another hard year of work Keko (the elf) see u next yr

daddy and his girls

My girls

We had a wonderful christmas, full of love and presents of course!! Christmas eve was at our house and Christmas day at grammy barb's. Jillian was so excited this year, it was alot of fun. Goes so fast! 2011 already?!

97 years young!

grammy takes the best pics ha ha!
suprise!!

Aunty's amazing friend Bobby Patrick had a suprise 97th birthday party for aunty Lucy last sunday! He had so much food it was unbelievable. About 25 people were at the party and Aunty had a blast. 97 years!

Skating Princess

Jillian has been begging to go ice skating and so off we went today. I haven't skated since my Dad use to shovel off a spot on the lake at the cottage for me and erin, so probably about 20 yrs ago. It is definitely not like riding a bike! it's hard! Jillian had a blast, there was a couple girls doing jumps, she said she wants to skate like that. so cute!

Santa is the devil/ i could sit on santa all day

this year olivia was NOT about santa ha ha! Jillian loves santa, she made him a picture and was so happy. We went right after i got off work today and there was 3 people in front of us, perfect time i guess! whoo hooo.

The Christmas marathon

House decorated, gifts bought and wrapped, cards sent and cookies baked. Christmas is exhausting. All that's left is to visit Santa, and maybe relax a little in the next 12 days. I'm really starting to appreciate my mother and mothers everywhere who put on this whole Christmas spectacle every year. we are highly under appreciated!!

We must be really good....

cause santa claus came today already!

Cookies!!!

cookie making is boring, i just want to eat them!
Little chef

candy monster

love this picture, both like, hmm what u got?

5 hours of cookie making + girls up at 6 am for St Nick (yeh I know its suppose to be tonite but wanted to enjoy it not have them see their stockings then rush to work) = girls sleeping by 6pm!

One more thing...

Don't ever buy Frigidaire, seriously its J U N K. Worst appliances ever. Ryan has had to fix the fridge a couple times, the ice machine messed up. Last year our 4 yr old dryer stopped working, the repair guy fixed it to work only on high, or we could pay like $250 for a new timer thing, seriously? I will just dry on high. Well, now on Thursday I was doing laundry and it was not spinning leaving the clothes soaked. Had appliance guy come today, some door lock, $175 for part, labor and service call. SERIOUSLY it is 5 yrs old. My mom's and Barb's washer/dryers are like 30 years old. Is all stuff made like crap nowadays or is that just a bad brand???? ARGHHHHHHH merry Christmas to us from Frigidaire!

Little House Builders

there's a story behind this one...
The masterpiece

The artist, and her annoying sous chef who eats everything

In case you didn't know I love glitter and weird baubles. My Grandma had 3 things every Christmas which i loved. 2 I inherited, her jewel tree and white lite tree. The 3rd was the gingerbread house they got for us each year. It was more like a mc-mansion house, huge and full of candy. Oh ya, i really like sweets too. So, i've been looking for a bakery that makes one and have yet to find one. So, got a cheapie at target and let the girls decorate it. Olivia just ate it, but Jillian really got into it. She definitely has Aunty Erin and Uncle Nick's talents.

She also is obsessed with taking pictures lately. Hence the first picture I hinted at above. She makes Olivia pose for her. So she tells olivia move, keep moving, ok sit there. I need to get a good one of the tree. Olivia is her loyal subject, wonder how long that will last?? so cute those 2!

Happy Turkey Day

Dinosaurs love them some turkey meat
Jillian took some pictures, she always tries to help out!

They were lovin' Aunty and Uncle J- they came back with Jamaica gifts!!!

Well, as I was tolling away in the kitchen all day and night preparing thanksgiving dinner, I was assuming someone, who will go nameless, was taking some good pictures. Apparently there were 2 turkeys at our house thursday, one in the oven and one laying around not taking pictures!!! Ha! hope everyone had a good thanksgiving!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like christmas....

The Village!!

Why go hunting I told ryan....

Just sit on our front porch!

So we had a girls weekend, cause daddy went to kill bambi's dad, or should i say try to! ha! Jillian loves Christmas, and Olivia loves whatever Jillian does, so we decorated the tree downstairs and finished the village upstairs. Would have done it all, but kinda weird when everyone comes to eat turkey thurs, and its all out Christmas! I inherited the Dickens Village from Barb, its kind of ironic, the minute i saw it, oh 16 yrs ago, I coveted that thing, I pictured it in our cottage up north when we hopefully inherited it some day when we were old. Well, obviously life didn't go that way, and the Village has sat the last 4 yrs in storage. Because it was Nick's Village, and it just didn't feel right to have it without him. But, this year Jillian is full on Christmas wonder and all, so its the right time to share the magic with her. And, hopefully her kids kids with stand and stare at the village someday, and the tradition will live on long after all of us.

Otherwise, Miss Jillian is becoming my #1 helper, ok there really is no one else in line, but anyways, she "babysits" Olivia now, basically keeping her occupied so i can workout, shower, READ a magazine! its sooo nice. I cannot believe how much she has learned from 3 months of school. She was organizing the ornaments on the tree, and said "like a solar system mom, this red one is mars!" smarty pants!

Meanwhile Olivia is insisting on growing up too fast, she is suppose to be my baby! She is pooping and peeing on the potty, and going diaperless longer and longer without accidents. She detests her diaper, she actually sighs when i put it on her for a nap or night. Good Grief. Jillian was potty trained by 2 1/2 but she didnt start at 21 months!

And what is with the deer?? Olivia and I were coming home from the grocery store thurs, and everyone is stopped in front of our house, cars, dog walkers, and dogs going bananas. and 2 deer walk past our car, like 4 ft away! Weird site!