the girls were complaining that they were bored. john told them to go outside and build a home for fairies to come visit the garden.

here’s what they made:

i’d go hang out there, wouldn’t you?

don’t you just love crazy hair day? don’t you??

we took the girls to a nearby park to ride their scooters. it has wide sidewalks and lots of space. they have a skate park too, but my girls aren’t quite ready for the big leagues just yet.
it was such a beautiful day – it’s hard to believe it is technically “winter.” it was t-shirts and a no jacket kind of day.


this is the face of a very happy girl and an afternoon of “scootering.”

my great-niece or is it grand-niece (wow, that makes me sound old – can i just say my niece’s daughter? ok, thanks. that’s better.) turned 3 and had a very pink princess party.

pink pink pink. even pink cupcakes with pink frosting.
 happy birthday sweet girl! 

introducing our new puppy: maggie! we call her maggie-love because she has a perfect little spot on her tail that looks like a heart. she’s sweet and we love her.

she wanted to go to leatherby’s for ice cream. all 4 of us shared this monstrosity.

i love this age. she’s a total ham.

my sweet baby girl is 7.

i love this kid. all 7 years. happy birthday sweet anya!

one kid in 1st grade and the other in her second year of preschool. where does the time go. i feel like a broken record, but really…i mean look at them.

super fun times ahead. i can’t wait to see what this year brings my two amazing girls!

our kitty, buddy (if you knew him, you’d understand how fitting that name really is) was missing for 6 days. i started to panic thinking the worst had happened. we got to the make-signs-and-call-everyone-we-know-phase of things. low and behold, through facebook (gotta love facebook sometimes) our neighbor mentioned seeing him. i went outside on friday afternoon and he was laying on our front lawn. i was worried because he wasn’t moving or responding to my voice. my heart sank. i sat on the grass next to him and touched his back. he flinched and tried to nip at my hand. i was overjoyed. but as this happened, i realized his face was very very swollen. something was very wrong. i picked him up and took him into the house and closed him off in the bathroom. i didn’t want the girls to be scared of how he looked – it was not good. the short story is that i ended up having to take him to the pet hospital and they kept him over night. he was dehydrated and they needed to drain the massive amounts of fluid in his mouth. poor kitty. i picked him up this morning and he looked like this:

the cone of shame. you’ve seen “up” right?

they still aren’t 100% sure what happened. it could be that got bit by something. it could be that he got in a fight. he’s 13, so this could be a sign of age and something more serious. time will tell. if the infection stays away, then we know it was a bite or something. keeping my fingers crossed.

and now, 6 days later (the length of time he was missing) he looks like this:

lookin’ good buddy. we are so glad you are home!