Misc photos...

These 2 kids spend about 75% of their mornings in a laundry basket, building forts with laundry baskets, making trains out of laundry baskets, making tables out of laundry baskets, playing hide and seek with laundry baskets...



now if only I could get them to do the laundry that was in the said laundry baskets that they are dumping out

 

The AWANA group the two older kids attend had a skating party one Sunday night. Both kids had a great time

 

 

 

 

The beginning of February a group of us headed to Omaha, NE to stay at Coco Keys .  Mallory has always been a little afraid of getting her face wet and wanted nothing to do with splashing of water in her face.. as you can see, she overcame that fear this weekend and was going down water slide after water slide!!!!

 

Here is a picture of all the kids that we met there. Grandma Betty watched Madden back at our house, and what a blessing it was to not have to worry about an 18 month old's schedule. Made doing things and getting away a little more relaxing for this momma.

We then headed The Pizza Factory, which is a lot like Incredible Pizza here in Des Moines, just a little bigger. Kids seemed to have a good time there also.

 

 

 

Presidents Day weekend Aunt Kristin was back from Chicago visiting my parents, so we went and stayed at the farm for a few days to visit grandma/grandpa and Aunt 'Kissy'.....

 

Pa decided it was time to play beauty shop :)

Little boy is a HUGE player of  'Monkey See Monkey Do'... it has gotten quite comical at times, cause he seems to do it when you least expect it. If only I had a camera for eyes to catch all the moments....

We met cousin Cael at Playground for Kids in Ankeny one Monday morning

 

 

A couple weeks worth of Build & Grow at Lowes. Monster Trucks were the projects they built both weeks.. Grave digger... and Monster Mutt...

 

 

 

 

 

And what trip to Ames, IA doesn't involve a stop at Hickory Park ?!?!  This littl girl I think got only the BLUE in the Scooper Hero ice cream

 

 

Cute Mallory stories...

Mondays are days that Mallory doesn't have preschool, and Mason is done earlier. So naps for little boy and mondays in general are a little hectic and non routine days. This was the typical Monday. I took a shower while Madden was napping and while Mallory was eating her lunch. When I was finished and came out of my room, I went into Mallory's room to put away some shoes that were in my room.. only to notice she had completely made her bad, she had picked up almost every last thing off her floor, her books were in the book shelf and the baskets, the clothes were all in the clothes hamper, she was in the kitchen with the broom and dust pan cleaning up under the table, the livingroom was almost picked up.... all of this unprompted by me!!! When I commented that her bed looked perfect and that her room looked awesome, and that her cleaning up the kitchen for me made my heart proud.. she responds with 'Mommy, I'm just helping you out by doing my chores so you don't have to do all the chores by yourself!!!!'   Awwww such a sweet sweet little girl. I know she can be a good helper and I know she is a good cleaner (she gets best tickets at school for being a 'super duper picker upper  so I know she can do it... she just usually fights me when I ask her to do it at home) So to see that she did all this on her own free willl... THEN proceeded to head to the basement to pick up the basement... makes me realize my little girl is growing up, and turning into a precious young girl.


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The next day, I get out of the shower to find her standing at the sink with a stool washing our breakfast dishes!!!

Love watching my little girl transform into a big girl..

Valentines

Mason's Valentines he handed out to his classmates

 

 

Mallory's Valentines she handed out to her classmates. I forgot to get a picture of her with her valentines.



Both kids had a fun day at their class parties and reading and opening all the goodies they got from classmates. Mason got lots of baseball card style valentines and Mallory got a lot of the princess and dog/cat tattoo valentines. Goes to show what is popular with the kids these days. Mallory did have one other 'homemade' valentine, and all of Mason's were store bought. Kind of surprises me in the day and age of Pinterest and all the great ideas there are out there.