While the Cat's Away

Avery stayed home from school the other day b/c she had a rough night due to another double ear infection. She uses that time to play with Ross' toys uninterrupted.

She reads his books.

The Mickey Mouse is hers but the ATV had to be close by.

Of course we have to have snack after such fun play! I'm not sure why I keep putting them in a bowl b/c she usually dumps it and just picked them up off the floor.

I hate when she is sick but I do enjoy spending one on one time with her.

Happy Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day this year we went the goldfish route. I decided majority of the kids in her class were old enough to eat goldfish so she and Ross both delivered these for V Day.
My precious Ross made me and his Daddy an awesome card at church for our gift. After he gave it to us he later told me he couldn't wait to see what kind of card I was making him and he hoped it had A LOT of stickers. No pressure.
This is the end result both front and inside. Yes I have the artistic ability of a kindergartener or even worse but he was quite happy with the results. At his age he's happy to see stickers, his name a few times, and shiny stuff. I might have to farm out the work for next year's card.

Happy Birthday to Our Sweet Girl

Avery turned 1 on Feb. 2. Normally we bake birthday muffins but Ross got his first taste of powdered donut recently so I thought I'd give him a surprise and have those this time. Avery didn't complain - as you can see below. Of course we had a candle and sang to her.

Hello tongue!

Yum! She quite liked her first taste as well!

If I remember correctly she ate 3.

I wanted to get a picture of her with Ross' birthday crown but the only time she would wear it was when she was drinking out of her sippy cup.

Her cute cake. -Thanks Mom for lighting a fire under me.

She needed a sample before everyone got there and she was the birthday girl so why not?

Daddy picked her up a birthday headpiece and she actually wore it for a short bit.

Happy Birthday to Avery!

She dug right in.

Wait for it...

She decided it was easier to just go straight for the cake with her mouth instead of messing up her hands.

Sweet baby girl!

Would you please look at those sweet ankles being crossed as she goes in for round 2.

After she ate cake she spent forever playing with the cups.

The damage.

Present time!

Uncle De was even there!

Ross is quite the fan. Uncle De brought him a soccer ball to open and he has been practicing a lot.

Our Granddad was there. His birthday was this past Saturday - one week after Avery's. He is 86.

4 Generations

It was a great day!

Happy Birthday to Mommy

This is literally the only picture I have from my birthday and obviously it isn't even of any people. Daddy is just not very good at this. Still I wanted to share one of my most favorite presents to date. My Mom got 2 pictures that I really liked of Ross' framed. One picture is a pumpkin patch and the other is a turkey. I'll cherish them always.

Snowpocalypse 2012

I can't believe I skipped over the snow pictures!! I probably wanted to block those days out of my memory. :) Ross, however, had a great time! As we know snow came down big time on Christmas night leaving the Martin family with no power for 5 days. We also had no wood so Dad walked all the way to the store to buy some and ended up buying the sled below to pull it back on. Good Daddy!

While we were working to build the fire I tried to move the tree out of the way. This didn't go as planned and it ended up falling over.

Once the fire got going Ross and Daddy came inside to warm up and take a nap. Luckily I had charged the DVD player in anticipation of the electricity going out.

Avery didn't get in front of the fire but she was bundled up with tights, footie pajamas, and sweatshirt. If I could have kept her little hands warm she'd have been perfect.

After losing hope on getting the power back we went to my Mom's to spend several nights. Ross was quite happy about this b/c it meant more playing in the snow since he could warm up easily in her house. 

In this picture he'd just hit me with a snowball and turned around to do his little booty shake. 

Here he comes after me again!

I finally got him to aim elsewhere for a few minutes and I started building a snowman. I got it doing pretty well and all of a sudden here comes Ross knocking it over. Poor snowman.

Back on a mission to get me.

Evil laugh.

He had such a great time.

It was so pretty out at Mom's. It seemed even prettier because I could see the lights on inside the house and knew it was nice and warm.