the monday update

now...back to my regularly scheduled blogging. (i just can't keep up with it when we're on vacation. blogging and cleaning--so hard for me to do when we're all home. although i can't quite figure out why!)

mckinlee has been on a real baby kick lately (anticipation of sadie's arrival, i think!) she spent hours on wednesday and thursday dressing her two favorite babies in some of her old clothes. she wanted me to post these pictures, because we thought this baby (whose name was paige on this particular day) looked so real.

here is paige wearing an outfit that i clearly remember dressing mckinlee in and having to roll the pants up because she was so tiny. paige is also sporting booties that were mine!


this picture just absolutely cracked me up! (mck took all of these) it looks like poor paige is contemplating plummeting to her death. mckinlee informed me she was just gazing at the daisy below. heehee!

here they are together. i cannot count the number of times she was tenderly holding paige that she said "i can't wait 'til sadie's here!" ~so sweet.~
thursday night, amber came home with us after the meeting. chris and i finally went to bed after midnight and the girls were still up. friday they woke up and decided to play babies. mckinlee decided she wanted to be french. amber said she was "just american." too funny. mck got gussied up into a proper "french" outfit, decided her name was nathalie (one of my names in french class) and got on the internet to find an appropriate french name for her baby. (paige was not going to work apparently) she decided on maccaire (which i thought was pretty unique). she and amber (whose "american" name escapes me right now) played dolls all day, talking in their respective french and american voices! good times.
they were so engrossed in their play, i got to sneak out to michaels and wal-mart by myself while chris stayed with them. good times.
saturday we went over to amber's house for a going away get together for her sister, jade, who is going to california for a few months. we had the most wonderful dinner and desserts and played games while the guys watched football.
i thought this was a cute one of kelly, jade and michele.
here are some of us girls.
and maria, bianca and jade. bianca is walking now and is so cute. she keeps her hands up above her head to balance herself while stopping every few steps to wave. chris says she looks like a little politician!
i finally put out my winter decor this week. i just never want to put up all my fall stuff. it looks so pretty in my house that i leave it out until the last possible minute. i figured with all the snow and cold weather we've been getting, it's finally time to bring the snowmen out!
i have so much winter stuff that is blue, but since that doesn't match my house anymore, i tried to not use so much of it.
i had to bring out this snowman, though, because i just love him!
i had forgotten i even had this snowflake candleholder. i put it in my kitchen window and light it every night.
this little arrangement is on the breakfast table.
i got these glass/silver hurricanes and the silver doodads at michaels during their after christmas clearance. i had gone to hobby lobby earlier in the week thinking all their winter stuff would be clearanced. i was utterly shocked to find a couple aisles of clearanced christmas stuff, but absolutely not one winter item in the store. it was filled with valentine's stuff! i was so mad. but michael's came through with a couple winter things!
i already had this and just stuck it on the side table in the living room.
i tried to do more white and silver this year, so i put a couple more white candles on this little table in the living room. (sure wish i had found a big snowflake to replace that brown orb, but oh well!)
so that's about it. mckinlee's back in school and my big project of the day is cleaning all of my cabinet doors with murphy's oil soap. hope your day is as exciting as that! :)