Bye Bye Pacifiers

Better late than never. Madelyn finally kicked the bad habbit! We've been working on her for months and it finally paid off. We let her cut them off herself, so it hopefully would feel more like she chose to do this herself. Good job Maddie, now we just need to work on Barack's bad habbit!

Birthday Girl

So here is my special little birthday girl. She turned 6 last Friday. Everybody always talks about how time flies when they're referring to their children-it's very true. 6 years ago I gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl I had ever seen. She was perfect! Olivia has had a tough year and persevered and she is conquering all. I'm so proud of her. Here are many, many pictures of her day. Observe that I am using this also as a type of journal for my children's future reference, so there will be pictures you might not think are relevant or interesting, but I think someday Olivia would like to see them all.
The three amigas wearing their valentine clothes from Grandma Kathy

Olivia and Maddie made most of the decorations for the party. Here she is cutting out the hearts that will be taped to the kitchen cupboards.

This is the birthday cake. The theme of Liv's party was "pretend slumber party" I found this idea online and thought it was pretty cute. So thank you cake decorating tips and a big thanks to Fondant.

Here are the sock/slippers we made for all the girls at the party.

These are some of the party favors we made. It's a crayon holder that rolls up with ribbon. Olivia chose to make these, she really wanted to give these to all her friends.

These pictures are a little out of order-but here are all the girls crowding around watching Olivia open her presents. We had to break through the girls to even get this picture.

Here she is blowing out the six birthday candles

Decorating their journals-this is what girls do at real slumber parties, right?

This was hilarious! We played musical sleeping bags and the girls were so funny. They fought for those spots like we were giving away money.

Relaxing in the bags. It was such a fun party for Olivia. She told Trent and I several times that she felt like she was in a dream. That night she thanked me for her party and told me it was everything she could have ever hoped for. What a sweet thing for a six year old to say. Hey I get to brag at least once a year for each of my children. Today was your day Olivia. I love you!

Beautiful Pennsylvania

This is our backyard after a big ice storm came through. Even though the storms are very dangerous, I think the after affects of the ice are beautiful. That is all ice on the trees, it might look like snow-but it's definitely ice. When the wind blows it sounds like there are a bunch of wind chimes in the trees. I could quite be the only one calling this ice storm beautiful.

My Steelers

I hope you all had a chance to watch last nights game. It makes me almost cry.....almost. I am seriously so excited for another super bowl trip(well not a trip for me, but a trip for the Steelers to the Super Bowl) Can I just say I love these 2 guys in the above and below pictures? I never would have thought I would be such a devoted fan to a pro football team, but here I am. I guess maybe it had something to do with haveing 5 brothers. I truly don't think you can live in this city without catching the Steelers fever-no joke. btw thats Troy Polamalu above and Ben (my secret boyfriend) Roethlisberger below

This is Ben's secret way of telling me what time we're suppose to meet tonight.

This is what the South Side right by Trent's work looked like after the win-there we are to the left

Yeah right y'ins know we weren't there-this is what OUR party looked like (after I cleaned up all the awesome party food we had of course.

This is the extreme weather we enjoy here in this great winning city. Look closely at Trent's beard, notice the icicles? I went to the library yesterday morning-early-and my car said it was -10. I've never seen such low numbers before, and I hope I never see them again-(that's not taking into account the windchill which I was told was between -25 and -30) My family would say I have seen these numbers before in my previous life in Minnesota-but I choose to forget that life most days-that life was much too cold and misquotoey.

Poor Tucker, the snow is so deep he can't walk through it without getting buried. We have over 31/2 feet in our yard.

Sesame Street Live---"Elmo Grows Up"

So Trent had a couple weeks off for Christmas and we threw around a bunch of ideas of things we wanted and hoped to do. These were some of our ideas--going to some Caribbean beach (leaving the girls home)--going to Ogley Bay, West Virginia(maybe taking the girls)--going anywhere warm......but instead we decided on this alternate alternative SESAME STREET LIVE!!!!! We are the awesomest parents I swear. No it really was a lot of fun to see how happy it made the girls. Even Sophie quite enjoyed herself. She danced on my lap most of the night. And who am I kidding we weren't leaving this godforsaken icecap that is comingly known as Pittsburgh during winter.

I think this is a cute picture of all three girls watching the show and seeming to enjoy it.

Cute little chubba chunk

Picture taken during intermission-(an alternate picture is one where Maddie is throwing an insane tantrum because she wants one of the $18.00 Elmo baloons they just happen to bring out at intermission right after the Elmo World song.)

This is Liv doing the Amigo dance with all of Sesame Street. She really did enjoy herself.

Here they are the Amigo dancers-remember this song Jud? (Trent wanted me to throw this in-Amigo, Amigo Amigo out and play)

Very, very late overdue Christmas Blog

Christmas morning-girls coming down the stairs. You may ask why are they holding barbie dolls when they're about to open a ton of new presents? Maybe because around 5 am they snuck down and already looked at all their presents and saw a barbie doll house set up. I thought they were too young to be pulling junk like this.

The blessed Barbie house

Very excitedly opening their stockings-isn't new underwear the best!

Trent with his new presents-his mom finally decided to encourage his xbox gaming-in the past she'd been discouraging it-claiming it's for children (which it is)

If you noticed-Sophie was absent from all the other pictures with the new toys, this is because she is obsessed with soft cuddly things. (As you can see in this picture) She has gathered all the soft things opened, and is cuddling with them. She did get the blanket from Santa-how did he know?

The girls with their barbie jeep from Santa. It was definitely a barbie Christmas.

As you can see, we did not have a white Christmas. The load came a month too late-

The significance of this picture?-none, just wanted to show that Olivia's hair does get done curly some times-after dangerous fights with her.

Olivia'a Gift

This is what happens when Olivia feels inspired-she cut off 10 inches of her hair and donated it to Locks of Love! She caught the giving bug from her friend Emma who did the same thing. Liv would not leave Trent and I alone all weekend-so first thing Monday morning it was cut and shipped to Florida to Locks of Love.

I think it actually does look quite cute on her. It's different, but she loves it and always wants me to straighten it. She does not miss her curls at all she claims-neither do I when it's time to brush it out!

And here's Madelyn "Diva" Mason. As soon as we got home from the salon Maddie disappeared and this is what she looked like when we saw her next. She insisted on getting her picture taken-including the back. She did not want to get her hair cut-because she likes to fix it herself too much. And as you can see she's quite good at it. If you can't tell it's plastered with hairspray-a and she tried to brush it all out which only makes curly hair a fro-which that it exactly what her hair is.

These next few shots are random-

The stockings that are now finally complete with Sophies finished and hanging up-It's consumed every free minute I've had for months.

Isn't she cute! She's growing up fast-almost a year old already!