Grumpy

I'm grumpy and tired. Delaney keeps climbing out of bed at obscene hours of the night, and it takes at least 90 minutes to get her back to sleep. The routine goes like this: from the depths of a lovely, sound sleep I hear "Mommy! Door!" and I drag myself out of bed. I note that it is 1:44am. I walk to Delaney's room and open the door. She is out of bed and out of the jammies I sent her to bed in. She is either naked, or wearing some haphazard outfit with her arms and legs in the wrong places. I fix her clothes and put her back to bed. I go back to bed. 20-30 minutes later we repeat the process. Eventually, I put her down and see that it is 3:15 and she stays down for the rest of the night. Except for this morning. She was up (loudly) at 6:30. I do not want to be up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning! Unfortunately, I was.

I consoled myself with the thought of a nap later. Unfortunately, Dan put her down at 11:30, while I was out at the library with Marian. Dan then took off with Joshua for DC and Delaney woke up 20 minutes after he left. So no nappy for me. Grrr. And on that happy note, here are some pictures:


Dan and Joshua stopped by the White House while in DC today. Joshua had to get his picture taken with the new prez!

They visited the Naval Memorial, and I had told Joshua I wanted pictures, so he took this one for me! What a great kid.

Now I have a little follow up.

**On the Red Dresses- My Mother in Law got them in Utah at a store there and she said she bought all the ones they had.

**On the snow.... The kids built some "snow forts" in the yards. We had a little one in front of our house, and across the street was another one. Eventually they got to hurling snowballs at each other. They had a wonderful time, and played till it was dark and dinnertime, and I made them come inside.

Here is a little snow throwing before the forts were finished. Did I mention that Joshua and Marian stayed outside in the snow all day Tuesday and Wednesday?! I sent a LOT of mittens through the dryer!

Marian wanted to build a snowman. The snow was hard to pack. So she thought of a good idea, (That's what she told me!) and she used the big empty ice cream tub to pack snow and stack it to make this snowman. This is it a day after she made it. It was a lot cuter before. She was very thorough- Peas for buttons, branch arms, carrot nose and a scarf. It had eyes, but I forgot what they were made of. I was impressed.

Delaney demanded to go outside. I put her jacket on. I put her boots on. And I put her mittens on. she went outside with Dan, who was shoveling the drive. 5 minutes later, the mittens came off and were tossed in the snow. Next, she shucked off the jacket. Then she got cold, and this was her face as she came to the door to come in. Silly pickle!

Snow at Last!

Joshua has been so sad that we haven't gotten any snow. That all changed this morning! I didn't recall snow being in the forcast, so it was a total surprise to me when I opened the blinds at 8:30 this morning and saw snow falling, and snow all over the ground! Joshua dashed to get dressed and he and Marian raced out the door.

They made snow angels as soon as they got outside.

Then they tried making snowballs.

Delaney wanted out and was howling to do so. Being the mom that I am, I put on a jacket and let her out- wearing her jammies, and Callie's shoes, no socks (which Delaney had put on all by herself so I would let her out!). I figured she wasn't going to be out long anyway. And she wasn't.

Joshua wanted to shovel the drive, so I helped him get out the shovel. Maybe I should mention that at this point, I am still in my jammies myself, and wearing my glasses, and feeling quite frumpy. I did get showered. Then I dressed the girls and did their hair. After all that, I let everyone out of the house, properly dressed. Well, as properly as we were going to get. I haven't justified the expense of snow pants for the small amount we'd use them.

Marian also wanted to do some shoveling. She spent over an hour out there doing just that. Joshua and his friends ran off to the park to sled. They were gone for about 2 hours, having a blast.

This one refused to keep a hat on. She also didn't stay out too long at a time.

Callis is Dancing in the snow for me!

Marian is catching snowflakes on her tongue.

Joshua has now spent nearly the entire day outside. Marian has too. Callie spent about an hour outside and is now content to stay where it is warm and dry. Delaney would like to go out again, but I do not. I agree with Callie. Warm and dry is nice.

Marian has been hauling around a giant slush ball. She keeps coming inside to change mittens. We have about 5 pairs of mittens, and I thought we had several gloves. Apparently not. Joshua has the purple gloves, and there should be some red ones somewhere, but I can't find them. So Marian will come in and swap out her saturated mittens for some dry ones. I have a second load of wet stuff in the dryer right now. I think Marian is also on her third jacket. Joshua is only on his second!

Bedtime Shenanagins

Last night the 3 girls went to bed. After a manner of speaking, I mean. Callie and Marian giggled and faught and whispered and wandered around the hall for a while. Eventually, it was mostly quiet. Marian was quietly in her bed, and Callie finally settled down to sleep in the hall. I went up to check on her and I heard distinctive rustlings behind Delaney's closed door. Curious, and knowing she was out of bed, I opened the door.

Sure enough, Delaney was out of her crib. (She learned to do that on her Utah trip.) Even more interesting than that, is the fact that her pjs were on the floor, and she had dressed herself in a short sleeve shirt and purple pants. Amazingly, she had put them on correctly, in the dark! My silly, silly girl!

She was most upset when I tried to put her jammies back on. Apparently, she no longer wants footie pajammas. So I had to find a 2 piece set for her to wear. And then I tucked her in and I think she went to sleep!

The Beautiful Red Dresses!

While in Utah, Dan's mom got matching dresses for all the girls. She also got the same dressed for my Sister in Law's 3 girls, so all 6 kids have matching dresses. I think that is so cute! And the dresses are beautiful. The girls loved them. Of course they had to wear them today! Once they had them on, I had to take lots of pictures. And then I tried to get a group shot of my incredibly uncooperative children.

My 3 lovely princesses. You can't tell, but I did all their hairs in 2 ponytails with red ties. They all matched!

Marian is trying to make a silly face. Callie was looking so cute, I wanted a picture of it and Marian wanted to sneak in on it.

Callie was having a good morning and was very cheerful and she really really wanted her picture taken.... 100 times!

This is Marian, shoving Callie out of her picture.


Delaney loves this dress. She wanted to put it on every day since she came home. She also was thrilled to have pictures taken. Both these girls were so funny. Callie would call out "Take my picture!" And Delaney would just grin and say "Cheese!"

Yes, I wanted to try a nice group shot on the stairs. Although this is the silly shot, it is also the nicest shot!

We moved to the couch to see if they would cooperate better. Joshua gave this horrid grin and tried to make a hiddeous face, but I was too fast. Marian had her arms in front of her face, which prompted Delaney to do it for the next 5 pictures. Only Callie looks great in every picture!

I think this was the winning shot. It was the one where everyone looked mostly good and no one looked awful. Gotta love kids and pictures!

After the good shot they got to make a silly shot again. Then they got the chocolate I bribed them with so I could take 500 pictures. Then we went to church.

Dan's Trip

Dan had a very good trip with the girls. He flew in and out of Salt Lake and drove down to visit his folks in Cedar City. Callie told me every time I called, that she was having "the best" time. And since she is smiling that huge smile in many a picture, I must assume it is true! They arrived home very late Tuesday night. Fortunately, all the Inauguration insanity was about over and the drive to the airport (at 10pm) was great. I met them at the gate and Callie was thrilled, but Delaney wasn't sure she knew me for a bit. They had plenty of time to run around while waiting for the baggage though. So, their trip was wonderful, their flights out and back were wonderful, and while we didn't get home till 11:30pm, all was well.

Here are some of the shots Dan took while he was away. Darn Blogger keeps putting them in our of order and I'm not in the mood to put them where they belong, so, in no particular order.....

The girls loved eating out with Daddy. They seemed to like everything about the trip with Daddy!

Ah, here they are on the airplane, on the way out. I had packed them little backpacks of fun stuff to do, and I guess they had a good time.

My brother in law and his family went to Utah to visit while Dan was there and here are their 3 girls, plus my 2. Grandma got them all matching dresses! Isn't she wonderful?! And aren't they cute?!

Here is Delaney with her gandma. She's being a helper! I'm not sure about that face though.

Nice faces! Dan took the girls to Salt Lake City.

Or, more specifically, he took them to Temple Square.

There was snow to play in and Callie was thrilled to meet a new cousin and to play in the snow. No, I didn't send them with any proper snow equipment! Dan only wanted to take one suitcase and keeping it under 50lbs was tough! So, no appropriate snow stuff.

Yay! This is them at the airport Tuesday night! I was so happy to see them, I got a little teary, which made Dan very amused. I missed my babies. Oh, and I missed Dan too! Now life is back to normal- messy and noisy and crazy! Just the way I like it.