Kids are Stinkin' Funny

This morning we decided to make some cupcakes. I went to grab my box of cake mix and realized I didn't have any. You can't explain to little girls that you've changed your mind when it comes to baking, so we did it the old-fashioned way. I'm glad we did because I really want my girls to gain a love of cooking in a way that a box just doesn't quite provide. Don't get me wrong - I will still continue to buy those boxes.

Macy created a new game for herself yesterday. She runs out of the room, pulls her arm out of her sleeve, and runs back to you laughing. I really don't want to encourage her to take her clothes off and run around, but it was too funny not to laugh. If you put her arm back in she'll run to the other room and do it again.
We loved being able to play outside yesterday afternoon. It was really overcast, but at least it wasn't cold.

All I can think is that she got bored on the car ride. Why else would she take off her socks and pick at the sock fuzz and gunk in between her toes?

A Busy Time

Well, I have no pictures to post. There hasn't been too much going on with the girls. Things have been pretty busy with our construction project. We're adding a closet to our bonus room. It's more like another room, though. We had a good size crawl space above our garage and we are finishing most of it off into a closet. We had a contractor come out to do framing and drywall. Marc did all of the mudding/sanding (boy was that a harder job than he thought), installed lights, and painted. The carpet guy should be here any minute to match carpeting since ours has been discontinued. Hopefully he will install later this week and then all that is left is trim and painting the doors. It's been a few weeks, and I will be glad when it's over and I can uncover everything in the bonus room and give it a good cleaning. I'll also be thrilled to get some of our stuff that was in the crawl space into the back of the closet where there isn't so much dust and yuck. We will eventually move the girls into that room together. Kayla is SO excited that it will be hard to explain to her that she can't move in right now. We're doing this as part of their birthday presents (April and May). Now I have to figure out how I want to decorate. Kayla's tastes (pink and purple walls with polka dots) is a little different from mine. While the dots might be cute I am NOT about to try and paint them.

One Reason I Love Having Girls

Kayla wanted to dress Macy up (after I convinced her I wouldn't fit in the princess dress) and Macy was happy to let her do it. Kayla even managed to clip an earring on her, get a crown on her, and move her hair out of her eyes.

Enjoying the Break

Marc went back to work Monday after 2 weeks off, and let me tell you what an adjustment that was on all of us! I was so used to an extra set of hands and things got done around the house because someone was always entertaining the girls (they are not usually self-entertainers for long). Plus throw in the fact that we now have a construction project going on in our house and things have been a little crazy. Here are a few of the pictures from the fun break we had while Marc was home.

My mom bought the girls lollipops at Cracker Barrel. Kayla wanted hers the moment it was paid for, and Macy knew that under that wrapper was something yummy, so I let them have it in the car. I figured if they were strapped in then they weren't running around the house getting everything sticky! They LOVED them, but we came straight home and took a bath.

We went to an inflatable place and usually Kayla is pretty timid. Not this time! The child FINALLY goes down the slides by herself. Macy is a little to brave for my comfort. She hates just jumping, even if I'm holding here, but give her something to climb on and she is all for it.

We had several days this week with no sunshine and it was pretty dreary, but it was fairly warm outside. The girls had a BLAST playing in the puddles.

For those of you who heard about Marc's little incident, here is the proof. I will have to brag on him. He is up in the new closet space (above the hole) and is doing some electrical work and other things so that the guys can come and put dry wall up tomorrow. Kayla is so excited about being able to move into her new room and we can't seem to get her to understand it will still be a couple of months before we actually make the move.

Dutton Family Photo

There is always one who doesn't look so great in a family shot this big, and this time it was my daughter. Oh well!

Thanks to a little work on Marc's part we managed a couple more members of the family in this shot.

Grammie, Grampie, and all the grandkids.

Christmas

We had such a wonderful and busy Christmas this year. Here are just a few of the MANY pictures that were taken this year. It was so great because Kayla really understood why we celebrate CHRISTmas and Macy is at an age where she had a great time opening her gifts.

The girls are so proud of their gingerbread house. Well, Marc kept Macy in the other room because she just kept eating the candy. I'm also the mama who can't quite hand over all control of this to the kids, thus the house looks pretty similar to the picture of the one on the box it came in. I did the icing and told Kayla how to put the candy on. Maybe next year I can let go a little bit, but Kayla had a great time so all is well.

For those of you who follow Marc's FB page, here is our new "Fluffy the Dog/Cat". She loves the fact that she can actually walk the dog and make it bark and wag it's tail, and we love that our child isn't walking a balloon around the house.

The umbrella was a huge hit with Macy.

Bribery with a candy cane so we could get a picture of them in their Christmas pajamas in front of the tree. Works every time!

I asked for some more food for the girls to play with because Marc and I were tired of chicken and spaghetti as the only options on what they would cook for us. Thanks to Jackie we shouldn't have that problem anymore!

Playing the new Wii thanks to my mom

The first present all of the cousins (well the older ones) at G&G's house was open while the kids were wearing oven mitts. I thought they would get frustrated, but they all LOVED it.

The baby cousins.

My little cutie in pigtails.

Elves!

Check out the girls! Thanks Kyle for "reminding" me to it this year.http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/WlCnlwl5dvDzWy8gh57o

Morning Fun

Is it just me or is blogspot posting the pictures backwards? Ok, so here is our backwards morning. Kayla got a new cookbook the other day and found a recipe she wanted to try. We were supposed to make a bunch of individual trees, but since a 3 1/2 year old and an 18 month old can't quite make the triangles well, and I didn't want to make them all myself, we made one big tree. They had a great time decorating it. Macy probably ate more candy than she put on the tree.
Macy decided to have a seat in the baby stroller. Kayla MIGHT have tried this when she was younger, but after telling her once that she was too big and that is was for baby dolls she quit. Macy on the other hand is quite comfortable and sees no problem with it. At one point I Kayla called out and said "Mommy, I'm pushing Macy" and then here they came around the corner.

Christmas Sneak Peek

Here are a few of our Christmas pictures.

Thanksgiving

We had both of our families over to our house for Thanksgiving and were thankful to have some out-of-towners too. Everyone brought something and we had a ton of food, but isn't that a perk of Thanksgiving?

Somehow Macy picked up saying "cheese" for taking a picture. We don't really use that, so we aren't sure where she got it from, but it was too funny.
Helping momma make desserts.