Making Easter eggs

Cambria thoroughly enjoyed decorating eggs this year. It was the first year that I've done this activity with her. I feel bad that it's taken so long, but last year Jeff and I were traveling the country to interview with churches...the year before that Avery was young and I let it slip away.

Avery had very little interest in decorating eggs this year. She was more inclined to pull over the tablecloth and knock over the colored water. :-)

A cute ballet picture

Cambria is loving ballet. I've been amazed at how much she has learned this year. She is very excited about her recital in June.

A ponytail

Avery is always feeling her hair to see if it is as long as "sister's." The other day I was able to pull it back in a ponytail. She was so proud.

A little singing and dancing from Avery

It is rare that I can capture Avery doing anything on video. She seems to shut down when the camera is on. However, this particular day she was in a little more of a performance mood since Aunt Katie was visiting. I think that the grandparents, aunts and uncles will enjoy this view of the ever changing Avery.

A pregnancy update

Several people have requested a belly picture (this one is thanks to my great photographer, Cambria). I am 26 weeks and feeling pretty good these days. However, I see this photo and realize that I feel a LOT bigger than I look.

Another snow day in the mountains

My sister Katie arrived from Jacksonville, FL last night. Her one request was to see snow. I wasn't sure if we'd be able to fulfill the request since Snoqualmie Pass has received an immense amount of snow this winter, and has closed several times due to heavy snow or avalanches. Fortunately, we had a fairly easy time today. We drove to the Sno-Park we visited before and Katie got to see the beautiful scenery, have her snow fix and the girls enjoyed it, too. We couldn't walk around much due to the deep snow. Katie and I kept falling through up to our knees. If we go up there again in the next few weeks, Jeff and I will take our snow shoes so we don't sink through, and can take the girls on some fun sledding spots.

New floors

Well, we just went through two weeks of insanity to get new floors throughout most of the house. A gal I know said she thought getting new floors was worse than moving...I think she may be right.

The whole project began when a slow leak from our dishwasher created a huge hump in the kitchen linoleum. We weren't too upset since we wanted to replace the floors, but we had no idea what we were in for. Upstairs we put in engineered hardwood (less expensive than "real" hardwood) in the kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway. We put new carpet on the stairs, wood on the stair landing, wood inside the garage door downstairs and new carpet in the playroom downstairs. The house was rented out for about 7-8 years before it was sold to us, so the carpets were fairly gross. We did not replace the carpet in any bedrooms. We ran out of money. :-) I will include some downstairs pictures in a few days when we've put things back together more.

New hallway (upstairs, leading to bedrooms)

New dining room

Old dining room (no one with young children wants carpet in their dining room, especially since it's our only eating area)

New living room

Old living room (pre-moving in)

New kitchen floors

More new kitchen floors

Old kitchen floors

Swimming

Cambria received a gift certificate for a month of swim lessons for Christmas. She's learned a lot during the last month, and is now using less flotation devices, kicking her legs and moving her arms. However, she still won't stick that face in the water much.

Below is a video:

Roller skating

I took the girls to a skating rink on Tuesday morning. They have skating for preschool and school-age kids on Tuesday and Saturday mornings. It was a blast. Avery skated for about 15 minutes, but Cambria did the full hour. She absolutely loved it!

Pre-skating

She's taking to the roller skates very quickly.

Video: A race to the finish line.

A Family Day

Sunday, after an insane 2 weeks for Jeff's work and our household, we took an afternoon for our family. Our outing led us to the Seattle park, Golden Gardens, which is on the Puget Sound, overlooking the Olympic Mountains. The Olympics are not always out, but it was an amazingly clear day. On our drive home later that afternoon we could see the Olympics in the West, the Cascades in the East, Seattle along I-5 and Mt. Rainier in the South. It was AMAZING!

We topped off our day outing with fish and chips for me, Dick's burgers for Jeff and ice cream for all. :-)

Avery has a new obsession with sunglasses (maybe because the sun has been out this week).

Jeff expressing the freedom he felt during our Sunday afternoon outing.

A fun time swinging with Daddy.

Playing on the beach.

Mommy and her girls.

Jeff & I (too bad my eyes were closed).

Riding bikes around the paths (Avery is learning to peddle).

Hair cut

Both girls recently had their bangs cut at a hair salon. The picture below was them pretending to have their own hair shop (note the "cape" around Avery's shoulders).

Swim lessons

Cambria has been taking swim lessons the last few weeks (a Christmas present from Aunt Heather & Uncle Will). Even Avery has been learning how to swim without even entering the pool. Below, they were pretending that our bed was the pool.