Just Being Me

cheesy smile

spaghetti toes

Sweet Sisters

Turning Two!

early morning birthday wishes

a doggie kee-kee (cake)

plenty of help opening gifts

New Shoe

A week before her second birthday, Violet took a fall off our bunk bed ladder (about a 5 foot drop). She of course was right within my arms' reach and I watched the whole thing without being able to intervene. She had on her new fluffy princess dress and it ballooned out like a parachute. It failed to break her fall significantly. All the dress obscured the exact nature of her landing, but I could tell by her cry it was not good. She calmed down, but she refused to put any weight on her right foot. She just sat where ever you put her. Anyone who knows Vi knows this is highly unusual. It was a Friday evening, so we decided to avoid the ER and see what tomorrow held. She ate dinner that night and slept peacefully with some ibuprofen. Next morning, she was her usual sweet self except she announced she was a doggie and crawled around on all fours barking and playing...avoiding walking at all costs. We contacted the doctor and some other specialists on campus and decided to wait till Monday. The consensus was that it was probably just a soft tissue injury. She just crawled around the rest of the weekend.

On Monday, the pediatrician felt her leg and sent us to a orthopedist who confirmed a toddler fracture. In less than an hour, she had a violet cast on her sweet little leg. She called it her new shoe. She couldn't wait to show her daddy.

We sprung for the gortex, water-proof model (a whopping $30!).

After a week, she was walking everywhere with her new shoe.

They didn't have a boot small enough to fit her little foot so she wore a sock with grippers on it.

I sent my daughter with a broken leg out sledding.

She is completely healed up now and we have the cutest cast ever as a souvenir. Asher thought it might be fun to start a cast collection. I emphatically disagreed!

Grafton, Illinois

Jeff planned a secret family getaway for us. His intent was to pull the whole thing off, packing and all, without me having a clue where we were going. But, I found his trail on weather.com. We were going back to Grafton to see the eagles and stay at Pere Marquette in the lodge. He still did the bulk of the preparation. What a man! It was just what we needed before we jumped into another semester.

Asher took a picture of the view from our room.

Despite frigid temperatures, we left the cozy lodge and warm indoor pool for some fresh air.

A Visit From Our Sue

My Mom, also know as Haaz Sue or Sue for short, made a visit in early January. Not a lot of pictures because we were all in various stages of a stomach bug. We made it to the Butterfly House. We were all there, but Winnie made all the pictures.

Those are cockroaches hanging in gobs!

Winter wore the pink hat hoping to attract a landing butterfly.

More Christmas!

The Nottingham family, coming from many different directions, met in Saint Louis for a few days together post December 25th.

Emma made Winter a decorated jar of "Things I Like About You".

Asher's favorite new hat

The girls had a much anticipated tea party with hot chocolate and marshmallows.

introducing the cousins to the City Museum

Not pictured are cozy times around the fire, some competitive rounds of bananagrams, going to the movies, and two little girls struggling to say good-bye.

Cookies

What I learned baking cookies with my kids:
-a gingerbread man can be a cyclops
-5 bottles of sprinkles is too many options
-a cookie can never be over decorated

-you can eat raw cookie dough...lots of it...and never show the first symptom of salmonella infection

Christmas!

We had warm, worshipful Christmas day. We started off with stockings. Moved on to breakfast, biscuits and chocolate gravy. Our annual nativity is not available for publishing at this time. A couple of highlights: Joseph (Asher) tries to keep the donkey (Jeff) moving by feeding him M&Ms. The angel (Winter) wears pink cowgirl boots as she announces the Saviour's birth to the shepherds. Violet makes many cameos eating stocking treats.

We didn't leave our house till supper. We walked across campus and had a lovely Christmas dinner with friends.