A Few More...

Lukey needed to get a picture on here too! Marie sharing some Cheerios with her big cuz (the hair...don't ask).

Thanksgiving Day

Jim and the ladies in the basement watching the Macy's Parade.

Marie and Shelby in the tub (Luke joined in).

Marie playing in the 3" of snow we got last night.

Snow and sun!

Shelby and Sydney sledding down the sidehill.

I would have to say that this is one of Marie's best day's ever. She woke up to find her cousins were here. The day began with playing puzzles with cousin Luke right outside her bedroom door. That progressed to breakfast with her cousins and playing downstairs while watching the parade. She shrieked at the top of her lungs when the Sesame Street float went by with Big Bird. It truly was quite exciting. After nap and the Lions' loss, the daddies took the girls out to play IN THE SNOW (Luke was napping). None of us were prepared for snow; Sydney had on my snow pants rolled up and Shelby had Uncle Jim's fleece over her clothes. But the big girls went sledding and exploring through the woods. Marie screamed when snow touched her feet and then decided that it was fun to play in...if you rip your gloves off first. When I brought her in, I discovered Jim had used atheletic tape to fasten her gloves to her sleeves so she couldn't rip them off. You can see here that this was before Daddy had that brainstorm. Marie finished off her stellar day with hot chocolate, potatoes, steak, red and yellow pepper and a popsicle. Oh...and a bath with her cousins in the big tub. Needless to say, she was very very unhappy when she had to get out of the tub and go to bed.

Hot Chocolate

"Hi. My name is Marie and I am a hot choc-oholic."

Climbing and Bathing

We love to climb. It is particularly fun to climb on the ledge of the fireplace and jump off...you can see the edges are padded...hmm, wonder why? We climb on chairs, stairs, in and out of the tub and we have contemplated the crib but nothing too much there, yet. We have 4 little chairs like this one scattered throughout the house and she knows where they are and loves to climb them.

Tonight, Jim helped out again at youth group. There is a huge side-benefit to this for me...tonight he came home with half of the leftovers of the pasta bar. I put two containers of spaghetti sauce in the freezer and have dinner for tomorrow! I have some sort of cold that has settled into my chest but is making my eye discharge icky stuff. Needless to say, I didn't go to church. So, as he was at youth group, I was in charge of Marie. After dinner, I looked at her and thought, I am too tired to play for another hour. So I asked her, "Marie, do you want to take a bath in the big tub with Mommy?" She looked at me, dropped her stuff and ran over to the stairs. We got her stuff ready for bed, I through on my suit and into the tub we went. She had a blast and after a half-hour I had to force her to get out. She likes to lie on top of me, put her head on the tub pillow and kick her legs making a huge splash. Marie went right to sleep after that. Good Night!

Ready for Church

Marie is doing much better at mass. She will draw for part of it and munch on cheerios for part. The rest of the time is spent standing on me and looking at the people behind us. I feel a little bad about this because I know it is a distraction to others. Things have been so busy that our church schedule is a little chaotic. Sometimes I go in the morning alone at 11 and Jim goes alone at 5pm (or vice versa); sometimes we all go at 9am. She is not too into the music which is surprising to us. We now live quite a bit closer to a different parish and we have gone there a few times and enjoyed it. But, then Jim got a request from the youth minister at our old parish asking him to help out at youth group on Sunday nights. So now we are back to St. Francis for a bit. For a while Marie was attempting to crawl under the pews and other such antics but now she is doing pretty good at sitting in our laps. And she loves Holy Water. She points to her forehead to make sure I do not forget to make the Sign of the Cross on her with Holy Water.

It's a matter of time...

Thumbs has found the fish. This was Sunday night.

Michigan Fan

Marie and Jim watching the U of M - msu game this weekend. Marie had a nice bowl of apples, crackers and veggies; what she is eating is Jim's chicken wing. We had a great group of friends over to watch the game. Alas, for them, they are all Spartan fans. As Michigan came back during the 4th quarter, I had all the kids in the basement and I took great care to explain how the team in green was cheating. Finally, one girl looked at me and said, "But I LIKE the green team!" "OH NO!" I said. "They keep cheating!" Marie loved having the company and it is good to see her so much more comfortable around people. She kept handing her Big Bird DVD to the adults in attempts to get someone to play it for her.

A few fashion shots. Marie has 5 pink coats of various patterns and styles. That's a bit much, don't you think? She also has about 7 pink sweaters. I think she has 4 pairs of pink pants. The funny thing is, I don't really like pink.