Mommy-Daughter Date

 Our township hosted a pottery painting night last week, and Ashleigh and I had a great time picking out pieces to paint.  With four boys in the house, girl time does not come around very often!  Ashleigh chose a guitar box and I painted a blue bird for our camper.  We will get the final product back in a week or so after they fire them making them all shiny.  Ashleigh loved painting her guitar and adding details to it.  We will definitely have to make this a more regular event!

Early Birthday Celebration

 We celebrated our February birthdays a little early this year because Dallin is having his eye surgery the week of our birthdays.  We stayed at a hotel in Columbus I discovered with a super fun pool!  There was a water slide, huge hot tub, dumping bucket station, spraying mushroom, baby froggy slide, and the best part was that it was all 3 feet deep!  Everyone had a great time, but Owen was really into swimming all over the place.  He has come so far in his swimming skills!!

 The hot tub - Ashleigh's favorite!

 Dallin even went down the froggy water slide.  He insisted on wearing goggles even though his head didn't go under water once.

 Pretty cool for just a Holiday Inn!  There was hardly anyone in the pool when we were there, which made it even better!

Dallin didn't want his picture taken, but I couldn't resist since he looked so grown up with his towel on.

Basketball Season

 Ashleigh and Owen are once again keeping us busy with basketball practices and games.  They are both learning a lot and getting better every week.  Ashleigh has a fun coach who has them wear/do something silly at each game.  This past week was mustache day.  All the girls kept their mustaches on to run through the tunnel at the start of the game, but most of them had them off at the beginning of the first quarter.  Ashleigh was the last one to take hers off. The team has become really close and the girls love Ashleigh.

 Owen is a great dribbler and loves to play defense.  He loves games, but not practices so much.  Luckily, he loves collecting "stars" for this uniform sleeve, which he receives at every practice and game making it a little easier to get him to practice.

James Bond Resemblance?

 Trenton got a bow tie for Christmas and he wore it to church for the first time this past Sunday.  He received lots of compliments and references to him looking like James Bond.  I think all the attention means we haven't seen the last of the bow tie!

Back to the Daily Routine

 This was Ashleigh's first day back to school after winter break.  Isn't her new outfit adorable?!

 While the big kids are gone, this is what you might find the little ones doing...I love how they are all three squeezed into the loveseat together.  Dallin isn't actually playing, but he thinks he is :)

Morning cartoon time.  I loved finding them sitting together on the one end of our four cushion couch!  Cute boys!

It Does Snow in Ohio!

 Shortly after returning home from our Christmas trip, we had our first snow of the year in Ohio!  Over the course of a week we ended up with about 5 inches.  The kids played out in the snow everyday the first week.  They built snow forts, had snowball fights, went sledding, jumped on the snow covered trampoline, and built a giant snowman.  It was a great end to our winter break.

Dallin loves our snowman.  Here he is talking to him.  As of today, Mr. Snowman is leaning significantly and his missing one arm, his eyes, nose, and half his mouth.