The start.....

....of Miss Molly's Big Girl Room!!!!

Brian started a few weeks ago with Molly's new room. He took the trim off, took the old aluminum large register out, and took down the ocean themed nursery border. (You can see we tried to paint a mint green border up before Molly was born....since Kelly ripped the border down....but it didn't look good with our textured walls, so we put a new border back up over top of it!) Anyway, yesterday my Dad and Brian

* put new hardwood squares down where the old register cut into 7 tiles

*cut a new floor register in and ran duckwork for it

*put new drywall up to cover the hole in the wall

*ran cable to both girls rooms where there were blank boxes

(No, they are not getting TV's right now....but someday it will be nice to already have the cable in the rooms)

Next, we still have to sand and mud the drywall a couple more times before we can spray texture on that area and primer and paint the room. After that, we are putting the new white trim in Molly's room (like the rest of the house....minus Kelly's room!)

We still have a ways to go.....but Molly will have a fun big girl room before spring!

Dad and Brian with their two little helpers!!!

Have I mentioned lately....

....that we're ready for spring?

It snowed again yesterday....just less than an inch....but enough to let us know that winter is STILL HERE!!! Well.....we are more than ready for spring to be here! The girls played in the garage this weekend....riding bikes, roller skating, and drawing with chalk. It's not quite the same as being outside...but it's better than ALWAYS being inside too!

Kelly can't wait to learn how to ride her bike this spring without training wheels! Molly is just learning how to pedal the tricycle.

Kelly!

Molly!

Sassy Kelly roller skating!

Molly wanted to try too....with Daddy's help!

A little video of the girls riding bikes in the garage.....Molly goes faster without pedaling....we'll have to work on that!

Molly Monkey

Molly has always been my climber! Lately she wants to climb on the back of the couch and sit on the railing (SCARY!) -- therefore I need to watch the monkey at all times! She pulls chairs or stools up to EVERYTHING and climbs to get what she wants. She LOVES jumping on our bed (Kelly does too....but two girls jumping together on our bed ends up in DIASTER!) Molly jumps on our bed a lot when Kelly is at school......this is her this morning!

Molly and her monkey hanging out on our bed....yes, she is wearing summer PJ's too! I went through Kelly's summer clothes to see what I had for Molly this spring/summer. Molly saw these Elmo & Abby's PJ's and said "MOLLY ON, MOLLY ON, MOLLY ON!"

(NOTICE....Molly is wearing stick on earrings too.....as Kelly thought she NEEDED some this morning too....just like her and Sophia!)

The monkey jumping on our bed!

(Everytime I take a video of her.....she wants to see it RIGHT AWAY!)

Welcome Adeline Noel

Adeline Noel Trifone was born on Friday, February 18 at 9:11pm.

She weighed 7 lbs., 1 ounce and was 21 inches long

Tara labored for 26 hours, pushed for over 2 hours with no progress, and ended up having a C-Section.

Jen and I welcomed Addi home on Monday afternoon. She's a little peanut! (Kelly was 7 lbs., 1 ounce at birth but I don't remember her that little!)

Kelly Tap & Tumble

This is Kelly's second year with Moser Gymnastics in Dyersville. She is in the tap and tumble class. It is a nine month program - from September until the recital in May. Kelly has learned so much more this year.....she is most proud of her backbend! She can hold it for about 15 seconds! She is getting better at cartwheels too....and is working on her back rolls. Here are her adorable pictures from this season!

A taste of SPRING!

The weather is just perfect this week! The snow is melting, and we are getting a little taste of spring.....if only it would last! The girls and I spent almost two hours outside today. The highlight was blowing bubbles on the deck. The fresh air was good for them.....as they are BOTH taking a nap right now!!!!!

Look at the SMILE on Molly's face! Too precious!

Kelly always blows LOTS of bubbles, Molly is still getting the hang of it!

Sisters getting along!!!!! :)

(Look at all the bubbles in front of them!)

Kelly's HALF Birthday

Today was Kelly's HALF Birthday Celebration at school!!! Although it is over half way until she turns FIVE....the teacher is having all the summer birthdays celebrate half birthdays in February or March on the day of their birthday in the summer....so today (the 17th) was Kelly's special day! She chose to bring ice cream sundaes for her birthday treat!!!! She had chocolate or vanilla ice cream, three different kinds of sprinkles to choose from, mini M&M"s, and chocolate syrup. The kids all LOVED it!!!!

Kelly wearing her birthday crown!

Kelly with some of her friends!

Cambrie, Mackenzie, Kelly, Sophia, Ellie, & Maria

School Delays

Today was Kelly's second - two hour school delay in a row this week....due to fog and ice. (Sidenote: The temperatures have been great this week.....upper 40's to lower 50's, which is melting a lot of snow. It freezes overnight which makes it icy and foggy in the morning until the temperature warms up again. It's perfect for us....as we DO NOT want to flood again this spring!) Anyway, this morning.....the girls were playing great together! Kelly decided to go in her room and play her leapster. Molly went in to see what Kelly was doing.....Molly asks Kelly "Kelly sick?" Kelly says yes (she was pretending!) Molly runs to the living room to get the doctor kit and comes back to "fix Kelly!" TOO CUTE! I love it when they play so great together.....if only it would happen more often!

Molly "fixing" her sister while Kelly lets her do it and plays her leapster!

Valentine's Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day! We had a fun day planned for the girls.....but it started a little too early as Miss Kelly woke up at 5:30am! She normally is up by 6am....but those extra 30 minutes are precious! She was VERY excited for Valentine's Day! She was dressed and ready for school BEFORE 6am! (We set our her clothes the night before to limit the picking and choosing in the mornings!) Brian and I get out of bed at 6am and Kelly says "Happy Valentine's Day Mom & Dad.....Mommy, do you want to take a picture of me since I am so cute!?!?!" See the picture below.....you can still tell it is COMPLETELY dark outside!

Anyway, Kelly went to school at 8am with her Disney Princess Valentine treat bags all ready to go for the class party! While I was volunteering at school, Molly had her own party at Lynnie's house where she got to take her Sesame Street Valentine treat bags for her friends. Both girls had a great time at their parties! Molly and I came home and made cut-out heart shaped sugar cookies for a treat when everyone got home! After Molly's nap and Kelly got home from school......Daddy was home as he got off a few hours early yesterday. We took a family walk...since the weather was beautiful.....mid 40's, came home and went to Happy Joe's for their Valentine's Day special.....a heart shaped pizza, pitcher of pop, and two sundaes for $14! The girls played some games and were pretty good at the restaurant. We came home, got PJ's on and Grandma and Papa Snyder stopped up to give the girls (AND US!) Valentine's Day presents. THANKS A LOT! What a wonderful family day!

Kelly showing off her Valentine's Day dress at 6:00am, while it is still DARK outside!!!

Molly on Valentine's Day with all her Sesame Street friends sitting in her chair!!!!!

She loves ALL of them....Cookie Monster, Elmo, Abby, and Ernie!

Molly and I made cut out HEART sugar cookies for a treat when Kelly and Daddy got home and for Molly after her nap! She LOVED helping me in the kitchen WITHOUT her sister! She was such a good helper!

BUT....she differs from her sister in the fact she DOESN'T want to lick the beaters!!!!!

Daddy pulling the girls at the beginning of our walk. Kelly really wanted to ride her bike, but we told her she couldn't because there were puddles everywhere with all the snow melting.

The girls had fun being pulled in the wagon.

Our Valentine's Day presents from the girls.....I love them both!!!

Molly made a heart person at Lynnie's &

Kelly made her handprints and cut out the pink heart and it says...

"Hands that hold our hearts!"

Love, Kelly

Crafts!!!!!

Kelly has ALWAYS been my crafty girl. She spends so much time playing with paper, scissors, glue, foamy letters, stencils, markers, crayons, glue sticks, stickers, paper punchers, etc. She will sit for HOURS with a table full of craft items! This picture was this past weekend.....Kelly flipped the lego table over and had crafty stuff EVERYWHERE! If you look closely, you will see paper scraps everywhere from cutting.....thank god we got a roomba for Christmas to help clean up our crafty little Kelly's paper trails!

Wee Read @ the Library

Today was our first day back to the library for Wee Read storytime. They take a break from a little before Thanksgiving until the beginning of February. We were supposed to start last week....but it was cancelled due to the blizzard! I started taking Kelly to this program when she just turned one year old. I started Molly at the same time.....but it didn't go as well. She never wanted to sit and listen to the stories. She got her glasses with one storytime remaining last November and I believe that was the biggest reason as to why she didn't sit still....as she couldn't see the books BECAUSE today she did AMAZING! She LOVED it and sat the entire time!!!! At the Wee Read program they do an opening song, read a book, do a song/activity, read another book, have the kids put items on the felt board, read another book, sing the good-bye song, and then do a craft. It is a very well-organized program that has a theme every week.

Todays theme - COLORS

For the craft, they got to make fruit loop colorful necklaces (and sample some too!)

Here is Molly at home wearing her necklace.....

....and eating it too!

They did a similar craft with Kelly right before she was two years old....the theme was food and they made a fruit loop & cheerios necklace. Here are some of the pictures of Kelly (she is about 4 months younger in these pictures than Molly is now!)

Kelly with her necklace at home.

Kelly eating her fun necklace from the library!

Look at our OLD living room in these pictures! Wow....our house has changed a lot! :)

Molly singing Twinkle Twinkle to Abby Cadabby

Molly has always loved her babies and pretty much every Sesame Street character.....Elmo, Abby, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, etc. She LOVES taking care of all of them....whether rocking them, covering them with a blanket, feeding them a bottle, giving them a binki, etc. Lately, she wants to put them all together.....rock, give a binki and blanket, and SING to them before she lays them down for a "night-night!" She is such a good little Mommy!

Here she is singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to Abby Cadabby this morning after we took Kelly to school. Abby loses her binki and Molly makes sure she puts it back in her mouth while continuing to sing Twinkle Twinkle! Molly loves her binki.....so she thinks ALL her dolls need a binki too! Too bad we only have two baby binkis in the house.....so they need to share!

Snow, Snow, and MORE SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been another SNOWY week here in Dyersville! We had a wonderful blizzard that came through Tuesday/Wednesday that brought approximately 15 inches of snow and THREE school snow days! (Kelly only had one day of her Catholic Schools Week Celebrations!) We got another 4 inches overnight today as well. We have A LOT of snow right now.......and we had a warm December week that melted a lot too! It has been another snowy winter! (I'M READY FOR SPRING!!!! But.....let's pray that the snow melts gradually so we don't FLOOD again!!!!) We spent 2.5 hours outside today.....as the temperature was upper 30's and it was pretty nice outside! Logan and Lexi (our neighbors) came over to play in the snow with Kelly. (Molly was napping......but came outside when she woke up). The kids had a great time!

It started with building a snowman.....

Lexi, Logan, & Kelly with the snowman they made......with a little help from Daddy!

....and went to making snow castles.....

......to sliding down the big mound of snow!

Kelly sliding!

But.....the big hit of the day was making a snow tunnel!!!!

(Here are Kelly and Lexi starting to dig the tunnel out)

Then they decide the needed "tools"....here they are with ice scrapers and shovels!

They called in reinforcements and Daddy helped!

Kelly going in for her turn to chip away at the tunnel.

Molly woke up and thought they were pretty funny going in the tunnel!

Kelly laying in the tunnel!

Lexi and Molly patting the snow between their gloves.....Molly didn't want to be too close to the snow.....the driveway was safe!

Kelly laying in the completed snow tunnel!

Molly wanted to see the snowman.....but wouldn't walk over to it.....so Daddy helped!

Our two girls.....one who LOVES the snow.....and one who still isn't sure!

Grandma Jackie's birthday

We celebrated Grandma Jackie's birthday yesterday....some of the grandkids help blow out the candles on her pineapple upside down cake!

Molly, Helena, Jessen, Kelly, and Racquel

Molly was tired and found a comfortable spot with Papa Bear to take a nap!