The Epleys

Thursday, February 16, 2012

The Johnson's visit MI

We were fortunate to have Dave and Katie come up for a visit and they stayed with us on Wednesday night. To say that my girls love Dave and Katie is an understatement. They were very sad to see them leave. They are both amazing with kids. Dave spent so much time playing hide and seek with Allie and Hannah. He is so engaging with them and you can tell they both really enjoy children. THey are going to make amazing parents! Katie is due with her first baby girl in June! I cannot wait to meet their new bundle of joy!

Snow bunnies

We haven't had many opportunities for our girls to play in the snow. I love it! I much prefer a milder winter. But I do know my girls love to sled, build snowmen, and just play in the snow. We finally had a snow storm a few weekends ago, so my mom and I took the girls outside for some fun.

Snow trampoline!

Hannah enjoys it for as long as it takes for her fingers to get cold!

Naples, FL

Amazingly, you can hop on a plane for 3 hours and suddenly be in a beautiful, sunny, warm, palm tree filled state. Sometimes makes me wonder what the heck I'm doing in Michigan!

I was so blessed to be able to travel to Naples, Florida for a girls weekend, with 7 other amazing women. It was such a relaxing and restful four days. I came home feeling rejuvinated and refreshed, not only as a mom, but as a wife. Lisa is an amazing woman who takes the time out of her week to watch our children while we meet for mom's group. She is already such an amazing gift to us! She invited us down to hang out in her beautiful condo for four days. It was awesome! We shopped, drank wine, played cards, ate out, drank coffee, walked on the beach, swam in the pool, collected seashells, had great conversation and did whatever we wanted with no little ones to be responsible for! Ahhh, glorious!

Jackie, Kara, and I getting ready to go shopping. The weekend was actually pretty cool so we didn't swim too much.

Walking to the beach on a chilly 50 degree day!

The final day of our trip turned out to be a beautiful day in the 70's. We soaked up as much sun as we could.

Jodi and I stayed in this beautiful room!

Laura and Jackie roomed in the master bedroom.

Kara and Holly's digs.

Laura and Lisa, our amazing hostess!

One of Lisa's amazng views of the water.

The sweet and heated pool!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Look who's 2!

We celebrated our third and final birthday yesterday! I really need to think about this for the future because it seems that by the time we got to Hannah's birthday, we were so burned out on birthdays that it wasn't quite as exciting. Good thing she's 2 and could care less! But as she gets older, I'll have to think of ways to make it different and exciting.

It was a pretty low key day. We gave Hannah a balloon and a dress-up outfit for her gift. In the evening we went to my parents and had pizza. I made a few cupcakes for the girls so we could sing to Hannah. She loved when we sang Happy Birthday to her! Actually, we probably sang to her about ten times throughout the day cause she loved it so much.

Here's Hannah getting ready to open her gift.

At Papa and Grandma's getting ready to eat her cupcake.

Hannah's favorites at 2:

Movie: Tangled

TV Show: Little Einstein

Color: purple

Food: Macaroni and Cheese

What she does most during the day: plays with her sisters, she loves to play with her baby dolls

When I asked her what she wanted to be when she grows up, she said "cookie." I don't think she understands the question!

Her favorite person: Papa

Favorite song: The song Grandma Epley sings to her when she's rocking her to sleep on Tuesday nights (made-up song)

Happy birthday sweet Hannah! We love you!

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Potty training, Round 3

Alright stop... Potty time!

We have officially started potty training Hannah. Actually today is day 9. She's doing ok, not great, but ok! I realize that it takes a while when you start this young. I remember with Allie, it wasn't till day 8 that I felt she was starting to get it down. With Hannah, it's taken a little longer. This past Friday evening, while we were decorating the dining room for the big birthday party, we were just letting Hannah run around with no underwear on. It was the first time she ran over to the potty and went all on her own, without us instigating it. So that was a big step. Since then, we've had lots of accidents, and lots of successes. We'll just stick to it! We're so proud of this sweet little Hannah!

Hannah gets two reeces pieces every time she goes on the potty. Her potty seat makes music any time anything goes into it!

Hannah proudly sporting her new butterfly underwear. We encourage her to keep the butterflies dry!

Birthday Party

On Saturday we had the Epley and Ross families over to celebrate Ava, Allie, and Hannah's birthdays. We had dinner and played some games and just hung out.The night before, the girls and Mike and I decorated the dining room with lots of balloons and some streamers. The girls loved it!

Jeff and Tara made Ava's day by getting her this ripstick. She was super excited, can you tell!?

I think Hannah enjoyed every bit of her cupcake!

Malachi and Noah enjoyed the party too!

Dave's family is in S. Dakota for the week so he joined us for dinner and very graciously held the limbo pole. That was the one game Ava really wanted to play!

Happy birthday to our beautiful girls! We are now the proud parents of a 2, 4, and 6 year-old (ok, in four days we will be, when Hannah officially turns 2).

Ava's 6th birthday

January is a busy month for us! We have three birthdays. This past weekend, we had a combined birthday party for all three girls with our families. I wanted to do a great big party with all the girls friends, but work has been slow so we decided to keep it simple. I'll post about that later. But first, our sweet Ava turned 6 on Friday the 20th. She was very excited to bring some treats to school for her friends. She was able to wear a crown for the day in school and even kept it on through the evening at home. We left Ava pick anything she wanted to eat for dinner and she chose LIttle Caeser's Pizza. We made a cake for her and had pizza and just hung out as a family all night!