I know a lot of you are going to pass judgement, but Max has found a new obsession, guns. We currently don't have any toy guns in our home, well maybe a water gun but I haven't seen one in quite some time, but over the last week we've had a gun controller for a Wii hunting game that Uncle Randy has left here for Dusty to play. 

When Dusty isn't playing the game (which he doesn't do in front of the kids anyway) Max has been dragging this gun all over the place and "shootin' the deer". Yeah, that's what he tells me, and he also likes to point out where the deer is after he shot it. This usually means he is pointing to an imaginary spot on the floor and I need to make sure to acknowledge this invisible deer or he won't stop bothering me. Seriously? He's going to be a hunter like his daddy, he's already got the pose down!

While Tara was here I had her snap some fun pictures of the kids and I being silly. Of course I had to bribe them to sit still on my lap which meant that the gun was out for Max, and I grabbed a doll for Rory. Enjoy some of our silly shots!

And of course, a cute one. Well, the cutest you're going to get at least.

Thanks Auntie Ta-Ta for taking the fun pictures, and thanks Uncle Randy for making my little boy gun obsessed!

Rory bruised her face this weekend. She was walking/running in a circle in the living room with Max and they were having fun screaming and falling over. But with all things small and unstable, she eventually fell flat on her face. And to make matters worse she had a toy in her hand and that fell between her face and the floor. So now, she has a bruise on the right side of her mouth (our left looking at the photos) and another one on her forehead by her hairline that was too hard to catch on camera.

Auntie Ta-Ta came to visit us on Sunday, which was great because Max was really overtired by Sunday morning and was driving both me and himself nuts, so the extra distraction helped at getting him to calm down. He even took a long nap! The kids had lots of fun as we all danced, sang, Ta-Ta gave piggy back rides,

and they all drew pictures together!

Aren't you jealous of my refrigerator art?

After our exciting adventures outside...we spent the rest of the day on Saturday making a mess of the house. First we started in the basement where all the toys were thrown all over the floor so the kids had no room to move yet every toy imaginable to play with!

The bonus to this was that I was able to clean out their toys and make room for new ones with the holidays by removing toys they've outgrown or are broken. Yeah, they look really upset about that decision don't they?

Max decided that napping just wasn't his thing and only slept for a half hour. After trying to get him to go back to sleep I finally gave in and we made cutout sugar cookies. (I know, doing something fun during nap time isn't a good idea but we needed a quiet activity since Rory was sleeping like a good little girl and Max really was not going to sleep, I tried.) Also? It was quick and fun with just the two of us.

Do you notice a little boy fingerprint in this cookie?

Honestly? The cookies turned out horrible; they were rock hard. And I didn't even have frosting to put on the tops because I wasn't planning to do it that day. I just had a package of sugar cookie mix I picked up with a coupon and I know I won't be doing that again! I mean, it couldn't have been the cooks fault the cookies were so hard, right?!

I decided to take the kids outside to play in the snow on Saturday. After 20 minutes of getting everyone into their snow gear we finally step outside to have Rory topple over and land face first in the snow!

(Don't mind her boogers, it's normal over here!) The kids helped me shovel around the house, we did a little sledding, and there were the occasional tears. I'm sorry, I didn't spend 20 minutes getting everyone ready to go outside for 10 minutes! So I did the mean thing and kept finding ways to keep Rory entertained so that I (and Max) could at least get all the shoveling done before we headed in. 30 minutes later we all crawled back inside. Can't you tell Rory had a great time?

Max wanted to go back outside and was not happy with coming in!

I can't wait to attempt some outside fun again!

It's going to be a long winter...

Do you know how my day started?! My day started with Max, not going into the bathroom to go potty like I asked. Instead he ran into his room and shut his door before Rory could get in there, causing her to cry and then came running out to tell me that he went potty on his floor.

Yup, that was the start to my TGIF! Hopefully yours started out much better.

Also? I promise to take more pictures to post next week. We've been getting awfully wordy over here...

While at my parent's lake house this last weekend we decided to take our kids to the local bar. Yup, you read that right, we joined the ranks of all those Wisconsinites and headed to our local bar with the kids in tow.

Technically, they do serve food too and we did order some appetizers, we're not that bad. Also? Max got to have his very first kiddie cocktail where he proved, once again, that he is my child and hardly drank it. We both don't like them!

The kids had a great time playing with all the toys they had there. Yes again, the bar had toys. Like I said, they serve food, it's a family friendly establishment after all! I remember all the times we'd go to the bar and play darts, pool or arcade games with my family in Wisconsin and I was really excited to introduce my kids to that too. Call me a bad parent if you want, but it's just a normal part of my family and I  know they will enjoy it as much as I did when I was younger!

For the record, Rory drank water from a straw and found that to be very exciting. She's too young for soda yet.

Three fun stories to share today:

1. Bienvenido a Miami! I will be going to Miami for my vacation and I am very excited as I have never been there before. I'm counting down the weeks already. I'd ask for suggestions of fun things to do, but lets be honest, I don't plan to leave my hotel or the beach much!
   
   
2. Rory has been developing her speech and is becoming quite the polite little lady! Every time we give her something she always says "thank you". She can't really say thank you though, so it sounds more like "chak-oo". She is also repeating "your welcome". Max has improved on his manners simply because Rory is always saying thank you! She also no longer signs for more. She simply refuses to do it. She will only sign for, and say, "peeez". Yes, my polite little lady melts my heart!
   
   
3. Max and Daddy had a surprise for me yesterday. Max showed me that he can now stand up and pee down into his potty! (They haven't tried the actual toilet yet.) He actually is really good at his aim when it comes to staying straight into the potty, but yet his underwear keeps getting wet. The problem is that he doesn't continue to arch his back through the whole ordeal but instead keeps leaning forward to look down at the urine coming out, which results in his stream pointing too low and getting his underwear. What can you do but laugh? He is so proud!