She's a Big Girl Now (back in February)

To our great delight and relief, Dagny gave up sleeping with a pacifier back in February all on her own.  We'd been talking about it for several weeks before but weren't planning to "pull the plug" until the end of March but one afternoon after nap, she just stood up in her crib and said "I'm all done with this, let's throw it in the trash."  I was shocked but went with it, though I suggested we put all the pacis in a bag for her new cousin (due to be born in late March) and that allowed us to "store" them in case she changed her mind later in the day!

She happily gathered all the pacis from her room and put them in a gift bag along with a toy duck she'd already picked out for the baby.

 That night she slept great without her pacifier and she was even able to nap at school without it the next day!  When I picked up the kids that afternoon, we went out to buy a "No Paci Present" and she eagerly picked out a cute, soft pink bunny :)

Phew, cross that off our parenting list! Now, potty training....

Snow Totals, Acton 2015

We got a TON of snow this winter and when it finally looked like the  last flakes had fallen, I snapped a few photos to capture the memories since we hope we'll never see this much again! Though, I must say, the pictures do not tell the whole tale and does not make it seem like we were living in an igloo as we actually were!!

 Even our second home was under heavy snow drifts!

But, we certainly made the most out of it!

 Spring, here we come!

Watch Out Below!

The kids were both invited to a schoolmate's birthday party today and the last party we went to at this joint, Dagny was too small to play with much and Finley was too shy/nervous to really enjoy himself.  My how times have changed!!

Finley spent most of his time going up and down this huge inflatable ladder/slide with the birthdat boy and soon enough, Dagny said she wanted to try it, too.

Suddenly, she was at the top and zooming her way down! My jaw dropped and I ran to grab my phone!

Finley was thrilled to have Dagny up there with him and waited patiently for her at the top each time so they could go down together.

May time stand still :)

Dagny the Dancing Diva

We've been offline for way too long, but that's life! We are all well and quite happy to be seeing the sun in the sky and the grass on the ground :)

Dagny, as she nears 3, is just a bundle of musical, jumping energy and the other day - I managed to capture it on camera!

And yes, her hands are actually pink from some seriuos painting endeavours at school that day :)

Happy Hearts' Day 2015

Dan and I are like minded in many ways and probably in all the important ways, but we do have  differing opinions on celebrating cheesy, fake holidays.  Can you guess which ones of us is pro and which one of is con?

We began Valentine's Day by opening a box from Grammy and Granddad (Grammy's on my side of things, clearly).  Finley was THRILLED to see a Lego tow truck in his box!

 Miss Dagny was equally excited to open her dog house complete with five cute puppies.

 She passed out color coordinated "dog food" to each one.

 Finley got right to work assembling his new truck and did a great job figuring most of the instructions out himself.

 We did take a breakfast break but he basically inhaled his pancakes so he could get back to the playroom to finish building and ta-da, here it is!

After naps, the kids and Dan did the gift scavenger that I planned and with their magnifying glasses in tow -- they solved the clues and found all the little trinkets that I hid around the house.  We used to do this on birthdays in my house growing up and it was a fun tradition to bring back!

And no, Dan and I did not make plans for a fancy date night - but that turned out to be a good thing since our latest blizzard began around 4 and we never would have made it to a restaurant or back home! But I did manage to make homemade garlic mashed potatoes (thank you, Mark Bittman cookbook) and was pretty proud of that :)

Happy Hallmark Holiday to all!

Snow Piles Up and Up and Up

Kids finally got back to school this morning, only a one hour delay, and we snapped these photos after pick up.  

Can you believe that we're due for another storm on Thursday night????

Furniture Shopping With and Without Kids

We are in the market to upgrade both our kitchen and dining room tables, but furniture shopping, it turns out, is a real pain.  Dan and I went to the "furniture capital of New England" on MLK Day while the kids were in school and though we saw some nice things, we weren't ready to pull the trigger.  But the freedom of getting in and out of the car, lingering to talk with sales people, not packing seventeen snacks or doing diaper changes made this fruitless adventure really enjoyable!! However, since we still needed to look at other options, we took the kids up to (tax-free) Nashua, NH last weekend.  Not as nice an experience as shopping solo was, but it was surely entertaining!

After a few stores, the kids had done fairly well and it was time to call it quits.  We had dinner before heading back to MA and Dagny enjoyed "making a shopping list for her school meeting" at the table

 while the boys played Tic Tac Toe.

 Dan's smiling because just as he was telling Finley that he should have blocked Daddy from winning, we discovered that Finley had in fact won with his last move!! Ha!! The student has become the master!