We don't leave the house much

We don't leave the house much these days.  And when we do it's to go to church, or the grocery store.  While I unload groceries, the kids get their 10 minutes of outside time in for the week before frostbite sets in, and if there is snow they usually build a snowman.

We were all lucky on this day because Daddy came along shopping, which meant we made the trek to Costco in hopes of never having to grocery shop again.  When we got home Daddy unloaded groceries AND helped make a snowman.  It was a wonderful day.

Alex is learning very quickly how to read, and some of the best moments of my week are listening her sound out words in "Go Dog Go" and "Hop on Pop."  I never appreciated these books as a kid, but I love them as a Mom for the confidence in reading they have given my girls.  Heidi made my Day this week when she used the letter blocks to spell and read "Sam" and "Mop"!!!
 I can already see that Alex is going to be a book worm and in a few more months, with a little more experience, I'm sure I will find her on any given day hidden away in her bed, surrounded by stuffed animals, nose in a book.

The words that describe Quinn these days are 'determined', 'willful', and 'focused'.  I pointed out her toe peeking through her PJ's and she was very focused and interested in what was going on.  She has smart eyes and notices everything.  You can tell that she really thinks about things- it's amazing.

Saturday night Tyler and I were putting together a surprise for the girls in the upstairs hall.  We collected all the blankets and pillows and bottlenecked the hallway and then put on a movie with popcorn.  While we were getting this ready, the girls stripped Tyler's dying plant of all it's leaves and then cut them into tiny pieces.  I've been trying out this new "mellow mother" idea, and so I didn't freak out immediately as my gut reaction would have had me do.  I let them explore and discover and have fun.  I did spend the next 3 days vacuuming up tiny greenery though.

We forgot Quinn's snowsuit in Missouri and so Aunt Lisa sent it back to us.  With a giant bag of Pixi sticks.  The girls were in sugar heaven.

Baiting the trap.

It's been really cold here.  We haven't seen the sun in weeks, or really left the house at all.  So I've been racking my brain to come up with ideas to entertain everyone.

In one of Alex's books there was a dog who was trying to catch a rat.  He used the above technique.  We decided it needed to be tested.

Quinn totally fell for it.

Like 8 times.

The girls thought this was the most amazing thing ever.

Once Quinn grew tired of the game they used it to capture each other, for an hour.

I think we may try to come up with a fun new use for Mr. Box everyday until his demise.

Frigid January

We got back from Christmas and Quinn started doing a whole lot of this.....

 This picture was really exciting because Quinn had wandered down the hall alone for the first time, and when I went to retrieve her, she was up on her knees singing to the hall vent!  The girls and I clapped and cheered and there was probably squealing involved.  Quinn is going to grow up with fantastic self-esteem.  Any time she does anything remotely cool, there are at least 2 females around to scream and clap and make her feel like a million buck.

 Heidi has been super obsessed with only wearing dresses.  If she mistakenly puts on pants, or a "not beautiful" dress in the morning, by afternoon she will have changed into something pretty.  I caught her prancing down the stairs one day after dawning Quinn's winter hat.  The picture just doesn't do the whole thing justice.

 This week we decided to transform a cardboard box into a mailbox.  We used paper mache for the first time and covered the whole thing in slimy goo and ripped up homework.  By we of course I mean that Alex ripped the paper and Heidi slathered 2 strips before deciding it was boring, and so I finished it.

 But they were all for it when we painted the thing and now we have a purple and orange mail box to do things with.  I made some felt envelopes and the girls are having a blast.

Before church last week Heidi became a pirate, and wore the eye patch all morning.  She is so creative and always playing some imaginary game that usually involves costumes.

 Quinn's new trick became an old trick and in one week she has become a pro at getting un onto her knees.  In fact one evening I had Tyler lower the crib a notch because I was afraid she was going to start sitting herself up.  Low and behold she did it.  The next night I had to sheepishly ask him to lower it all the way because she had mastered the sit and gone striaght for the stand up.

 So Quinn got a baby gate for a late Christmas gift.  This coupled with the hand vacuum she received have made my life a lot easier.

 Quinn doesn't like her new gifts so much.  They suck up all the dead spiders she wants to eat, and keeps her away from the places she wants to be.

 It was a rough week of class for Tyler, so Saturday we declared a family morning and went to the Zoo to see the Penguin Parade!  Every weekend they let the penguins outside for 10 minutes to run around.  It was about 10 degrees the day we decided to go and the wind was blowing on top of that.  We arrived with 9 minutes to get to the penguin enclosure on the other side of the zoo and so we were sprinting over the ice, up hill trying to make it in time.  We did!

I took Quinn to the Aquarium to warm up while Tyler and the girls enjoyed the show.  Apparently one of the penguins tried to nibble Alex's shoe!  They were very happy.  Quinn warmed up and stopped crying and we got to catch the end.  They were so cute and kept trying to escape while the zoo keepers patiently herded them back inside.

 Quinn was pretty ticked off that we would dare take her to the Zoo on such a freezing cold day.  She really liked watching the fish though, this was probably her first zoo trip where she seemed interested in anything.

 We hung out in the Aquarium to see our fish friends and ate some snacks until we were ready to brave the cold on the trip to the car.  We had a nice lady take our family picture, but she didn't push the button down all the way and so we didn't actually get a family picture.

 I complained to Tyler that I wasn't in any pictures, ever, at all.  He had me pose with Quinn in front of the polar bear statue while the other kids were somewhere.  I bumped my cold freezing fingers. It hurt.

My life involves a lot more wild animals than I ever imagined it would.

We ended up spending the entire rest of the day together out and about as a family and no one yelled or got grumpy!  It was amazing and fun and wonderful.  It was like a normal Saturday in our past life.  I look forward to more of those in a few months.

Tyler is slowly getting more information about the next year and how rotations will work, and we are excited to announce that this summer we will be spending 5 weeks in Browning Montana and then the next 5 weeks in Malta Montana!  Yay for Northern Montana!  I'm super excited to be living right next door (like 20 minutes away) from Glacier National Park for a month.  The icing on the cake was that it will be during the terrible humid and hot season here in Pittsburgh!  I HATE humidity!  

We aren't quite sure what or when the rest of the rotations will be, but things are getting exciting now that we are catching a glimpse of what awaits us past the 20 credit hour semesters and absentee father.  I'm looking forward to the travel and change, but sort of sad about leaving Pittsburgh so soon.  I haven't loved it here but in the past 6 months I've learned a lot and made some great friends that I hope to hold onto forever.  I wish I could just pack up all my favorite people and take them with me wherever I go.

New Years in Tennessee

Leaving Missouri was sad, but we were excited to get on towards Memphis and see Tyler's brother's family in Germantown.

Within minutes of pulling up, Alex and Heidi had run off with their cousins Nicholas and Christian, instant best friends.  Alex calls it Nicholas's house and Heidi calls it Christian's house, and both were dying to get there.

6 months ago when we were there Maddy was barely crawling.  And by barely I mean that she was able to squirm herself forward at about an inch a minute.  Quinn couldn't do anything.  This time around, Maddy was crawling and climbing and standing up- taking charge of the situation!

These 6 got along so well, it was a blast.  The big boys were very patient when Heidi dumped out all their lego's and kindly taught the girls how to have NERF wars. 

This could be my favorite picture of the entire trip.

It was fun talking to Natalie about the kids and seeing the similarities between the oldest children and the middle children and now the youngest ones!

It turns out that Natalie is the ultimate party thrower!  Not only was her New Year's party a blast, she calmly let the kids decorate and make cookies and cupcakes- she even let Alex and Heidi crack the eggs!!!  Watching her patience and love towards my girls really opened my eyes to what they were capable of and I've since reliquished egg cracking duty to Alex, and let Heidi do more measuring.

Nick was pretty excited to school Uncle Tyler at RISK.  Unfortunatly for him, Tyler has supernatural powers when it comes to dice rolling, and despite his best efforts- Tyler won.

Natalie pulled out all her fancy dishes and towers.

Uncle Sam picked up doughnuts (Heidi's favorite, she was over the moon.)

It was so fun seeing Madison light up when her Dad was around.  She is SUCH a Daddy's girl, I've never seen anything like it!

The little girls did more coexisting than playing. 

They did take a moment to share a toast.

Natalie and the girls made pink lemonaid cupckaes that were so good.

And she let the kids decorate with all her pink sprinkles!

Then there was the cheese ball snowman!  See what I mean, she totally puts my parties to shame with her attention to detail!

For those who made it to 10pm there was bubbly.  We had planned on staying up until midnight, but by 10pm when only 3 kids were awake and the adults were drooping, we called it a night and had the quietest ringing in of the New Year ever.

Earlier in the evening I caught Maddy under the table.  She was always sticking her tongue out at me.

I think we are going to have to go around more often if I'm going to start getting smiles.

Alex seemed to mature those 2 days, following Nicholas around everywhere.

It woudn't have been a trip to the south without some BBQ!  Thanks to Sam and Natalie's tutelage, I have grown to really love southern BBQ.  Especialy the dry rub on ribs, my mouth is watering now.  In the background you can glimpse our new popcorn maker!

It wasn't just amazing BBQ and parties at the Brady household, they took us to the Memphis Zoo while we were there!

The girls and I had just learned about Panda's in school and that there are only 27 located outside of China (on loan)!  I knew that there was one in Washington D.C. and figured we would have to travel there to see it, so when we found out Mephis housed one, I was probably about 15 times more excited than the kids.

The Memphis Zoo totally beats out the Pittsburgh Zoo in both size and awsomeness.  These guys decorate to the T!  The Panda enclosure was like a palace inside a slice of China inside of Tennessee.

Quinn was pretty interested in Maddy, she has limited contact with beings her own size.  There is one little boy at church who is a few months older, he loves to climb her and "hug" her (this looks more like a takedown than a hug.)

Alex followed Nicholas everywhere, and Heidi followed no one anywhere.

Quinn was fairly content to be pushed around, eyes in the sun.

I can't say enough wonderful things about those boys.  They both took turns pushing the stroller around and did a fantastic job of it.

They were so polite and kind, it made me sad that we don't get so see them more often.

Heidi usually walks to the beat of her own drum, this is only slightly troublesome when it's in the opposite direction that the rest of the group is going, and at half the pace.

I caught what I thought was a cute exchange on camera, and then discovered it was a lecture about running away.

Tyler often remarks how Heidi is a mini me, and I have vague memories of hiding, getting lost, and having nightmares about my parents leaving me at a gas station. 

Maddy is really cute.

The second highlight of our Zoo trip was seeing a sealion show.  I thought it was pretty cool!

December in Memphis was a wonderful opposite of July in Memphis.  I was almost able to forget about the crushing humidity and bugs, and see how it would actually be a nice place to live in the winter.

Quinn might be jealous if she saw how many Madison pictures I have.

Neon orange jump suits aren't the most photographic attire, but it's my clothing of choice for child on the run in public.

The kids spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out what was behind that hedge, and then barely glanced at the lion enclosure.

What a doll!

We had to get creative by the end of the Zoo.  Heidi ended up getting carried, Alex was in the stroller and Quinn was strapped to my chest.  Good thing we had an extra adult to help with the pushing.  Pittsburgh Zoo is on a hill, you are always walking up or down.  Memphis zoo was flat, wonderfully flat.

There was even a ice skating rink at the zoo!

What a fine looking group of Bradys!

We dragged our feet leaving town and didn't get out until noon.  The girls didn't want to leave, I didn't want to drive, we were having so much fun.  But It was a nice day and we had to get back so off we went.  It wasn't 10 minutes before we stopped for a wreck on the side of the road and then within the hour we called 911 to report a drunk or very drowsy truck driver I was SURE was withing minutes of crashing.  Luckily he pulled off a ramp before he rolled.

We stopped early that day because we were both tired and the kids needed to get out.

Turns out it wasn't the best choice because we woke up to rain and snow!  So we drove on and on, stopping at the Cheesecake Factory for lunch, in some town where it was very snowy.

We didn't start counting wrecks until Ohio, and then I began taking pictures to keep track.  I think we passed about 15 or so before Tyler and I agreed it was time to stop even though we were only a few hours from home.  Turns out it was a great choice because within the hour I got sick and Alex, Quinn and I spent the entire night throwing up.  Heidi had done so the previous night and when I saw her feeding cheerio's to Alex and Quinn that afternoon in the backseat I knew we were in trouble.  Alex slept on the floor of the bathroom, and Tyler and I barely slept at all between holding baby over the toilet, giving baths and running downstiars for new sheets and towels.

The kids handled the trip remarkably well.  After trying every trick in the book for entertining kids on roadtrips we have settled on the fact that the less you plan, the better it goes.  I've done it every way you can think of, buying gifts to unwrap sporadically, loading up on every snack imaginable, everything.  Now we get everyone in the car with a blanket and a stuffed animal and maybe a bag of pretzles, and when we stop we make everyone pee, that's it.  

We finally made it home after 3 days and arrived to this!!!!!  Blue sky!!!!! I can't stress enough how rare this is.  The sky is never blue, it's ALWAYS overcast it seems.

It was a wonderful welcome home.

Heidi's natural first order of business when we got hom was to become batman.  

She dubbed Quinn batbaby and set off to save the planet.

Quinn was excited to find all her favorite dust bunnies.

I was so excited when I caught her crawling around on her knees!  It was a first, and what I hoped was a sign of things to come!

Tyler soon discovered she only did it because the floor was freezing and she didn't want her belly frozen.  She learned her lesson and now only ventures on the tile when fully clothed.