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.