Girl Time!

In January, 8 college friends met up in Hays to pamper ourselves and have a baby shower for our friend Lana who was expecting a baby. I have gotten spoiled and have now gone to Rock Haven twice in the past two years. Rock Haven is a wonderful spa outside of Hays and we all highly reccomend it--they pamper you rotten! Mindy had fun capturing our girl time and was nice enough to share her pictures with all of us--thanks Mindy! We ate a quick lunch at Arby's and then were at the spa before twelve and did not leave there until around 6--wow! It has been several years since we have all gotten together for girl time and we had a great time exchanging stories and laughs!

Here we all are in our robes ready for our afternoon of relaxing to begin.

Enjoying the hot tub with peach champange (yum) and sparkling juice for the prego friends--we also got fruit, muffins, cheese, and crackers.

Nicole and Sarah--relaxing and talking---the only bummer of the day was that the electicity went out for about an hour--several of us were in the steam shower--so that created lots of laughs as we were trying to figure out what was going on, but the ladies at Rock Haven treated us great and we had even more time to sit and relax and do nothing which many of us do not get to do anymore. The electric company soon came and fixed the problem and our massages and pedicures continued!

Brooke and Lana--our two prego friends about to get their toes done.

The beautiful ending result.

Afterwards, we headed to Ellis to have a baby shower for Lana and eat tons of wonderful food that we all brought along.

Lana's baby girl needs some headbands--all girls do!

Sarah and Brooke checking out the food and drinks.

Staying up later than usual looking at college pictures and telling college stories. We also were entertained by workout queen Jillian Michaels--we all sat and ate and watched Jillian work out--more great laughs!
We all stayed the night at Nicole's and then headed home Sunday morning as weather was calling for snow and ice--and we got it--many of us teachers had 1 or 2 days off with snow days!

Then on Febraury 17th--Lana had her baby girl--Josie Grace--what a beautiful addition to the world!

Family Times

Sundays have turned into one of my favorite days of the week! We all go to Sunday School and Church, usually eat out for lunch or dinner, watch some sports on TV or something on TV, read the Sunday paper and my favorite--check out the TARGET Ads for the week, and then Layne and I have gotten into a wonderful habit of when we put the kids down for a nap around 1:00--we go and take a nap too! It just makes our week start off great! Another Sunday favorite is about the only show Layne and I watch together and that is the Amazing Race--which starts again on Sunday. Between all of that, we also try to squeeze in a walk or at least some outside time--so while I am reflecting on Sundays, I thought it would be a great time to show off some of our family pictures that my very talented friend Mindy took last Nov. as options for our Christmas card. As many of us know--getting two kiddos to stay still for a picture, look at the camera, and smile is no easy task, so we went to the park to try to add some fun into the pictures and here are the results--the lighting outside was not perfect, but we still got some good pictures--thanks so much Mindy for making us look cute!

Mindy captured this picture to the tee--she is full of smiles, laughs, and energy, so why not lick the swing!

Snow Days and More

Well today marks the 7th snow day for our school this year--wow! Part of me loves it and another small part wonders how we will ever catch up at school--but it is what it is! My kids love it and they have been so common lately that Caden has started to ask--"Is it snowing today mommy so you can stay home with us?" We have watched a lot of cartoons, shoveled snow, went sledding, colored, cut, did stickers, played games, cooked, and of course taken naps--a girl could get spoiled!

Miss Brynn is quite the artist--she loves coloring and at times will color and play with her crayons and markers for 30 minutes--and other times it is 5, but it is an almost every day item that she asks to do. So here she is all sprawled out on the floor coloring...

And in the high chair coloring!

About 3 blocks from our house, they are doing some major construction work--Caden is eating this up--we walk over there about once a week to see what the tractors and trucks are up to--one Sat. we found they had left the big scoop in the hole, so we climbed down for a picture--Caden took mommy's picture and I took Caden's.

Now for the snow--Brynn's first time this year giving it a whirl--was not sure of it at first, but she quickly caught on to the fun.

Sledding time--Daddy hooked a bungee cord to our sled and off we went for some fun!

Whee--Caden on the sled and Brynn supervising!

More Daddy!

Two happy kiddos!

Mommy even begged a turn!

A very handsome snow angel!

Time to shovel snow--Caden was a great help!

Say Cheese!

What a big scoop--I think we are going to need lots of big scoops to get us out of the house today as it is still snowing--wow!