January Randoms

My mom got the girls these lap things for the car and they are so cool!  The girls love taking them along to write and color on in the car!

In the last couple of months I've noticed a HUGE difference in the girls playing...Emory is finally getting old enough to "play" with Brynn and they will actually go upstairs together when I'm cooking or folding laundry and they play together.  It's awesome!  Not that I don't hear squawking and yelling from time to time, but they are actually using their imaginations together to play store or babies, etc.  It's really neat to see!  (And usually a HUGE mess too!  HA!)

Ryan pulled his hamstring playing basketball (he says he's getting too old! HA!) and a couple of days later he started bruising...(sorry for the thigh shots...I'm sure I'll hear about this from Erika!)

And then a couple of days later...

Isn't that gross!  And yes, he still has pink toenails from when Elfie painted them in December! HA!

Brynn LOVES to help cook!

This girl loves her sleep!  She was still out one morning even with me making noise and turning the light on to get ready for preschool!

Brynn and Abby at school!  So cute!

Family BOWLING Night!

Sunday night we had a back to school bowling event for the college students.  We all ate at Pagliai's and then headed to the bowling alley.  My girls LOVE anytime we have college stuff and they were so excited to see the "college kids" and also to go bowling with their cousins!

So excited to go bowling together!

These two were having fun watching Barbie while we all bowled!  HA!

Fun fact - I bowled the two best games of my life!  I guess your 30's are the decade you start being good at things like bowling?  HAHA!  We had such a great night with everyone and loved taking the girls bowling!

Park Day!

 After school last week we had some crazy weather...it was in the low 60's!  So we got some ice cream cones at Andy's and headed to the park to see the ducks!

The geese are seriously a little scary up close!  Emory held on to me for dear life and Brynn watched from a pretty safe distance away...they just seem kind of mean.  Some little boys were feeding them nearby so I figured as long as they were the ones with the food then we were okay?  HA!

I'm not a huge fan of the geese!

After we walked around the pond a little bit we headed to the park section...lots of fun!  It made me so ready for spring.  I would be fine if winter/cold weather was about one month and then we had four or five months of spring!  =)

Later that night at supper these two were in serious conversation about the ducks and the geese!  It was hilarious to hear Emory!

Basketball Madness

Ryan is playing city league basketball with some of the college guys and it has been fun getting back into watching him play...Brynn put on her Batgirl cape one day to watch...HILARIOUS!

She wanted to sit just like Miss Alaina!

Emory usually spends the entire game running around like a crazy woman, and yelling things like "CAN I TOUCH THE BOYS?"  (????) (and of course in her volume....LOUD!) but I caught her actually watching for two seconds!

If the Lady Redhawks have a home game you know we are THERE!

Our two favorite Redhawks...Kaley and Ashton!  The girls love them SO MUCH!  And even though our girls are little I'm so glad they have awesome role models like these girls to look up to!

We are basketball crazy in this house!  Brynn really understands things and yells "go defense" and knows how to read the score so she can tell if we are winning or losing.  It's been so fun!

Picking Up Seema, Gymnastics, Etc.

A couple Thursdays ago we had the privilege of driving to St. Louis to pick up Seema...a girl from Nepal who is studying at SEMO this semester.  Sarah and I took a couple of girls from the college group at church and we made a little road trip of it!  We had a great time and have enjoyed getting to know Seema so far this semester!  She has never been to the US before and it's so interesting hearing her perspective on the differences between our countries and cultures.  She is a believer and it is so encouraging watching her worship with us at church and bring some of her new Nepali friends with her, many who are Hindu.  

The girls and I picked up Seema and her new friend Prajeeta one day and took them up to campus to get registered for classes.  Then we took them to get groceries and it was Seema's first trip to Wal-Mart!!!

Prajeeta was a good sport and was fast friends sitting in the back with Emory!  They loved hanging out with the girls!

Helping lead the college group at church has been amazing!  It has been such a blessing and the college students have been such a blessing to our girls and to our family.  We have a weekly girls Bible study on Thursday nights and several of the girls who come are gymnasts at SEMO.  We had such a good time watching them compete one night!  Brynn really wanted to go see Miss Ashley and Miss Lauren but when we got up there she was so nervous that she wanted me to be in the picture too!

They have this fun poster you can stick your head through and Brynn thought it was so funny!

Emory had a little too much fun playing with some arcade games on Saturday...

We were getting ready for bed one night and trying to read our books and Bible story together and it turned into an impromtu silly show! OH MY!

I'm sure the college kids get tired of my silly games but we always do something fun or crazy to get the lesson started...one morning we were playing a minute to win it game with noodles and it was so funny!  (Complete with the Rocky soundtrack playing of course!  HA!)

Sunday night fun at Grandma and Grandpa's!

Spa Party and Being Silly

The girls and I put on "spa masks" the other day and they thought it was so cool!  They loved it!

They pretended to be scary monsters!  HA!

Glasses selfie!  =)

Brynn got a hold of my phone and I had about 20 bazillion pictures of her...

Love being silly with these girls!