"I'm feeling princessy"

Everyday lately, Aubrey will request a pink or purple bowl or plate at meal time and want to wear something pink, purple for the day because she's "feeling princessy". Later in the day, she'll ask if I can wash her pink or purple dishes for the next meal because she's "still feeling princessy". We are in the full-fledged princess phase right now! Last week, Aubrey's best buddy from preschool finally got to come over and play. The whole morning was filled with princess activities. Here they are pretending to be Sleeping Beauty.

A break from the dresses to do some bouncing.

Dressing some princess magnetic paper dolls.

They played so well together -- it is so nice to be past the always-refereeing stage. I'm not saying that I never have to step in, but there was not one infraction during this morning of peaceful play.

A princess tea party picnic!

Another Snow Day

Our neighborhood club house/ pool area is on a hill -- perfect for sledding.

Coming down the hill...

Daddy & Aubrey's turn.

Aubrey & Will sledding together. Even though he doesn't look like it in this picture, Will loved sledding and kept saying, "Slide, again!"

This is how Will feels about his snow suit. Thankfully, he did like playing in the snow and eventually forgot that he still had the snow suit on.

Snow angel!

Playing on the deck, stomping & making footprints.

Throwing snow balls at the chimney.

Children's Science Museum

While Robert was working on Friday, we walked across the bridge to downtown Roanoke and checked out the Children's Science Museum.

Aubrey's favorite was the "electricity ball"!

Don't you love this giant mouth? It even made lovely noises, like sneezing, chewing, gurgling, etc. We also saw/fed some fish, touched some Horseshoe crabs, looked at bones & skeletons, checked out lots of gems & stones, and did lots of hands on experiments with gravity, weather, light, sound... It was a good way to spend Friday morning until lunch & naps, before Robert was done working. I liked what I saw of Roanoke -- it reminded me more of TX than where we live in Northern VA. It was casual and more laid back, and Northern VA is a more fast paced, work, work, work/ stay-busy-all-the-time life style.

Hotel Fun

Aubrey & Will had fun eating breakfast in bed one morning!

"Playing" checkers downstairs. I tried to teach her how to play, but she was more interested in stacking them.

The hotel was gorgeous! Thanks, Dell!

Will loved drinking out of the little water bottles. He kept saying, "More water" then he'd take another drink, spill some on himself and say, "All wet!"

More room service, this time the kids got some "white ice cream" after we went out to dinner.

Walking back to the hotel after dinner. There's a covered bridge that goes over a railroad track to get from the hotel to the downtown area/ restaurants, etc. The bridge was one of the kid's favorite parts -- they loved running back and forth and watching all the trains go by. Will's other favorite thing about the hotel was the "white eledators".

Blue Ridge Parkway

Last Wednesday, we packed up and tagged along on another of Robert's business trips. We got to Charlottesville just before bedtime, so we didn't do much that day. Thursday while Robert worked, me & the kids went to our friends, the Jones' house, who we knew from church in TX. They just moved to VA this summer, too for Harry to get his PhD at UVA. It was fun to see some TX friends and we also drove around and saw the beautiful UVA campus. I also ran into a friend of mine from high school, Megan Bloom, while we we there -- small world! Thursday afternoon, we drove to Roanoke for 2 more nights and then came home yesterday. On the drove back, we took the Blue Ridge Parkway home, which was beautiful! We saw lots of mountains, some deer, wild turkeys, and lots of little frozen waterfalls. We stopped and took a couple little hikes, but didn't last too long because it was in the 20s.

Checking out a frozen stream/ waterfall.

Standing on an old railroad track

Will was thrilled to get out of his car seat for a while and hike around.

Admiring the huge rock!

The big frozen waterfall behind us.

Snow!

It snowed on & off most of the day yesterday so Aubrey & Robert took the opportunity to build Aubrey's first snowman. They just used snow from the deck and made a "baby snowman".

Aubrey had fun finding acorns for the eyes, sticks for the arms and then came inside to get a carrot and raisins for the nose & mouth.

Will was napping when they built it, but he was excited to see it when he woke up!

Reading stories before bedtime.

Walking through the halls after church yesterday with friend, Alayna.

We finally used our fire place the other night when it was 7 degrees outside!

Walking around in the snowy driveway on Thursday.

January so far...

I feel like I haven't been posting much lately because there really isn't too much to report. I think after all the busyness of birthdays and Christmas and traveling in December, we're taking a break so far in January. Aubrey went back to preschool and ballet last week and we have been returning to our normal routine. I've been spending the last week or two taking down Christmas stuff, unpacking after our trip (with lots of new stuff from Christmas to find homes for) and just getting caught up on laundry and organization around the house. Exciting, huh?

We've had lots of playtime at home and here is another of Aubrey's recent animal/tea party creations.

Will's new favorite thing in the basement is the kitchen and play food, especially the cupcakes ("dudates"). He loves the "whiiiite dudate" the most. He always has me sit at the little table and puts the cupcake in the oven and says, "Dudate nummin'!" (Cupcake's coming!) until it's ready.

We went to the mall today to get Aubrey a new coat. Her TX coat from last year was okay so far with some layers, but I thought I'd go ahead and buy her a heavier one she can wear the rest of this winter and next year. And now it was half price! I had an almost teary moment in Gap Kids as I realized the next coat she has will be from the "big girl" section, not the baby/toddler section :(... Anyway, according to the weather man, "arctic air" is "oozing" our direction tonight & tomorrow. Since when does air ooze? The low is 11 the next couple days and the high is 20... We're not in TX anymore.

Aubrey loves her new coat, did I mention it's HOT PINK?

We really are enjoying a few weeks on our regular routine before more traveling in Feb. & March. Robert will be in Austin for a week in Feb. for work, then come back at midnight before we drive 7.5 hours to Ohio the next day for his cousin's wedding. Then a couple weeks later, we're all flying back to Dallas for Robert's sister Susan's wedding. Aubrey will be a flower girl and we're looking forward to seeing family again soon and celebrating with Susan & Kevin!