Snips & Snails...

and puppy dogs tails!!!  We certainly have never had much of that around our house, but all of that is about to change!  We are so excited to be welcoming our first little boy!  I have to say it was a bit of a shock at the ultrasound appointment.  I had pretty much decided we were headed toward all girls, so it has taken a bit for this to sink it.  Lauren was over the moon excited, she had wanted a boy so bad.  Emily, on the other hand, has taken a bit of covincing.  She had really wanted another girl.  She has realized though that she is pretty good with baby boys and I think even she is excited now.  Abby is excited for now, but may not be so when baby takes some of Mom's attention!

 

Baby Boy Polson will make his grand appearance May 28th 2013!

 

Valentine's Day

Valentine's week was crazy!  Looking back now I don't remember why but despite the craziness we managed a little family Valentine's celebration!  We started our day with eggs, heart shaped toast & strawberries!  They girls, of course, had great parties at school & came home with lots of fun treats from their friends!  This year we did homemade( ideas from Pinterest) Valentine's for their friends & they turned out super cute!  They girls enjoyed it so much more than just store bought ones!

For our "fancy" dinner, we dined on heart shaped pizza, raspberry salad, finger jello & grapes! 

It turned out to be a simple but very fun day!! 

Abby is still working on smiling for the camera!

January/February

January & February were my picture fail months.  I literally took not one picture in January & only pictures on Valentines in February.  So sad.  They were also a bit crazy months.  I was put into Young Women's in November & getting the new year started was a little hectic.  It's been fun though.  I have always loved Young Women's and this time is no exception.  I have a pretty awesome group of girls & super fun leaders to work with. 
We spent a lot of time at home in January due to the cold.  Jason has started & finished a few projects (pictures to come), which has kept him busy.  The girls are loving school & having lots of fun indoor playdates. 
In February the girls both started their basketball season.  It isn't quite over yet, so I will get some pictures.  This is Lauren's first year playing & Emily's second.  They have had so much fun & improved a lot.  Lauren's games are pretty funny, lots of traveling, double dribbling, etc, but she has a great coach & has learned a lot.  It's amazing the difference a couple of years make because Emily's team is really starting to "get it."  Passing is still difficult (everyone wants to score) but they are really starting to understand the game.  Both girls have scored, despite usually being one of the shortest, which is super exciting to them.  They have two more weeks & then right after basketball ends, soccer begins!
Abby is 2!  That's pretty much sums it up for her.  She can be the sweetest & in an instant turn around and be a little stinker!  But she is so so fun and cute (which saves her a lot!)  She adores her sisters & can't wait for them to come home each day.  She talks & talks, counts to fifteen, wears her tutu & tap shoes everywhere & has recently taken to loving to sing her nursery songs.  Speaking of nursery, after 8 months of Jason going every week with her, she has finally started going to nursery by herself.  Jason & I have actually been able to attend Sunday School together the last 3 weeks!  It's heavenly.

Let it Snow and Snow and Snow

We had a lot of snow this year.  I guess maybe it wasn't a ton of snow, but soon after the biggest snow storm, we had extremely cold weather for about a 3 week period.  That meant that none of the snow melted.  I am not kidding, our street literally had compact snow of it for the entire month of January.  For a few weeks, our highs were in the teens with lows around 0.  I have never been so cold.  When the cold front broke and temperatures went back to normal (like 32 degrees) it felt so warm.  We finally thawed out the first week or so of February & it's been much more pleasant since, although we've had some snow the last couple of days.

All that said, the girls have had fun.  With the first storm, they & Jason made a huge snowman & snow slide.  Both stayed with us for weeks, although it got a bit to cold to play outside. 

Abby seriously lacks proper snow clothes but she doesn't stay out too long anyway!

Christmas Morning

We had an amazing Christmas!  This was our first year ever to stay in our own home and it was wonderful.  We had a fun Christmas Eve with all of my family.  We did the traditional dinner & talent show.  For some reason I have no pictures, I think because I was running the talent show but it was great!  Lauren & Emma danced one of their recital dances & Emily played the piano. 

Once the girls were in bed, Jason & I got to work setting up Christmas morning.  This year we decided that we wanted the girls to have a trampoline.  Jason & my brother in law spent a couple of hours in the freezing cold to get it set up before morning.  What troopers!

We loved that we got to take Christmas morning at our own pace.  Since we had all been up late Christmas eve the girls slept until about 8:30, then we made our way downstairs! The girls were spoiled this year, so many fun things! 

 

Emily with all her new books!  She loves to read.

Legos are a big deal in our house right now!

Although Abby loved opening gifts but really just wanted the candy.

 

This is Abby's horse...she named it Sally, in honor of her aunt!

This is what our table looked like for a few days after Christmas!

And of course, there's no picture but the girls were super excited about the trampoline.  Too bad it snowed Christmas night & the trampoline literally had snow on it until the beginning of February.  But they are getting plenty of use out of it now.

Finally...thanks to my sister!

Since we have been married, I have said every year I would make us Christmas stockings.  And every year, it doesn't get done.  So for years, we have been using cheap-o stockings from Target.  So this year, my sister had our name for Christmas and generously offered to make our stockings.  I quickly took her up on that offer, seeing as how I had yet again failed to get started on them.  So she did it & man alive I can't believe how much I love these!! I kindof wanted to leave them up all year:)

They are perfect! I love how everyone's is different & perfect for that person.

This will be the best part of Christmas every year!

Thanks Diana!

 

 

 

Christmas Dresses

Always love the Christmas dresses!

Winter Dance Recital

Lauren has loved her little dance class, but of course, the best part of all, is the recital.  She lives to wear her costume.  It's too bad they really only wear it once (although it gets used plenty for dressing up).  It just that much better that she gets to have a cousin there with her!  Last year, she was a bit nervous at the recital.  Not this time.  She is a old pro!!  She danced her little heart out.

The final curtain call!

Lauren & cousin Emma

With her recital flowers!

Twirling

For the last couple of months, Abby has been very into dancing.  It started with twirling.  She twirled & twirled everywhere, sometimes at her own risk.  She has since picked up some other dance skills but the twirl is always her "go-to".  And of course, twirling can not be done without a proper twirling skirt.  This has been the point of contention.  It the beginning, she wanted nothing but a skirt (pictured here).  We have since made progress, she'll now where clothes but rarely without a proper skirt over her clothes.  Added just a few weeks ago was the need for "tap shoes."  So now for the most part, regardless of outfit, she wears her black patent church shoes & a skirt with everything!!

Needless to say, come fall, she'll be enrolled in a dance class where she can show off all her moves!

 

Abby's 2nd

Since her birthday is so close to Thanksgiving, Abby has been lucky enough to spend her birthday's away from home both years.  Her first birthday was celebrated in San Diego at Aunt Deborah's house.  This year we headed over to Seattle to spend the entire Thanksgiving week.  While we were there, we got to celebrate this cute girl turning 2!!  She was lucky enough to be able to have both grandparents there to celebrate with her. 

She loved her birthday this year!  It's always so much fun as they start to "get it."  She was spoiled with some of her very favorites: Team Umizoomi Toys, Minnie Mouse doll with clothes, train set & cothes (mom's favorite!) 

She was a little unsure about the whole blowing out the candles thing but she survived & I'm sure by next year she'll be ready. 

The Gathering

We were blessed with an abundance of leaves this fall.  Thanks to some windy nights, most of our leaves fell about the same time, so we got to do one big clean-up.  The girls were dying to do the gathering, of course to then do the jumping!  So they helped do our yard & our neighbors (so they could have lots of leaves!)  Let the jumping, diving, canon balling begin!!

Halloween

We love Halloween!  Mostly the day of.  I sometimes dread the coming up with costumes.  Every year I think, this will be the year we do a big family dress up & then Halloween gets closer & that doesn't happen.  And maybe it won't now, because the girls are much more opinionated about what they want to be.  This year they choose their own, but kindly enough, went pretty easy on me.  Emily just wanted to be a cowgirl (she's into all things horses), which simply consisted of adding some cute boots & a hat to clothes she already had.  Awesome!  Even better, Lauren just wanted to use her witch costume form last year.  Abby didn't get to choose but this little number has been handed down from cousin Maddie to Emily to Lauren & now to Abby.  I couldn't resist using is one more time!

The girls already to head out!

Emily & Sarah checking out their stash!

The annual cousin picture..ready to get the goods!

Abby was so fun this year.  She understood what was going on & loved every minute of it.  She loves chocolate...I mean really loves it.  She actually turned down candy that wasn't chocolate.  She'd just take a look at what they were giving out & turn & walk away is it wasn't chocolate.  A girl after my own heart!!

Crazy Hair!

Since I have curly hair, I had always assumed that my kids would too.  Then came Emily & Lauren, bone straight hair.  It's crazy, I can barely get theirs to curl with a curling iron.   Enter Abby....she got my hair.  Just after a wash, it has these cute little ringlets in back & is so so cute.  After a day of play, napping, rubbing on furniture, this is what she looks like.  It's insane how big & crazy it can be.  It's always a mystery as to what it will look like when she wakes up!

Although a bit hard to control, I hope she keeps her curls!

Super Fun Corn Maze

Right before Halloween, we took a Monday night to head to the Corn Maze by us.  We had driven by it everytime we got on the freeway & the girls were dying to go.  A corn maze with small children never sounds super fun to me, but this one has so much more that just the corn maze.  So we joined our good friends & went for FHE.  It turned out to be super fun.  They had this great play area with cool slides, fun swings, corn box, & climbing toys.  I think we spend most of out time there.  Then we moved onto pony rides & watching the pig races.  The girls though that was so funny!  After playing on the giant trampoline, we finally made it to the corn maze.  As expected, the kids preferred the other activites so our corn mazing was pretty short lived but fun.  We finished up with frosties at Wendy's. 

Super fun night, sure to be a yearly outing!

The girls enjoying the slide!

Emily & her bestie!

Abby chillin' in the backpack...this lasted about 30 seconds.

All the kids piled in the cow cars!!  A definate favorite!

Fall Soccer

So sad to be posting fall soccer in February, when spring soccer starts in 3 weeks but here goes!!  The girls both had great teams in the fall.  Emily's team has stayed virtually unchanged since we moved to Boise, which has been awesom.  She loves these girls & we love the families!!  And of course, she has a great coach.  Her team continues to get better & better, losing only 2 games in the fall.  She is a great player and even took her soccer skills this winter, playing on a co-ed indoor soccer team.  Super fun!!

Pre-game cheer & Emily headed for an open goal!

 Fall was Lauren's first season on an all girl team.  She was fortunate enough to placed on a seriously talented team.  We knew she would be with her little friend from school who is really good, but all the other girls on the team ended up being great too.  If fact, by the second half of almost all their games, they played a man down.  We'll have to wait & see how long this group stays together. 

I'd like to think Lauren is cheering for her team in this picture but at this age I'm sure that was not the case.

 

Lauren leading the pack!