Cookies & Exercise

Today was Ava's first cookie booth.  She dressed up as a samoa.

Here are Jenna & Ava before their Jazzercise dance recital.

 Here they are performing their routine to a song from the movie "Teen Beach Movie".

Here's the group after the show with their flowers and certificates.

After both groups performed, we had a dance party - complete with cake!

Jenna's Pocket

Here is my happy girl today right before school.  She has a heart with a kiss on it from me tucked in her pocket.  This is my attempt in keeping away the tears and the fear from Jenna as I drop her off to school.  For some unknown reason over the last few weeks (really few days due to snow) Jenna has not wanted me to drop her off at school.  She'll hold my hand and won't let me out of her sight when I drop her off.  Yesterday it took 45 minutes and at a point the teacher holding her back before I felt comfortable leaving her.  Thing is, once she is home off the bus she is all smiles and happy about her day and ignores my questions as to why she is sad when I leave her.  This is my first experience with this.  Amelia, Ava and Jenna (up until now) have all loved everything about school. The only thing I can connect with her tears is that an assistant teacher in her class left at the end of January.  Jenna did tell Amelia yesterday she missed this teacher.  I am happy to report that today was fine.  I hope tomorrow will also be fine.  This is stressful for me and obviously a stressor for Jenna.

Happy Birthday to Quincy the doll

Jenna decided yesterday that she needed to get a birthday celebration going for Quincy's 4th birthday at the end of February.  She asked for decorations, presents, food, and balloons.  Here she is before Quincy sees it all. (Please note the $100 American Girl doll face first on the floor.  She didn't even get a seat for the celebration.)

 Quincy had SO MANY presents (bags and bags of them)

Here are Quincy and Mary after the entire family sang Happy Birthday! Please note the balloons that Jenna went and bought, oh............. I mean the balloons Jenna made me go buy.........

Dance

Ava and Jenna have been attending a local dance class every Sunday afternoon.  Their final class is next Sunday where they will perform the routine they've been working on.  They really enjoy the class!

SNOW!

We woke this morning to this!  About 20 inches of snow fell last night.

Ken, Amanda and Kenny are here from RI.  They're on their way to sunny FL.  They came a day early to beat the storm.

 We had an extra shoveler! 

The most snow we've seen since living here.  The kids were off school today, and will be tomorrow.  Actually they won't return to school until next Wednesday.  More snow is falling tonight.

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies

I'm not doing this again....
Thin mints anyone?

ICE

The winter storms keep coming and coming.  This time we woke to a half inch of ice and another day off of school.  That's seven days off so far this school year if anyone was counting.

 This was an evening shot.  The sun came out at the end of the day.  You could hear the ice crackling and falling from the trees.

 The girls and their friends played outside ice sledding and shaking ice from the trees for a very short time.

This afternoon was spent making Shrinky Dinks.  Thank you Aunt Sue!

Orioles FAN FEST

The girls with The Oriole Bird

 Here is where Jim Palmer was headed after his elevator ride with us.  See him in the striped shirt?

Ava and Jenna - my future sportcasters....

We scored free tickets to today's Orioles Fan Festival at the Baltimore Convention Center.  Our big highlight was making room for a special "VIP" as we got on the elevator.  Jim Palmer shook Dave's hand and made small talk with us.  We chickened out asking for a photo.  So no photo.  We got lots of free stuff, played on the moon bounce and batting cage and took a few photos.