Why Is Gwyn Not In Those Snow Pictures?

Because she does not like the cold. She actually went out when we had friends over on a snow day. But she spent most of the time complaining that she wasn't sledding while refusing to sled, and then just ended up wanting to come in. That was the only 5 minutes of her outside so far.

(She was like this last year. When we went sledding both in our front yard and at a neighborhood hill, cried the entire time. Even when we would hold her.)

Even with all that, she was still motivated to get outside. I think she was tired of watching her brothers play outside for days and days. On very snowy days (like we have had) they will go out 3 or 4 times. (I remember going out for hours when I was younger. And on snow days I would be out with Suzanne until 9:30 at night! But that was when I was older and able to be farther from home without needing a parent. I can't wait for those days - I think they will have fun.) Anyway, one day she watched her brothers get all ready. She told me she wanted to go out. She was so excited, and even got upset when her brothers made it out there without her. (She was slower to get dresses since her snow bibs and boots were not ready to go at the door. Here is a picture of her getting all dressed - and even getting to wear her new pink boots!

She was all dressed, layered up, and ready to go. Then I opened the door. And she stepped up to the threashhold and felt the wind... and straight up turned to me and just said "No." Just like I do, with a bit of a head shake. She didn't even step outside. You have to love a girl who knows what she wants, and what she does not want. And playing in the snow is not what she wants.

So of course I had to get a picture of her saying no.

Adventures In The Snow

This winter we have had so. much. snow. Our schools have already maxed out on snow days, and it is only the middle of February. Luckily, most of the boys' snow days have lined up with my snow days, so we were able to stay home together. One snow storm was the Polar Vortex, and some is just cold winter weather. Our coldest day so far was about -2 with windchill of -15. (No school that day.) We were lucky that this last snow storm was a state below us, because that brought another foot of snow.

Another picture of the beautiful new fireplace!

Both Kevin and I am so glad that we bought the new fire place insert last year. We are already halfway through our second order of firewood. We use the fireplace to heat the house all weekend, and on all those snow days.

I never really get good pictures of the kids snowing. I take them from the house. If I am out there with them, I never have the camera. So here is the best that I have.

Daddy is building one of his many snow tunnels for the boys. I think he is always surprised that they tear them down pretty quickly. He used to play in them a lot longer than they do.

This is a picture from our coldest day.

One snow day was spent with friends! (This was a VERY cold day as well, but not as much snow.)

Kevin never seems to want his picture taken. This was the best face I could get from him. I had to ask him to smile for the picture with friends above.

I will let you guess which letter is not in the picture. I will give you a clue - it is the first letter that is missing.

Merida

Gwyn's favorite movie is Brave, a wonderful movie about a mother and daughter learning about each other. I happen to love the movie as well. The leading lady is a princess, but she is strong on her own, loves her family, and all the men are minor characters. Not at all like all other princess movies! The three younger brothers are hilarious. And I love her hair in the movie. (Maybe it is a hair thing for me? But I think girls should experiment with their hair when they are young. Cut it, dye it. Do it while you can! Of course, I say this now...)

For Christmas Gwyn got two Merida dresses from her boys. I will need to get pictures of those. But for now, here are pictures of her acting like Merida.  (And for those who remember, she calls all of her nice/holiday dresses "Merida dresses.") Adorable!

Israel

A few weeks ago, Kevin went to Tel Aviv for work. He left on  Saturday morning, and returned the following Friday afternoon. He got to fly business class international. I would travel just for that! Seriously! He had his own compartment with a chair that reclined into a bed (that he fit in), with so much free service. I want to describe it more to you, but I am afraid I will sound weird.

The strangest part for him was that the sun rose opposite the water. Basically, he has never been to a western coast. The water has always been on the east side. If you want to know anything else, you will have to ask him. He also got to see Matt Lauer in the first class lounge in New York, since Matt was heading to LA for the Golden Globes. He told me he asked for an autograph on his chest. I don't believe him though. Another thing worth mentioning is that he had never been to a country that did not use the same letters as English. France, Italy, and all other languages he has seen (while in the host country) are the same graphic letters as English. So reading Hebrew was a cultural change.

While he was there he did some work for Boeing. That is all I know and all I can write. He might have to go back a few times a year.

Here are the only pictures he took. I expected that though. He didn't want to be that guy taking pictures in first class/business class. And he couldn't take any pictures with work or he would be fired! So here is the view from his hotel.

As for us, we did fine. I say that because I had a lot of help! Thank you to everyone who took the kids, joined us for dinner, or just gave me adult company! I hope you are prepared to do the same thing again in a few months!

Gwyn's New Room

I have been needing to blog. I get it. Especially with all the snow days, I should have had time! But I didn't. I read with the kids, played our new games, snuggled, and slept. But it is time. Otherwise this blog will become a relic.

So, this is the most recent thing to happen, but I figured it would be nice to have it next to the pictures of what the room used to look like. Here is.... Gwyn's new room!

(Really, it is just an update on a few decorations, and removal of the baby decorations. But that is how she worded it.) While Kevin was out of town (running a 1/2 marathon relay with a friend) I went to Target and saw SO MUCH on sale! Almost everything I purchased (everything except the new pulls) was on clearance/sale. And I figured "This girl needs a girl-room." Why wait? We had just visited the Kerr's and Hannah and Olive have adorable girl rooms. Gwyn still had our gender-neutral baby stuff.

Oh yea - wait because of the hubby. Have you met him? He came home and saw this. At the same time Gwyn saw it for the first time. (I was with the boys at karate class.) He was not happy, and I understand that. But I think Gwyn's excitement helped calm him.

The room has:

• new curtains
• floral sticker decorations
• 3D butterfly decorations
• glow-in-the-dark butterflies and dragonflies (the same as Hannah)
• a cool new frame
• new drawer pulls
• new owl night light (not new, but finally out)
• purple sheets (Christmas gift)
• removal of nearly all zoo-print baby stuff

Gwyn wanted to be in the picture! I still have her artwork on her tall dresser that is from UCDC.

I wasn't sure if I would keep the purple pulls on the drawers. (I was really liked the old ones.) I was waiting to see if Gwyn even noticed. But she did and she loves them. The frame is empty for now since she can't decide whether or not she wants a "Baby Gwyn" picture or a "Kevin and Colin and Gwyn" picture. I am thinking we just need another frame.

3D butterflies and some glow-in-the-dark ones above her bed.

The white-ish stickers glow in the dark. You can also see her nightlight. It is the portable kind she can walk around with. Usually she ends up sleeping with it.

Remember when I said "nearly all" of the baby stuff is gone. Yea, the other pictures had the trim cut off. I want to take this down soon. Anyone have pointers?

Gwyn HAD to have a picture of her reading.

I know the chair crowds the room. But it is where we sit to read books every night. Even her brothers read to her in that chair. And when one boy is sick (like this weekend) the other one can sleep on this chair to avoid germs. (They STILL do not utilize both bunks. Seriously. The solution was to sleep in here and not on the other bunk.) Additionally, Gwyn likes to nap in the chair. It is her form of rebellion, which I find pretty cute.

I need to finish painting her new bed. It will be the darker grey. For now, there is not need for her to have a twin-sized bed, though. Once she needs it, we will move it in, and the chair out. (And all the stickers are movable. I am not too sure how much stickiness the 3D butterflies will have, but it can be an easy fix.

Gwyn's Furniture

Over the summer I decided I was going to get Gwyn some new furniture. So my awesome hubby found some on Craigslist and I picked out the colors. (Although I was talked into a darker grey than I wanted, I still like how it looks.)

It was a bit of work. First we sanded off as much of the original paint (well, what was painted on when we bought it) and then made sure all surfaces were smooth. The old pulls on the drawers were 3 1/4 in. apart. But I could not find any pulls that were not hideous set at the same distance. So we had to fill in, putty and sand the old holes. It was just delaying what I was excited about - painting!

Then we painted, and painted, and painted. There are 3 coats of primer, 3 coats of paint (at least), and 2-3 coats of protectant. (I still have not finished the bed. I just focused on the stuff she will use now.) My idea was to have a light grey (nearly white) with a touch darker for the drawers.I was told the two colors would be too close, but that was the idea. I am not a fan of the drawers, but I do love that her bed will be the dark grey. I think that will look nice, and different than white ones. At some point, we will add purple things to her room. And hopefully the furniture can make it through high school.

Gwyn loved that we were working on things for her. She loved to see it in the garage. Everytime we would pull in she would mention it.

Here are some pictures.

I can not stand the pulls! And the fake key holes in the top drawers. The color I can stand more than those things.

The couple we bought this from offered extra paint to Kevin. They looked hurt when he told them I had my own plans for the paint. Notice the top is the light blue. Yuck.

Twin bed being primed.

This was our garage for a while.

Gwyn was very excited about being a ballerina, having her new furniture, and getting her picture taken. It was heaven. I think I like the two colors on the mirror the best.

She is posing. She had to be in every picture.

I was only able to get a picture without her after she was tricked into leaving the room. For now, the mirror is somewhere she can stand in front of.

We brought this one up after the other pictures were taken.

Thoughts?

A Wedding In New York

Last weekend Kevin and I flew to Poughkeepsie, NY. His co-worker (and our friend) got married. Both Brian and Jess are from New York, but they moved to StL for his job at Boeing. If you have never been to New York outside of the city, I recommend it. It was beautiful! Here is the view from the train ride from the city to Poughkeepsie.

 

I tried to get pictures with Brian and Jess, but none of them turned out well. But here is the church, and a picture of the reception hall. I was a bit obsessed with how much I liked this town.

 Us at the wedding.

One of my favorite things about traveling for this trip was the train ride. Here is the (real!) train station in Poughkeepsie.

Since neither Kevin nor I have ever been to New York City, we stayed one extra day to explore the city. After we arrived at Penn Station, we dropped our things off and then started walking. We started in Times Square, which neither of us liked at all, but at least we can say we have seen it now. We first headed to the Brown Building. I wanted to see the building from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Kevin didn't care about that. He wanted to see that building from movies and tv. It was the same building, luckily. After that, we just kept walking south(ish). We walked through Midtown, Flatiron District, Lower Manahttan, Tribeca, Noho, and a few other neighborhoods that I don't remember. It was a straight shot, but it was still interesting to see the different neighborhoods. We both knew that we would only get to see a very limited amount of the city, so we didn't set up goals for things we wanted to see. We just went with it. (Much to Kevin's dismay, and my enjoyment.) This walk took about 2.5 hours, so we took the train back to the hotel.

Afterward, we headed to dinner at an Irish pub.

The next morning, we only had until 2:00 to do anything. We went to the American Museum of Natural History, and only paid for the two hours we were there, thanks to Brian! (Not the one who just got married. We know two Brian's from New York.) My favorites were the Hall of Human Origins (We saw the real Lucy!) and the Cape York Meteorite. It was amazing!

We got a big kick out of the dinosaur exhibit that needed updating. (Do dinos still walk like that?) 

And good thing they let us know the T Rex was extinct. (It is a bit scary that that detail was needed.)

 

After that we headed to the airport and flew home. We were both very happy to get to see the kids before bedtime. 

A big THANK YOU to Downtown Grandma and Aunt Pat for watching the kids!

Halloween 2013

Sorry this blog took so long to get written and posted. We have been pretty busy with a marathon, Halloween, and wedding in New York, and Kevin's birthday.

This year for Halloween Gwyn was a horse, Colin was a ninja, and Kevin was Harry Potter. I was so excited to find a horse costume. She loves horses, galloping around saying "giddy up giddy up." Since she had yet to actually wear a costume without screaming in terror, I thought this would be her year. She even asked aunt Pat for days leading up to Halloween if she could put her costume on.

And then Halloween evening came. It was rainy and windy. Gwyn made it up to the first house, carrying her umbrella, and before getting candy, she asked to go home. I convinced her to go to 3 more houses, but she was more than happy to spend the rest of the evening in the house snuggling.

As for the boys, they had to stop by the house after an hour to dump out their candy. Because of the rain, there were very few kids out for the first 90 minutes or so. We only saw 3 other groups in the first hour. That means that EVERY HOUSE gave out handfuls of candy. They boys are very happy.

This is how upset Gwyn was to stay home and snuggle.

P.S.
The boys wants their names typed on the blog. Colin is the first. (<- br="" he="" made="" me="" that.="" type="">
Colin Stephen McGuire
Kevin John McGuire III