2 Peas in a Pod

I know I have mentioned before how much I love Ryleigh and Molly's age gap (2 years). They are the best of friends and the first thing Molly asks every morning is, "Rye Rye?" When Molly was first born, that 2 year difference was tough...Jeremy and I were stretched pretty thin! It's definitely turned out for the best now :)

And, Kaylee continues to be an awesome referee for when her two little sisters get out of hand. It's nice to have an extra set of eyes watching these two...they can get into a lot of trouble around the house!

This is a game they constantly play. We have to keep Kai and Lea gated in the kitchen when the girls are running around like this...the dogs go crazy and knock them over!

Cabin Fever!

We had today off from school and just found out that schools are closed tomorrow as well. Nobody is sure if we will be going in on Wednesday...the snow is melting during the day and then refreezing on the streets at night. There is no way a bus could safely maneuver in the neighborhoods and pick up kids. So we are stuck. Inside. All day. I have tried all my tricks with the girls and even broke out some Christmas toys for days like this. When all else fails, we head outside and make our own fun times.

Virginia Beach style sledding. We have like zero hills and sleds in our city so we make do with what we have :) Kaylee is riding on a custom built, Custom X body board that Jeremy got her for her first birthday. I have a video at the bottom of her sledding experience.

Sweet Ryleigh
Sweet Kaylee

So funny. Molly really hates the snow and I didn't take her out in it today. Instead she hung out inside with Jeremy and watched us play out front. Ryleigh was playing/teasing her through the storm door.

And then the girls and I got bored and started throwing snowballs at the door for Molly. I know, Mother of the Year credentials. Whatever, Molly loved it. Just look at the way she is trying to lick the snow from the glass!! Hahahaha.

We came inside to warm-up. Jeremy had gone out earlier in the day and purchased a new Wii game (Wii Resort....so fun). Kaylee multi-tasked and ate her Doritos while playing at the same time. When it was my turn to play, I grabbed the remote and found this:

The goat strikes again. We had been playing a Dora ABC's game earlier in the day and forgot to pick up a piece. Molly literally devoured the piece. I took a picture of what it is supposed to look like and what the piece looks like after Molly had it for awhile. What is wrong with this child?! Jeremy swears she has no taste buds and I think she has a tapeworm.

The long day wore Ryleigh out. She had been on the go since about 6:30 this morning. After we came in from the snow, she told me she was really tired and wanted to go watch a movie in her bedroom. Ten minutes later this is how I found her...passed out in Kaylee's bed with her lovey. Oh, her hair is blue because we were playing Hair Salon with one of the Christmas toys. The hair coloring did wash out of her hair (thankfully).

This is how beach girls "do" sledding :)

Snow Videos

Kai loving the snow! I swear Kai is a real person, trapped in a lab's body:) Ryleigh's little voice is in the background telling me that she is ready to go in. An hour in the snow is long enough for us Beach girls!

I was trying to tape Ryleigh making a snow angel. You can hear that Molly is VERY upset that she has (once again) fallen in the snow.

My favorite...the girls driving the Jeep down our street!

January Blizzard

The weathermen actually got it right this time....we had a ton of snow fall on Virginia Beach this weekend! This is totally unheard of here and the whole city has pretty much shut down. I took about a million pictures and videos of the girls playing in the snow..who knows when we will see this type of weather again?!

My official snow-measuring device...I left these two out all day and night yesterday. This was at 10:00 in the morning (when our neighborhood started drinking) and by nightfall you could only see the bottle cap! I'm guessing that we got a good 7 inches or so of snow!

Kai dogg had as much fun as the kids.
Walking to go play with their friends.

Yeah, this was a picture fail.

Kaylee throwing snowballs at the neighbors.

Ryleigh spent most of her time outside eating snow and making snow angels.

Molly was NOT a fan of the snow. Everytime she tried to walk she would fall down. And, she hated putting her hands in the cold snow to pick herself back up. Snow is one of the few things she won't eat.

We took the Jeep out today (Sunday). It was sooo funny watching the girls ride in it. I really like this picture because it shows Jeremy slipping on the ice in the background..hahaha! It's so slippery on the neighborhood roads..about an inch or more of layered ICE! The Barbie Jeep had a hard time handling those road conditions. Don't you just love how Ryleigh is busy messing with the radio while her passenger is about to fall out the side door?!

We didn't even pose this shot either. How cute is Molly's arm :)

Kind of over the white stuff.

I'm going to download the videos of the girls in the snow and add them to another post...it takes a while for videos to post and I have about a million loads of snow laundry to do. Our front room has hats, gloves, shoes, clothes, etc. all over the place. I'm not sure I can handle all this mess for much longer.

Another Beautiful January Day

Jeremy and I had the girls outside by 10:30 this morning! When the weather reaches 60 degrees, you cannot keep us inside. We walked around the neighborhood, let the girls explore in the neighbors' yards, and played a little cornhole.

Wagon rides

Working on cornhole throws with Daddy.

Bubble Bath

(Kaylee is sleeping over at my parents' house tonight and that is why she missed out on the bubbles).

Virginia Aquarium

Last night was Teacher Appreciation night at the aquarium (formerly called the Virginia Marine Science Museum...which it will always be in my mind). The only reason I went was to get 2 points towards my teacher's re-certification points this year. Usually we have to sit through boring lecture after boring lecture to earn a total of 14 points each school year. I jumped at the chance to get a free, after-hours tour of the newest additions and renovations to the museum, while also earning these stinkin' points. I was very impressed with what I saw and renewed our membership for another year (and for 50 percent off)!!!

Meemaw Swann and I decided to take Kaylee and Ryleigh today. The place was pretty crowded but the girls had a great time. We ended the day with 7-11 slurpees and Jeremy picked up Chicho's pizza for dinner. It was a great day! Here are some pictures:

Meemaw and Kaylee watching the fish.

Ryleigh is waiting for the volcano to erupt.

Another fish tank.

Meemaw loved this coral. I think we might just take off for a week and go somewhere tropical to snorkel and see this stuff again!

I liked this mural of one of our local bridges. The girls also got to pet a few sea creatures at these touch tanks.

Ryleigh was running back and forth trying to catch this one huge fish!

Um, the next 2 pictures are examples of the strange things I saw today. I'm not trying to be judgemental but..........

This kid's hair?! Why do that to your kid??? Maybe I am just old-fashioned.

This is a picture this kid's dad. He was leaning over to pet the stingrays like this for a good 20 minutes. Could he not feel the breeze?! People were walking by and snickering....his cheeks were hanging out in the middle of a very busy pathway.

Here's the real picture I was trying to take....Kaylee and Meemaw trying to pet the Stingrays.

I had to take a picture of this display. I just finished reading Nicholas Sparks' book, The Last Song, and sea turtles played a big role in it. An awesome book...I highly recommend it!

Bright green snake.

Huge crocodiles/alligators(?) I asked the man last night what these guys eat. He told me they feed them huge imported rats. He said that after they eat, they will sink to the bottom of the tank with their mouths wide open so the little fish swimming around will swim in and clean their teeth! Nature is amazing.

This shark was relaxing on top of the porthole window in the submarine.

Another tank.

My failed attempt at getting a picture of the girls together.

The tunnel of fish. Huge hit with Kaylee and Ryleigh.

The girls were being very studious and were trying to find all the fish on the key. Ryleigh actually did find about half of them!

I think I sweat off about 10 pounds in this thing. You can see the komodo dragon that was to the left of us.

Lots and lots of buttons to push. I couldn't wait to put hand sanitizer on my kids once we got to the car...does that make me OCD?

I can't wait to go back again. I think next time I will only take Molly and let her run around and wreck shop. It's hard to take all the girls at one time. Kaylee is at the age where she wants to read about each exhibit and learn new things. Ryleigh just wants to look at the creatures quickly and move on to the next tank. And Molly will just want to run and screech the whole time. How do other moms of multiple children do whole family trips together?!