ssssssnnnnnooooooowwwwwwww!!!

After six years of living in basically "snowless" cities/states, I (Erica) squealed with delight when we woke up Saturday morning to a solid dusting of snow here in VA. YAY! It's been pretty mild up until this weekend, and it's now officially winter. The girls had never seen snow, but were all kinds of excited to play in it...I'll put a little description next to each picture I've posted and let those tell the story of the morning.


This was Elise's first few seconds in the snow...she thought it was so pretty and was amazed that it was COLD!!! I guess we never really elaborated on that part when prepping her for a Winter Wonderland. We don't have snow boots for her, so rain boots + extra socks worked fine.

Elise LOVED trying to catch snowflakes in her mouth. It was so sweet to watch.


After Breakfast, Ainsley was all bundled up to go outside! Notice the SOCKS on her right hand! So pitiful....we had that other glove just a few days ago!

Just moments later, she pulled off the glove/socks and stepped out into the snow...she wasn't really excited about the cold, wind, and wet. But she is cute.

Elise in HEAVEN in the snow! She loved running, throwing snowballs, chasing Gus, etc...

You can see Elise off in the corner & Adam playing with Gus who was running like crazy!

Mitchell came out for a few minutes- totally wrapped up and warm. We had so much fun!

If there is one picture in the world that sums up Ainsley's attitude, this is it! Click on the photo and check out her bottom lip...we see "this face" ALL THE TIME!

Oops...

To be honest, I had NO IDEA that it's been over two weeks since I've written on this thing. Although many hours in each day drag on s..l...o...w...l...y, the days as a whole disappear quickly and the weeks FLY by! I feel like Mitchell should only be about 6 weeks old instead of almost 12, and how is it possible that we moved from South Carolina almost 9 weeks ago. yikes.
But, all is well in the Moseley household. I turned 33 last weekend and had a GREAT birthday! My wonderful, wonderful sister-in-law was in town visiting, so she kept the girls for SIX HOURS one day while Adam and I got to walk around downtown, take our time window-shopping, went to an awesome Greek restaurant for dinner and the local (and maybe the best we've ever had!) Ice Cream shop! After being used to being mom to all three little ones, it was so easy to just have one kid with us for 1/2 a day!
***side note... we had Mitchell with us since he's still breastfeeding and we haven't yet tried a bottle at all...it's just easier that way right now! But, he needed to eat right before we got to the restaurant and we were checking out this really cool high-end furniture store. It was pretty much empty and the sales lady suggested I just pick a comfy chair to nurse him in so I'd be more comfortable than going out to sit in the car. very nice. I sat in a super comfortable upholstered rocking chair, nursed the kid, then we took off for dinner. Adam told me later that he looked at the price tag...it was about $3300!!!!!!! WOAH! I'm pretty sure that's the most expensive piece of furniture I've ever sat on...and I was just kickin' back like I was on our 5 year old kid-used, dog-slept-on couch!
Anyway, great birthday, good Thanksgiving (more on that later!) ...all is well here. More later. Thanks for checking back when I forget to even look at this thing for weeks in a row!

Stubborn, Stubborn, Stubborn...

I blame Adam's genetics, he blames mine...but Ainsley may be one of the more stubborn kids on the face of the earth. The most common battle is food. Simply put, she doesn't like to eat anything. Ok, she likes fruit and cereal. That's about it. So we're trying the "she eats what we put in front of her or she eats nothing". That's a fun lesson for everyone. How's it going? Horribly. One day last week the only food she ate all day was lunch. She refused eggs for breakfast (which she ate tons of just a month ago! I even put syrup on it to appeal to her sweet tooth!) and I took these pictures about 3 hours later. She stood at the pantry door, doing the sign language for "eat" while saying, "Me. Eat. Pwease" Over and over again! Augh. look at that face. I kept offering the eggs, but she wouldn't even try them. She was pitiful. But, I stayed strong and didn't give in. Notice she never even dropped her purse...it was that hard on her!





I finally pulled her away from the door and this was her two minutes later- happily playing with the lens cap.




She ate a great lunch an hour later, but then refused dinner totally. It was pizza, for cryin' out loud. What kid doesn't eat pizza? I guess mine...

Update

So, back to the "school dilemma" from a few weeks ago... we ended up switching Elise to the prestigious private school here in town. It just made sense on so many levels. I (Erica) HATED making the call to the Director and teacher of her school to tell them we were pulling her out. I felt like a snob, that I was letting them down, etc... but that stuff is just hard for me just being such a 'people pleaser'... I felt bad all day once I talked to them, had to explain to Elise that she was going to change schools AGAIN, etc... but that didn't last too long.
Elise's first day at the new school (3rd preschool in 7 weeks!) was on Monday and within MOMENTS of picking her up at the end of the day, I was 100% assured that we had made the right decision. She was 'herself' again. YAY! It's hard to explain that she just seemed depressed since day 1 of the other school here in VA. She was just sad, un-motivated, extra grumpy, etc...and not her typical self. She's back to being Elise now and this week was a huge turnaround. She already has a best friend in this school- and apparently they hold hands constantly, sit together whenever possible, share their lunches with each other, etc...so adorable. The teachers are great and we couldn't be happier!
So, the class was talking this week about Manners. I think we're pretty strict about manners around our house, but I guess it's different (and more memorable) when she learns it at school. A few things that SHE (yes, a not-quite-4-year-old!) told us this week:

"Mommy, please don't talk when you have food in your mouth."
"Daddy, that's called interrupting.That's not good manners"
"Ainsley, you forgot to say 'please' when you talked to me."
"Here, Ainsley, hold my hand in the parking lot. That's good manners."

Adorable. A little annoying when your 3 year old 'corrects' you, but I guess that's part of it all. Here's her little "I have an attitude" face that we rarely see out her...but it's pretty funny. She's such a sweetheart, but when the occasional 'look' comes out, it's hard not to laugh. I got it spontaneously on film last week:

quick pictures

Here's a shot of Mitchell from Saturday afternoon...it was a BEAUTIFUL afternoon and I got some really cute pictures of the little guy while the girls were napping. Apparently, breastfeeding is agreeing with him- at just 7.5 weeks, LOOK at those chins and cheeks! We love it. =)



Later that night, asleep on Adam...so precious. Adam was studying his manual for his new Blackberry...Mitchell didn't seem to mind that Adam was multi-tasking!

Another dilemma...

Maybe it's the lack of sleep I'm getting these days, but I can't figure out what to do on yet another thing...

*We moved a month ago and people keep asking me for our address...why...? because we never sent out a "We've moved" card/letter to let people know our address here in VA. I always think those are cute little cards people send out with a nice picture of the family standing in front of the new house or by a random "Welcome to Virginia" sign at a Rest Stop or something...we don't have any of those pictures, either

*I had a baby 7 weeks ago, but we haven't gotten around to sending out a Baby Announcement picture/card... I took some adorable pictures of Mitchell this afternoon that would be worthy of sharing with all friends and family, so that's a step in the right direction at least. We sent out birth announcements for Elise and Ainsley, so I feel bad not doing it for Mitchell.

*Christmas is coming up...two months almost exactly. We always do a family Christmas card and pictures (that's where the "Moseley Memorandum" name began!).

*I'm very frugal (hahah...CHEAP is more accurate, 'frugal' sounds classier than I am about it!) and cannot bring myself to send out photo cards for Mitchell's birth AND then send Christmas cards in like 5 or 6 weeks....each mailing is about $150 with postage and everything...not to mention a lot of work on my part to address all the envelopes.

So, do we combine the two and send out a photo birth announcement for Mitchell around Thanksgiving WITH the Christmas letter? But then nobody sees recent pictures of the rest of the family? And will people put them up on their "Christmas card displays" when it's actually a birth announcement? I don't want him to get slighted just b/c his birth hit at an 'inconvenient' time...

I'd love opinions on this one, too! Thanks. Maybe I could be totally cheap and send an email with everything, then print up one 'fake' Birth announcement to put in his Baby book...that's assuming he'll GET a Baby book...

Moseley kids at 6 weeks...

After several discussions this month about "Mitchell looks like Ainsley at this age, but a little like Elise, too..." Not that it matters at all, but it's just a fun conversation. So I dug up pictures of Elise and Ainsley from when they were around 6 weeks old. It's amazing to see how small they were. WOW. Time does go by so fast...hard to believe that Elise will be 4 in just a couple months!!! So, here are a couple of each kid from around the 6 week mark...we see similarities and differences, but it's fun to just remember how special each of them are to us!

Once again, I have no idea why that text is blue and underlined...but I don't have time to figure it out! It's almost the end of naptime and I still need to mop the kitchen floor before the kiddos all wake up...so, we can all deal with it.

***Oh, yeah...The following pictures are (top to bottom): Elise, Ainsley, Ainsley, Mitchell, Mitchell, Elise.***