2015

Welcome 2015!!  We had a bit of a bumpy start to the year...climbing out of beds, failed potty training, flu for everyone, and ear infections for the girls.  Argh.  Thankfully we all recovered and are back on track now, although still with 2 kids in diapers.  *sigh*

We see this on the monitor a lot these days:

{Yes, one of them is naked here.  I did not put them to bed naked.}

And sometimes they just fall asleep together.

With ALL their stuff, and always in these same 2 princess dresses.  Every day, every night.

Notice the other bed....100% empty.

Before the flu hit, we did have some fun family meals out.  We've finally gotten to the point where the kids are old enough to go out to eat at restaurants without it being a huge fiasco.  It's nice to be able to take them out every once in awhile!  {It's also still really nice to leave them at home and enjoy an adult dinner out, ha!}

I had to take a few pictures of the girls in real clothes!  They have drawers full of adorable outfits that they're growing out of while they wear only princess dresses.

 And then we decided to start potty training.

They were super excited!

Except they never, ever, went in the potty.  {OK, to be fair, they each went ONE time in 3 days.}

 They would sit forever.  And never go.  They can hold it for an impressive amount of time to avoid actually going in the potty.

Will even made them a potty chart...but those are fake numbers, because let's not kid ourselves.  No one had 5 {or 3} successes.

Aaaaaand, after 3 days of failed potty training, I was just considering giving up, and Emily came down with the flu. {adios potty training!}  Matt had actually had it a few days before, but his case was pretty mild, so we didn't realize it was the flu.  So potty training ended and survival mode began.  Emily was sick for a few days, and then Caroline, Will and I all got it within 24 hours of each other....right before Emily developed an ear infection, which gave us the opportunity to spend a Sunday morning at the pediatric after hours clinic.  This was not a fun week for the Hawkins family!  And then by the NEXT Sunday morning, Caroline had developed an ear infection and we were back at the clinic.  Why always on the weekends?!  Quite an expensive and not-so-fun way to start the year.  We ready for cold and flu season to end!

And then the weather got nice {temporarily}, and everyone got well, and we got back to the fun stuff!

Bring it on, 2015!

merry christmas!

Merry Christmas!!  Oh what fun we had on Christmas morning.  Santa came, he ate our cookies and drank his milk, he left a note for the kids, AND he left lots of awesome toys!!

The girls got a dollhouse!

This was the year of board games for Will, so his pile looks a little smaller than the girls' giant dollhouse, but he had just as much fun!

 And then came the kiddos...so much excitement!

They spotted Princess Anna on the swing.  ;)

These princesses had sleepy eyes...they are not morning people!

Will's one request from Santa was a "big kid" Monopoly set, with ALL of the pieces.  Looks like he was good this year!

Wardrobe change for the ladies!

Our attempts at pictures with the kids. It's NOT easy to get 3 littles to look at the camera at the same time, so getting them all to simultaneously smile is almost impossible.

{do I get some sort of gold star for this one?!}

After our fun morning of Santa and family gifts, we headed over to Mimi and Duke's house for lunch and more presents. 

This "blue steel" Santa helped distribute the gifts.

The girls love playing with this little tea set SO much that they abandoned their new presents to play with it on Christmas.

Uno Dare!

 Will got a basketball goal in a HUGE package!

Wardrobe change {again}

Mimi had lots of elves helping open her presents.

All the kids got fun new Disney blankets.

Next up, Christmas at Nana's!  Unfortunately, I made the big mistake of trying to force the girls to take a nap between Christmas celebrations, because I knew they were exhausted.  But they were just in the beginning stages of totally dropping their nap, so we waited and waited and waited for them to fall asleep, and they FINALLY did, right when it was time to go to Nana's. {fail} So then I felt like I had to let them sleep a little bit before continuing the party.  I let them take a super short nap, which meant I had to wake them up before they were ready.  Soooo, instead of arriving on time and happy, which we totally could have done if we had just skipped naptime, we arrived ridiculously late and extremely grumpy.  Luckily, after a few minutes of the grumps, they rallied and joined the fun.  {But the fact that they both sat in my lap for the first half hour meant that I didn't get very many pictures.}

A moment of silence brought to us by lottery tickets!

Such a wonderful Christmas season!  Merry merry!!