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Jason & I made it back from our cruise on Sunday. We had a fantastic time! I never imagined how much I would miss Anya & Josiah, although they had the time of their lives with Papa Jim & G’ma Barb.

Once we get life back to normal (which could be awhile considering my body is still rocking from the ship), I will post some pictures of all our fun in the sun!

….how happy Josiah would be to have his own pair of crocs?

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Now he doesn’t have to wear his sister’s pink ones anymore!

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In T-minus 10 days (but who’s counting?), Jason & I will be leaving behind the cold Iowa weather and sailing the sunny warm Caribbean waters aboard “The Freedom of the Seas”! We are traveling with another couple to paradise and frankly, the next week and a half can’t go fast enough.

Here’s the boat, Freedom of the Seas:

Here’s where we are going:

I am trying not to think about how much I will miss the kids (as this will be the longest I have ever been away from them) and focusing on all the FUN we are going to have. We will do our best to bring the warm weather back with us!

We hope everyone had a very Happy Valentine’s Weekend. We didn’t do anything too exciting to celebrate. Anya helped me make a cake and cupcakes to celebrate:

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I thought it turned out pretty good considering I had more “help” than I probably needed!

Also on Friday, Anya’s preschool had their Valentine’s Day party. The kids were so excited to eat their Valentine’s cookies and to pass out their treats to each other. Here is Anya’s table having fun at snack time!

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Other than me having a little “girl time” with my good friend Laura on Saturday getting a pedicure and us braving the snow on Sunday morning to attend church, we had a very quiet weekend around here just hanging out.

Here are a few more pictures of Anya’s preschool Valentine’s day party.

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Who needs an alarm clock when you have a little brother??

..and so does life around the McArtor household!

As I sit and type this post, it is snowing. Shocking, I know!! Jason & I have come to the conclusion that when you already have 12+ inches of snow on the ground, what does another couple inches hurt??!! I think the theme of Winter 09/10 has been “go big or go home” and since the “go big” part has happened time and time again already, I am most definitely ready for the “go home” part to happen anytime now!

We haven’t been up to anything too exciting lately but it seems that normal daily life keeps up pretty busy. Jason has been traveling some on the weekends to do trade shows for Graphic Authority and is at the Des Moines Airport this weekend. We like these close to home shows since, as most of you know, Jason doesn’t like being away from home and we don’t like having him away from home!! I am keeping busy at work with my normal duties and have also been vaccinating for H1N1 which can make for some busy days at the pharmacy.

Anya is still busy going to preschool and Bible Buddies. On Friday it was “bring your favorite teddy bear to preschool” day and Anya had fun showing off her light-up bear:

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She is still having fun at Bible Buddies and memorizing her weekly verses like a pro. She has had some friends from preschool recently start attending Bible Buddies and she has so much fun getting to see her “friends” at both preschool and church activities!

As you saw from my last post, Anya is still a big help in the kitchen.

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If there is an egg to be cracked, a batter to be mixed (or a pancake to be flipped!), she is the girl for the job! She is at the age where she not only wants to “help” you do something, she wants to “do it herself”! I have to remind myself sometimes that she is only 4 (well, 4 and 1/2 if you ask her…:) ) because she does such a good job in the kitchen. Who knows…maybe we have a little Julia Child in the making!!

Josiah is…..well, let’s just say we aren’t in Kansas anymore!

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He is changing faster than the snow has been falling lately. His vocabulary has just shot off the charts. Often, I hear him say something and think to myself “how does he know that word”….and then I realize he is starting to pick up on things himself and it just amazes me! He repeats everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) we say and it is a reminder that “little eyes and little ears” are always near! He has developed a habit of hiding things (ie: our TV remote we couldn’t find for 2 weeks) and, although it might sound like fun to have a daily scavenger hunt for things such as shoes, hats, remotes etc…, it does get a little tiring every now and then scouring the house for the missing item!

He he also recently been able to master the supposed “childproof” doorknobs which has created a whole new adventure around here. Since he has a propensity to play in the toilet or turn on the water in the bathtub, we simply can’t have him wandering into the bathrooms unattended (like the time we were at our neighbors house where he almost had their bathtub full and was trying to climb in!!!) So, we have been left with no choice but to lock our bathroom doors. This makes life a little interesting when Anya has a last-minutes bathroom trip, but so far we are managing. If anyone has any better suggestions for childproofing a doorknob, I would love to hear them!

Speaking of bathrooms, I recently pulled out the potty ring to see how JP would react to sitting on the toilet in an effort to gauge whether or not it was worth my time to even think about potty training. This was his reaction:

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…..and with that potty training has officially been postponed!!

So, as you can see, life for the The McArtor family (just like winter outside) continues, with no signs of slowing down!

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How do you know Papa Jim is visiting? You find this when you walk into your livingroom:

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He puts stuffed animals on the ceiling fans and then he and the kids turn the fan on and see which animal hangs on the longest. I’ll tell you one thing…Elmo doesn’t stand a chance against the big pink elephant!!

This weekend, Papa Jim, G’ma Barb and Jill came to town to go to “The Lion King” with me at the Civic Center. It was a fantastic show….words cannot describe how amazing the “animals” and how talented the performers were. It really was quite the show and I am so glad we went to it. Other than the show, we also did some shopping and hung out. It was fun to have them here and of course the kids enjoyed the extra activity around the house.

While they were in town visiting, Jason was heading out of town to work at a trade show in Grand Island, Nebraska. It was about a 4.5 hour trip from Des Moines. The trip out there Saturday was smooth sailing, but unfortunately the trip home on Monday night wasn’t! Jason got stuck in Omaha for the night and came the rest of the way Tuesday morning. He was glad to be back home and the kids & I were REALLY glad to have him back home

Here are a few more pictures from our weekend.

…..it isn’t all fun & games around here!

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Last week was another busy week for us. Finally the weather calmed down and we were able to have all our regularly scheduled activities; work, preschool, church etc… Wednesday, Anya got to celebrate her 4 &1/2 birthday at preschool and I just happen to be volunteering that day, so it was fun to be a part of the celebration. She got to wear a crown, blow out candles on the cake and hand out birthday goodie bags to all her classmates. She had a good time and is now quick to remind you she is now 4 and 1/2–not just 4 anymore! On Thursday we took supper over to West Des Moines to meet the newest Cathcart family member. Holden is just a tiny peanut and so very cute. Anya & Jaxson had a good time running around like wild indians and Josiah had fun just trying to keep up with them!

The weekend was also full of activities. Saturday night Jason & I went to play cards with our friends Laura & Dustin Reuter. They are a couple that attend our church whom we got connected with this summer through the Alpha course we both took. They have a little girl, Raegan, who is a couple months younger than Josiah. Anyway, we have a great time with them and have been getting together more and more often to hang out, let the kids play and of course let the adults chat and play cards. This time however, we got a babysitter because we had a serious game of Hand & Foot ( our favorite card game) to get taken care of–unfortunately I cam out on the losing end and Jason got runner up. Despite our losing the card game, we had a great time and loved eating the pork loin that Dustin smoked just for us. Delicious!!!

Sunday we loaded up the car and headed to Forest City to celebrate Noah’s 7th birthday! It was a fun day hanging out with the family and eating lots of goodies and cake. Anya wore herself out with Aubrey…those girls make me tired just watching all their activities!!

Here are a few pictures of our week activities.