30,000 hits!

Wow! It seems like not so long ago that I posted how excited I was to have had 20,000 hits! Thank you all for checking and reading my blog, it means more to me than you know! :)

This morning I went to check on Cohen, and somehow he had found a piece of chocolate candy (probably compliments of Ava...) and this is what he looked like:


This was the first time he has ever had chocolate...looks like he enjoyed it! He is trying to walk now, and went 7-8 steps on Sunday at church. It's exciting, but at the same time, I don't want him to walk yet! I want him to stay a baby! Plus, he will be into everything worse than he already is!
After I took this of Cohen's crazy chocolate face, I decided to do a few more natural light photos of the girls too. This photo is probably the most real true Ava picture that I have ever taken:

She is holding her two best friends in the world! Their names are "Girl" and "Boy". One of my brothers actually gave "Girl" to Maddie Kate when she was born, and she never paid the bear any attention. Ava on the other hand, became very attached to Girl a long time ago. We have been dragging that thing everywhere for probably 2 years now! Girl has a rattle in her, so we can always hear Ava coming to wake us up in the morning! Then sometimes Girl has to have a bath in the washing machine, and Ava always wants to hug her and tells her it will be okay, and wants to put Girl in the wash herself. Then when Girl comes out of the dryer, Ava is always so happy that Girl is all clean and warm! It's very cute! Girl is getting a bit worn out, so I decided to see if I could find another one, and I did an internet search for "Oshkosh Bear" and found a new Girl on eBay! She was not cheap either, and I can't for the life of me figure out if they are actually collectors items or if I just found a seller who was trying to convince me that they were! Well, the seller also had the boy bear that matched Girl, so Johnny and I decided that Boy would make a great Christmas present, and the new Girl could remain safely in the closet in case of emergency! The only problem now is we have to keep track of TWO friends instead of one! :)
And lastly, here's my big girl:

She had a buddy over to spend the night and was looking pretty bleary-eyed, but she has always put a smile on for me when I show up with the camera! Maddie Kate has been obsessed lately with a website called theNorthPole.com. It's all about Santa. Even though Christmas is over, she has been playing on there for the past week! She got the idea to write a letter to Santa, because she found his "address" on there, you know, Santa's Secret Village, 1 Snowy Lane, The North Pole. So she writes the letter and puts it in an envelope all ready to go and asks me for a stamp. I am not sure what to do, so I say, "Oh, Maddie Kate, we can't send this to Santa because we don't have his zip code." So I'm all proud of myself thinking I have gotten this under control. Not 5 minutes later, she comes back with the envelope and a zipcode written in big bold numbers. SHE GOOGLED SANTA'S ZIPCODE! I was amazed! The internet didn't even exist when I was her age, and here she is using it like a pro. We gotta watch that...!
I started running again this morning! You know, New Year and all! I quit running back in Sept when I had bronchitis (right around the time I got my treadmill!) and my business was sooooo busy all fall that I didn't really have time for it. But I am getting back to it! I have to if I tell you all about it...it's good accountability. I also am starting my "meal plan" again. Hopefully this combo with the fact that I will not be drinking 3 Dr. Pepper's a day like I have been the past few months will help drop off some weight. After all, my sister's getting married in June, so that gives me a goal! :) I've done it before, so hopefully I can do it again! Running on a treadmill is different though. I felt pretty wobbly when I got off of it...but the nice part is I can watch tv while I run!
Well, I'm headed to bed. School starts tomorrow, so we all have to get going earlier!