A bunch of Chitter-Chatter! Sorry in Advance....

So it's been two years since I ordered my last blog book. Basically the reason that I keep a blog is not just to update my family members who I don't live near, but it's so that every 2 years I can print out a blog book and it's kind of like a family journal, if you will. Well, I was reading over my first blog book to see where I left off and I realized there was a huge difference between my first blog book and the most current blog book that I'm about to get printed. In my first book I had many journal-like entries. I got pretty personal in some posts and wrote a lot about emotions that I was feeling.  I also wrote about some "insignificant" things that were happening in Lucy's or Piper's days. And then in my second blog book it's mostly been just about family events and holidays they were celebrated. There wasn't much of the day-to-day stuff that I had in my first blog book. I know this mostly has to do with the fact that once we added the second child into our family my life was way busier and I wasn't able to blog as much as I used to, unless it was a holiday to be written about. But we have also been SO busy with 3 moves within the last 2 years that I just didn't seem to have as much "blog time." 

So today I'm starting a new blog post and it will be the start of my third book that I'll print out in two more years. I've cleaned the bathrooms and scrubbed the floors upstairs, I made the girls lunch and put them to bed (Piper still takes a nap but Lucy just rests upstairs watching a movie or playing quietly by herself). So while I've got some time I need to catch up with my blog. Today I just want to write about some of the things that are going on in the Gilley household that don't have anything to do with a holiday or an event. These are just things that describe what my girls have been up to. It's nothing significant, but someday I want to remember the "little things."

I'll start off by first saying that Lucy and Piper are two of the most stubborn little girls I have ever met. They are hardheaded, they test my patience daily, and they drive me nuts, but I am still just so completely head over heels in love with them. 

Piper is 100% in her terrible twos. She has to do EVERYTHING by herself (getting dressed, getting in and out of the car, etc.)  And if you help her, she will scream at you and get back out of the car or take her shirt off, just to show you that she won't allow your help. Grrrr. She loves to destroy every single book in our house. It doesn't matter if it's a cardboard book or a paper book, she will find a way to rip off the cover or scratch out the pictures or just somehow completely mutilate it. I am so frustrated at the fact that every day a new book is ruined and I always try to salvage it but sometimes it's just impossible. She wants nothing to do with potty-training.  She gets into my make-up daily and gets it EVERYWHERE! She likes to color on all the surfaces of our house.  She's the biggest tattletale: it doesn't matter what Lucy's doing, Piper will most likely tell on her whether it's good or bad. She also likes to chew up her food and leave it in her mouth for an hour. No matter how persuasive my bribe is, I cannot get her to swallow her food in a timely manner. It leaves me and Shawn extremely frustrated at the dinner table Every. Single. Night. Her sister still doesn't eat much either so Shawn and I are seriously considering just abandoning dinner time altogether… Just kidding… Sort of…Piper also likes to steal Lucy's toys while Lucy's right in the middle of playing with something. No one saw this mean streak in P coming. She was the sweetest little baby in the world! We couldn't have guessed that she would turn into a little terror! But she is 70% of the time. She loves to drive her sister nuts. It makes for lots of squabbling between them, but they also love each other and play together just as much as they argue. They are the most difficult at times, but also the sweetest at times. It's such a give-and-take; this roller coaster ride called Motherhood. Because of course while Pi can be such a little stinker, she also warms my heart every single day. Her smile lights up a room and she has so much personality in that little body of hers. And by little I mean curvy, haha. She still has those 'Pi Baby' curves, although she definitely has lost all of her chunk.  But she is the poster child for a toddler; any cartoon pictures you see of toddlers (think of the Coppertone baby) that is Piper.  She wears the cute blonde pig-tails and looks just like a doll on the toy shelves. She is such a little comedian and both her and Lucy make me laugh deep belly laughs often.  They're hilarious little girls and they know it!  Piper is just as affectionate as she always has been. She still loves to hug and kiss me a million times a day. I cannot get enough of her kisses.  And she's smart as a whip. She knows every single letter in her alphabet, every single shape, color, and most numbers. She's working on pronunciation, but she talks up a storm every day. I'm not sure if any baby can talk as much as Lucy talks, but Piper is not too far behind.

Lucy is still little Miss Attitude. As usual, she seems to run the household. She bosses around me, Shawn, Piper, even Maisy. She is Miss Bossy Pants. But just like her sister she is also one heck of a cuddler. She loves to come into my room in the morning and hold me tight and cuddle with me before we get up. I've asked her to promise that she'll do that forever. I'm hoping that she will. I want my babies to always know that cuddling with them is my most favorite thing and I want them to feel comfortable enough to come up to me and snuggle even when they're 30.  Is that too much to ask?
She uses big words daily that always make me giggle. It's so funny hearing a toddler tell me I'm hilarious or that my dinner is magnificent.  She's still the most dramatic little girl in the world.  If you tell her to do something she doesn't want to do, she'll pretend to cry and tell you you  broke her heart.  Little rascal.....

 With Lucy being close to 4, she still seems a little behind on her alphabet. While Piper knows every single letter, Lucy only knows a handful. I work with her almost every day but all she wants to do is play with her Barbies or watch a Barbie movie. Piper actually likes educational TV shows and learning. Lucy? Not so much. She is the girliest girl you'll ever meet and can't be bothered with something such as "learning." Piper likes to play with dolls, but she also likes to play with her bouncy balls and ride her bike- things like that. Lucy cannot be taken away from her Barbies. The one thing that gives me hope, though, is that she does love to pretend to play school. Whether it's with dolls or Barbies she takes them to "school" a lot. She also asks me every single day if it's time for her to start school. She wants to ride a bus to school so badly. I have a feeling that when she turns five she is going to be so excited for kindergarten that I won't even get a goodbye kiss from her before she runs into the building. I'm absolutely dreading that day.

Both girls absolutely love to dance! And boy, oh boy, do they know how to get down! Over the summer Shawn and I got pretty sick of Taylor Swift's "Shake it Off" because that was the song they wanted to dance to for about three months straight. Now they're into Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk" and we listen to that song probably 75 times a day. They are much more into Pop songs than they are into little kids preschool songs. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that… But when we turn on the music for them to dance, they go bananas! It's super cute!

They also love to go sledding. It's a good thing because we live in a place where it never seems to do anything but snow, so sledding is an easily accessible activity out here. You'd be amazed at how fast they like to go. Frontwards, backwards, alone, together, it doesn't matter- they just want to fly down those hills. They have no fear when it comes to sleds.

They're also fond of roughhousing with Mr. Lux and Maisy. And they get a kick out of throwing Lux onto Maisy so that the dog and the cat will wrestle with each other while they stand back and crack up.

They are sweet girls. They make Shawn and I laugh every single day. Even though they have their days where they're causing this Mama to make me want to pull my hair out, I wouldn't trade them for gold. To me, they are my world. So at the end of the day, as long as they know how much I love them, I think we're doing okay.

Also I DO need to do a quick recap of Valentine's Day. We honestly don't do much on Valentine's Day. There's never a babysitter for Shawn and I and I think Valentine's Day is more just supposed to be a SIMPLE day to tell the person you love just how much you love them. We give the girls a little treat and Shawn and I exchange cards (which I absolutely love because it makes me happy when he writes me a heartfelt note inside of the card). I make a fancy breakfast and a fancy dinner. That's the extent of our Valentine's Day. I really just enjoy the simplicity of the day. There's no grand gestures but that's what anniversaries are for, right? (Shawn are you reading this?  Wink, wink, haha!) We did have one cool surprise on Valentines Day this year though.  Shawn's boss snuck over and left us a giant teddy bear, a box of chocolates and a nice-size gift card to a steak house here so that we can go out to dinner sometime.  He thanked Shawn for all his hard work and thanked me for "sacrificing" my husband every day.  I love Shawn's company.  They are good to us!
So anyway, that night we made lots of sushi! It was fun and yummy!  The girls and I made cookies with red and pink candies inside.  Shawn and I also have the tradition of watching the movie Valentine's Day every year. It's just a cute little "thing" that we started when I was pregnant with Lucy and we've kept it up every year since. I so love Shawn. He really is the guy that makes my world go 'round. I love it when he gets home at night and he gives all of his girls kisses and hugs when he steps through that door. We all just adore him. 

Well, I've come to the end of this extra long post.  It was just a catch-up of the things that describe the Gilley's. Sorry it was long but it seems whenever I "catch-up" the posts are always a little lengthy. However, since it's going in my blog book in 2 years, I know I'll be thankful that I took the time to do this.

It's still Cold, but let's throw a birthday and mini-vacations in the mix...

So while the rest of the nation frolics around outside in their Spring-like temps, Facebook's about the awesome warmth of their sun, Instagrams pictures of their feet in flip-flops and begin to "thaw" themselves out from the "harshness" of Winter, we are still stuck in an Iced- over world.  The reason I put quotes around the word harshness is because all of my North Western family members and friends seem to think their Winters are "harsh." HA.  That's laughable to me now.  For 27 years I lived in places where, I too, thought Winters were harsh. HAHAHAHA.  No way.  Not til you've spent a Winter in New England.  Not even my Winter spent in NJ was this cold.  This, my friends, must be what Hell would feel like when it freezes over.  Miserable and achy and uncomfortable for what seems like eternity.  I mean, the air is so cold that I swear, you feel like someone is peeling the skin off of your face.  It is SO incredibly painful. You think I'm exaggerating? Come out here and feel for yourself!  You don't know cold 'til you've lived here.  Clearly I hate it.  And I am a Winter girl.  I usually LOVE snow.  Not anymore.  I just want to die most days.....When we found out we were moving here, I actually had a good attitude about Winter because I just had NO IDEA how cold it could really get.  I thought "bring it on, Winter- I'm ready and EXCITED for you!"  But I was just an ignorant North West girl.  When it is 10 degrees in CDA, it feels like 10 degrees (cold, but somewhat bearable).  When it is 10 degrees here, it feel like -15 because of the ice cold humidity hanging in the air.  The pain is excruciating. So it was really nice to get away the last week of January and then again the first week of February to go to Portland, ME for a few days with the girls and Shawn.  He had work there so we were more than happy to get out of the house, soak in a hot-tub until I thought I'd faint from the heat (it seriously felt SO good to overheat my body) and crank up the hotel's thermostat until we started to sweat.  If we were gonna be stuck inside, I'd rather be stuck in a place where I didn't have to worry about my heating bill for a few days.  My heating bill, by the way, could send Lucy and Piper to a year of college, but that's New England heating for you- you pay a couple thousands of dollars for oil, then you pay a couple thousand to burn that oil, but that doesn't heat the house enough.  You also have to buy multiple cords of wood which are a few hundred dollars each.  If you can't tell by now, I'm extremely bitter about our Winters.  GRRRR.

So, now that my rant is over, I will get on with my blog and write about our 2 short trips to Portland.  The first one I didn't take many pictures other than our seafood dinner one night where we ate more lobster and Mussels than ever before and both of my girls tried them (Lucy didn't like them but P did!).  Temps were in the 20's during the day (warm enough to venture out!) so I took the girls out to a few stores downtown.  We LOVE Portland and always try to explore different parts of that city when we go.  Downtown is just so neat.  But other than that, we mostly just warmed our bones.

Next was Shawn's 31st birthday on February 4th.  We went back to Portland and wanted to do something fun as a family so we went bowling!  I am an awful bowler, but it doesn't matter.  It's still one of the most fun things to do- in my opinion.  It was a pretty cool bowling alley with a restaurant inside, so we bowled and filled our tummies at the same time :)  The girls had just as much fun as I did!  I made Shawn a "Camo" birthday cake cause he is just so into Camoflauge these days.  It wasn't impressive, but it was funny.

We ate the most delicious meals and got our "Seafood fix."  We always try to go to seafood restaurants while we are there since it's so fresh.  Portland is right on the water and is famous for their lobsters so we are able to get Lobster, clams, mussels, etc. ANYWHERE we eat.  It's pretty cool.  And delish.  We bring Maisy with us too!  Not to the restaurants, but to the hotels.  We just find a Pet Friendly hotel and we are good to go!  She's a  great traveler.  She is seriously the best puppy.  She just hangs out in the car or we leave her in the hotel room when we're out and about and she never whines or gets into stuff.  She's so well-behaved! 

Anyway, Maine has so much snow!  I tried to get a few pictures while we drove, but honestly, you can't see the vast majority of it all and it was in the negatives this time around so I wasn't in the mood to venture out to take good pictures.  Imagine 10+ feet of snow for as long as you can see.  There were some snow piles that towered 30 feet high!  All the sidewalks that get plowed become tunnels for the pedestrians and people have to dig out mailboxes and doors daily.  It doesn't snow 10 inches at a time, it snows 10 feet!  It's incredible and beautiful and plain crazy all at once.  I've only been out here for 6 months and I've already witnessed SO many crazy-huge differences in this part of the country!

 One of the 2 days we've been able to play outside in almost 3 months.  Finally got to go sledding!

 Trying to keep the girls entertained inside everyday requires Halloween costumes as outfits some days.

 Every time we get to a hotel Lucy says "We get to do all the Hotel Fun Stuff!"  And promptly starts jumping on the bed before begging to go swimming :)

 Hitting up beautiful downtown Portland and window shopping at stores I'll NEVER be able to afford!

 Some Seafood yummy's.

 Day 2 of playing outside this month: snow angels, snowballs and catching snowflakes.

Love this Pi Baby!

 Deep Snow!

Maisy is literally in the air right above Lucy in this shot.....needless to say, the snow angel was ruined....

Indoor Golfing for the ladies (and Shawn).

Shawn's 31st Birthday.  Breakfast in bed, then after work- bowling!

Will her ball knock anything down???

YAY! IT DID! :)

31 candles for the Birthday Boy

 Looking at fishies!

A picture of me in Shawn's Camo sunglasses.  I don't know why, but they make me laugh.  He doesn't see the humor in them....

 Some serious crafts going on.  Yep, that's Lucy painting completely naked.

The next few pictures are showing how high the snow was in Maine.  I'm really bummed that they don't look like much, but in real life you'd be shocked!

Up to the Stop signs

Frozen lakes EVERYWHERE!  We see people ice fishing all over the place out here. They drive their huge trucks right out to the middle of the lake and set up camp. Way too scary if you ask me, but it's very common out here. Above is a frozen/snow-covered lake, below is the first unfrozen lake we've seen in a long time.

 If you can see the tiny little cars on the side of this pile, you'd realize that it's about 20 feet of snow.

 This pile under the bridge was maybe 30 feet high!

 Snow up to and covering the street signs everywhere.

Well, that's Maine for ya.

So here I sit, ending my blog while listening to the weather man tell me we have yet another Winter Storm Advisory (it's Marcus this week) that started last night and will last until Tuesday night.  14-20 inches of snow will fall, they say.  Winds will kill you, most likely.  In a few days, our HIGH for the day will be -4.  Basically what I'm hearing is, stay inside and die a slow, painful death..... UGH.