Notice the giant tears? Melia had a string of green beeds but also wanted a string of pink beeds. Mat told her that she absolutely couldn't wear them. Why can't she wear them? He just doesn't recognize that young little girls can be set off at the drop of a hat. For some reason his idea is how it HAS to be. In Melia's mind, her idea is how it HAS to be. They fight and Melia always, always, always ends up crying. How can you fight and argue with a 3 year old, will you EVER win with a 3 year old? I have to remind him that she IS acting her age, but so is he acting HER age. So, this is the best picture we got of our family on St. Patty's day, thank you Mat.

New Toy

Who really needs toys. Melia and Mason discovered the washer and dryer. They literally spent hours the first day and have gone back multiple times to play in the washer and dryer. Remember when life was so easy and fun? What happened to those days?

Cool kids!!! you can't tell at all that they are loved a little bit, can you? I've learned that as much as you love them you can't keep them fully safe and never let bad things happen. The last 2-3 weeks we have been a sick household. Mason started it out with an ear infection, Melia soon developed double eye infections, then I got a whole collection of illnesses, all at once. Luckily Mat never gets sick and had to take care of all of us. When I've been sick I've watched some TV series, each one of them makes me cry my eyes out, stories of kids kidnapped, beaten, ignored, etc. Life is cruel, hopefully my kids never know that that world exists. I LOVE YOU!!!

We stayed up until midnight on new years eve, which sounded fun at the time. Everybody made it but Mason, who made it until 11:30, but then was awaken as 12:01 by all the fireworks in the neighborhood. Today was rough, there were lots of tears, fighting, arguing, wild play, etc. Melia almost fell asleep for the night at 6:00, I made her stay awake to get her teeth brushed and PJ's on, it is now 7:30 and she seems to have found her second wind. Maybe sleeping in her clothes wouldn't have been that bad. 2009 will hopefully be equally as good as 2008, finally speaking I hope it is a lot better.

We had a very Merry and snowy Christmas. Everybody got what they wanted, Mat got a job, Misti was glad Mat got a job, Melia got the princess palace, and Mason had lots of boxes to beat on and wrapping paper to eat. We had a great holiday visiting with friends and family.

I admit, this picture is posed. But, she decorated the entire tree almost by herself. I had to disperse some of the ornaments because the left side was pretty heavily decorated and the right side was pretty sparse. She is so excited for Christmas she can hardly wait, however, she keeps calling it her birthday instead of Christmas.

Mason really thought he was helping, in actuality, he was taking all the ornaments off the tree as Melia placed them on the tree (at least on the bottom foot or two of the tree).