Shopping!

This past week, my wonderful sister Emily and her equally wonderful husband Josh came down for a visit and a break from the cold they're experiencing up in Fargo, ND. We have had a blast visiting with them and Holly has had a blast chasing around their dog, Lilo.

On Thursday, we went to the outlet mall to cash in one of my Christmas presents--new clothes from my parents! Desperately needed, by the way. It turns out that safety pins and rubberbands will only go so far to hold clothes together. My loved ones had to stage an intervention to tear me away from ill-fitting clothes that do absolutely nothing for my new, lumpier post-Josie figure. Thank you to all who were involved. I looked terrible, but it's slowly getting better.

For those of you who are considering driving three hours each way to get lots of shopping done with two kids under age 2 in tow: seriously think about what you are doing before you do it! I spent about half the time we were there changing diapers, nursing, and feeding and consoling a cranky toddler who had cabin (stroller?) fever. It was a little rough. But we had immense success in the clothing department and I bought myself a new cookbook to boot! During one of our breaks, we ate some Auntie Anne's pretzels and hung out by the little river thingy and let Holly blow off some steam.

Holly posing with her Auntie Em. She wasn't really into the whole picture-taking thing.

Both of my girls with Auntie Em and Uncle Josh. Sorry, Josh, that the top of your head is chopped off. You can't tell, but Josie was protesting loudly because it had been an hour and a half since she had last eaten and she was going to die if she didn't eat something, stat.

Melts my heart! What a little angel. I just adore my Holly. Too bad that five minutes after this, she was freaking out from lack of naps and too much shopping. Oh, well.

We will miss you terribly when you leave, Josh and Emily! You better come back to visit us soon! And we will make it up there...someday when the snow melts and I will be able to go outside up there without 25 layers of clothing on.

Oh, and P.S. I forgot to add to my last post that I also made blackberry jam that day. I was on fire! Am I awesome, or what? Too bad my kids and I looked like ragamuffins.