Whose Blog is this, anyway?

Because I have to take it over for a minute!

While I was home I had the honor of spending the day with my good friend Kara and her 9 week old twins. They are SO CUTE and it was great to see what a day-in-the-life of being a mom of a 3 year old and twins is like (yes, it's about as much work as it sounds!) :)

Here I am with Nate and Brynn. Contrary to the picture, Nate does NOT have a broken neck. He was actually quite comfy this way! They are wearing their Hip Violet shirts with owls. So cute!
In the afternoon, Nate fell asleep on my lap and Brynn snuggled up with her mom. Kara and I were able to have a great talk each snuggled up with a baby. I LOVED it!
You can see more pictures of the twins and keep up with them at their blog here.

THEN I got to see my horse!! Well, he's not technically mine anymore but luckily his new mommy doesn't mind if I come up to see him when I'm home. I MISS HIM! It is still very surreal to me, having spent the last 20+ years around horses almost every day and now I am lucky if I get horse time once a month. BUT I am forever grateful to Julie (Max's new mom) - she takes such good care of him and loves him as much as I do! For instance, if you notice he is both CLEAN and slightly FAT. Keeping any horse clean in a Michigan winter is a feat, but a white horse? Nearly impossible! And I struggled the entire time I owned him (from birth until he was 11) keeping weight on him - Julie seems to have found the magic potion to keeping him looking like he should!
Give me another smooch!!
Horse hugs are the BEST! (okay, 2nd to kid hugs, but still!)
The coolest thing was that he recognized me! I haven't seen him since last summer, and when we pulled up I rolled down the window and talked to him. His ears perked up and he started sniffling, then walked up to the fence!! It was really sweet. He did the same thing later after we came home from lunch and Julie agreed - he knew who I was! I just love that!

_____ Now Back to our Regularly Scheduled Violet Blog ______

Violet loved to help my mom in the kitchen. Here she is "helping" crunch up some walnuts for our yummy waffle breakfast.

Later on she peered over the bowl of cheesy-potato mixture. She loved being a "big kid" and sitting on the stools!
We also were able to go and watch her cousin Claire's dance class. Violet was quite mesmerized, especially since a lot of the songs they danced to were from her favorite Disney movies! Here Claire trades her tap shoes for her ballet slippers.
Aren't these kids adorable? Claire is on the far right. 1st position!
We also got to stop by and say hello to Violet's 2nd cousin Sophie. Many of our family members comment about how much Violet looks like both Sophie and Claire. There is no denying that they are related (especially with the matching hair here!).Now we're back home again - to the new house! It feels great to come home to a place all our own, I just wish the boxes would magically unpack themselves! Porter has already discovered the neighborhood cats and has taken down a few pieces of fence, so Violet got on her boots and went out with her daddy last night to fix it up.We're expecting another blizzard here this weekend (this one I get to be here for!) so wish us luck!