I thought I would share some of my favorite products. These are all things that I can’t live without.

Neutrogena Fresh Foaming Cleanser. My dermatologist recommended this to me when I had lots of acne problems on my mission. I LOVE it! It washes my makeup off better than any other product I’ve tried and it cleans my skin. Love it!

Mary Key Timewise Day Solution. I love this moisturizer because it is so light and doesn’t clog my pores. All other moisturizers make me get zits, but not this one! It also has sunscreen in it.

Also a Mary Kay product-Instant Action Eye Cream. This stuff is amazing! It is a moisturizer for your eyes. The skin around my eyes gets dry and it looks terrible. This solves the problem.  I use this stuff everyday!

I can not live without bronzer during the winter. I am so pale that I wish I could drink this stuff. lol

This is for my hair. It is called “It’s a 10. Miracle leave in product” It does 10 amazing things for your hair hence the name. You put it in your hair when it is wet.

Paul Mitchell sells this stuff. It is Super Skinny Serum. You can put it on wet or dry hair. I put it on dry since I use the previous product on my wet hair. Anyway, this smoothes your hair and does an amazing job. I love it when I curl my hair. It really holds and smoothes the curl.

This is a Chi Straigthener. It is more expensive than a Target brand straightener but I have had mine for 3 years now and it is still like new! Wonderful stuff! I could never use anything else.

So what are some of the products you can’t live without?

As Kyle gets older I am starting to see an improvement with he and Hallie’s interaction. I usually play ring master ALL DAY long but lately I have been getting little moments where they play well together. It is heaven!!! It makes my heart happy to see them play well together. I hope they have a good relationship as they get older. I hope they will be each other’s best friend.

Here are some cute pictures I’ve taken lately of the two of them getting along.

Enjoying suckers from the bank.

Just being silly together.

They follow each other around the house with these strollers. It is the cutest thing!

Brushing teeth together.

Kyle learned how to brush his teeth from his sister: Brush then spit in tub. It is hilarious!!!

I love having two kids. They drive me crazy most days but I also spend most days smiling. Craziness is happiness right? lol

I’ve known for a while now that Kyle’s hair needed to be trimmed but I kept dragging my feet. I don’t know if it was because Hallie didn’t get her first haircut until 3 years old and Ky is only 1 or because I thought he would look bald again if we trimmed it. Despite whatever reason was making me drag my feet I finally jumped on board last Sunday. I tried cutting his hair first but he was way too wiggly.  Ben thought the booster seat would help and took over the cutting part. (I think we were both anxious to be involved) lol

If you look close you can see just how long it was.

The booster chair was better than him standing but he was still a very wiggly boy. Ben got the longest part on the top back, but not really anywhere else. Oh well it looks better so we are satisfied.

After my Christmas blog post many of you asked what we eat for breakfast if not cereal.

We eat old fashioned oatmeal!

We have been enjoying an amazingly warm winter here in VA. I am loving it! Don’t get me wrong I love snow but I also love not freezing my butt off every time I leave the house. While we were in Utah I really hoped we would have feet of snow but it only dusted the last day we were there. Ever since then Hallie has been wanting snow. She said a prayer asking for snow and me of little faith told her that it has been so warm it wasn’t likely to snow. (We had had a BBQ the day before. It was like 68 degrees or something!) However, the very next day we had a freak snow storm! The meteorologist hadn’t predicted it and no one saw it coming. No one but Hallie that is. lol We were so excited we dressed up and went and played in it as soon as enough accumilated on the ground to make a snow angel. As you will see in the pictures the kids loved it!! Ky was a bit unsure at first. Mostly because of the big gloves and snow pants he had to wear. Both of which were very new and uncomfortable to him.  The very next day it was 50 degrees and the snow melted fast. Hallie was sad she never got to make a snow man and told God in a prayer yesterday that she wasn’t so happy about it leaving so soon and wanted some more. haha  Life is good!

haha I love his face!!! The snow falling was too much for him to get comfortable.

Enjoying hot chocolate to warm up.

Dear Snow:

You are welcome to come back. In fact please come back! We have all our gear to play out in you and desire your flakes on our eyelashes and your taste on our tongue. We made sure we were prepared for you this winter with snow boots, gloves, pants, shovels etc. Please reconsider blessing Northern Virginia with your beauty. However, if you are adamant that you will not be returning please send summer a good word for us.

Love, The Crane’s

My first born munchkin lover is hilarious! Having a three year old is quite entertaining as well as draining. She really throws me for a loop most days with the crazy things that come out of her mouth.

Some of my favorite sayings are:
“Whatever you say mom” ha this one rarely gets said but when it does I love it!
“I love you big mountain” (We say this to each other in reference to how much we love each other.)

Some of my favorite stories are:
After talking the neighbors ear off in the car Ben told Hallie, “You are really good at talking.” To which Hallie replied, “I know, I’ll never stop.” lol This explains my life with Hallie perfectly. She never stops talking!

While riding in the car Ben and I were having a conversation and after it ended Hallie asked, “Mom why are you not talking?” I told her because sometimes you don’t have to talk you can just be quiet. She looked at me and asked, “Why would you be quiet?”

She and Ben went to the hardware store to pick up a few things. One of which was a snow shovel. Hallie saw the small shovels (made to go in your car) and Hallie asked Ben for one. He told her no and then she said, “Come on Dad don’t be shy. Just buy it for me.” haha After hearing that Ben was putty in her hands and bought it for her. We wrapped it for her for Christmas and it might just have been her favorite present. lol

Hallie, Kyle and I went to see Santa at the mall planning on just visiting and not buying a picture. It is such a rip off to pay so much money for one picture. I hadn’t mentioned any thing to Hallie about them taking pictures etc. I just told her we would go see him. She had no idea they took your picture and tried selling it to you. Anyway, we get there and Hallie is ecstatic! She jumped right on his lap and talked his ear off telling him how much she missed him and how much she loved him. I am watching her snuggle and squeeze him tight as if he is her best friend in the whole world. Now this Santa is a.maz.ing! He looks just like the real thing and is chatting her ear off too. He tells her she has been a great big sister and he is so proud of her for being a good girl etc etc. Then he asks, “What do you want for Christmas this year?” Hallie looks at him, squeezes him yet again and says, “I only want a picture of you!” My mouth dropped. I then turned to Santa’s helpers and told them to take the dang picture. So $16 and one awesome picture later we made a memory. She was so excited the rest of the day and her excitement rubbed off on the rest of us.

She loves playing pretend. Every hour of every day we are in a world of make believe. We are rarely ourselves. She tells me who I am and what we are playing and we go with it.  If there is ever a break in conversation she says, “Mom talk”.

She and Kyle bath together all the time and one night Hallie looked at his penis and said “That is craziness!”

She makes up the best songs. She defiantly takes after me with her singing abilities but man are the words hilarious. Two songs are never the same.

I can’t remember what we were talking about but she came to me and said “That is ridiculous!”

She told her uncles Shawn and Tyler and her aunt Marci that “sometimes Kyle is just annoying”. I don’t remember teaching her that word. lol

She got mad at Kyle and yelled at him, “Kyle. you. are. a. genius!” haha It made me laugh. There is nothing like trying to insult someone but complimenting them instead.

We all love our Hallie bug! She has got just enough red in her hair to explain the reason why she is the way she is. lol

My little man is now 18 months old. I can not believe how time has flown!

Kyle loves to play right next to his sister but if she touches him he screams. He is actually like that with everyone but Ben and myself. He hates when people touch him.

He loves to get and keep all the attention on him. If you laugh at something he does then he will do it over and over again to keep you laughing.

He says a handful of words but mostly he just grunts when he wants something. It is amazing how much he can communicate between sign language, his few words and grunts.

He only takes one nap a day and it ranges from an hour and a half to two hours. He sleeps solidly from 7 pm to 7 am.

He loves to wrestle.

He freaks out with excitement every night when Ben gets home from work. Once he is with Ben he won’t let him out of his sight until bed time.

He still loves balls and books.

Coloring has become one of his favorite pastimes.

We put the picture he colored in Nursery on our fridge and he repeatedly goes to it and points at it with pride.

He tries to climb up stairs without hands but isn’t very successful. He keeps trying though.

He mimics everything his sister does.

He thinks he is as big as his sister.

He has been interested in Hallie’s baby dolls lately. He likes to take care of them like she does.

He likes to push Hallie around in the doll stroller. It is by far my favorite thing to watch!

He will entertain himself with toys but hates being alone. He MUST have the door open at all times.

He eats and eats and eats. Seriously this kid can pound food! Just look at his tummy!

He has two teeth on top and four teeth on bottom. His four molars are almost cut through. (I really hope he doesn’t have missing teeth like I did.)

We have made a little progress this past month with him and Hallie playing together.

He has his big sister’s protection when it comes to time out etc. If he is ever in trouble with us then Hallie runs to his rescue. However, Hallie is usually his antagonist.

He brightens up any room with his huge smile.

Our world revolves around him. We couldn’t be any more in love with the little guy.

Another trip to Serendipity 3 makes me a very happy and a very full girl.

We love making cookies at our house. Ben complains that we do it a little too often, however he always eats them. (I guess that is the problem.) lol My amazing, wonderful, fabulous, thoughtful friend Lindsey has loaned us her camera and so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take pictures. (It has been so long!) Thanks Linds!!

The girls. (Notice our matching aprons. Thanks mom!)

The handsome boys. (Notice the marathon shirt that he is wearing? It's mine! Thanks Richmond people for providing size small shirts that fit my husband not me.)

One of the perks of baking cookies.

What a cute messy face!

This year we had the most fabulous Christmas. I love my little family and we had a great time together just the four of us in abnormally warm Virginia.  On Christmas Eve we had our neighbors over for dinner and then after the kids went to bed Ben and I watched our current obsession “Wonder Years”. It was nice and quiet; we loved it. Hallie woke us up on Christmas morning just like she does every other morning. She walks into our bedroom climbs on our bed and tells us it’s morning and we need to say our prayers and get going. This time she also added that she couldn’t wait to see if Santa had eaten the cookies and drank the milk we left out for him. Haha no mention of presents she just wanted to see if he had eaten our food.

The tree all ready to go on Christmas Eve.

The kids at the top of the stairs waiting anxiously for me to get my camera and dad to get out of bed.

Kyle was surprisly good at unwrapping presents. And yes that is a box of cereal my kids got from Santa. We don't buy cold cereal at our house so this was a big treat!

I love that I captured her pure joy in this picture. I have a whole other blog post I need to write about this shovel.

Kyle liked the shovel as well.

Family picture before heading out the door to Church.

An attempt at a picture of the two of them.

Another attempt at a picture of my Ky man.

A very successful attempt at a picture of my beautiful 3 year old.