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Thursday, February 25, 2010

I probably won't post anything here til next week sometime. Grandpa went to be with the Lord last night. Rachel and I are going to fly down for the funeral. :(

Monday, February 22, 2010

Worry

Today I have a lot on my mind. Mainly, my grandpa is in the hospital. Right now he seems to be doing alright. I wish I could be there to hold his hand and snap his suspender straps (except I am sure his hospital gown doesn't have them). And also today my sister-in-law had some pretty serious knee surgery. Her surgery actually went better than planned, but she still has a long recovery. So, here I sit, trying not to worry too much.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Gravity-Defying Snowman

Here is our snowman, a week after the storm. Its amazing he's still standing! And here are a few pictures of my latest crafty endeavors. For Valentine's Day I made the kids mailbags with felt mail. Of course, now they seem to have lost interest in the mail, but oh, well. And the second picture is of the dress I made for....myself!! Pardon the cheesy expression. I have more pictures posted over here if you are interested.

Monday, February 15, 2010

More Snow?

We just enjoyed an entire weekend without shoveling snow! Hooray! We got to frolic in the snow a bit, pick up a few library books, have lunch with the fam, and watch a bunch of movies. Yes, we watched movies! This is a momentous occasion for us, I realize. We watched the entire 8 disc series of Mechanical Marvels, including how sugar is manufactured, the inner workings of Disney World, the world's longest bridge, and other very interesting things. I am also back on my polygamist book-reading kick. I read Lost Boy this weekend, and I have Cult Insanity ready to start in a few days. I also finished hemming my dress (pictures to come!) and cut out another one. And here, to reward you for getting through all this random drivel, are a few pictures for your enjoyment. You'd think I only have two kids from the likes of it, but for whatever reason I have no pictures of James from the last week. Oh, and did I mention we are getting more snow? Depending on who you ask, we are getting anywhere from a few inches to ??? We'll see.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Snow Adventures!


Here we are again, with record amounts of snow on the ground. We got another big one yesterday, and it looks like the snow is here to stay for a while. I had to move the some of the snow I shoveled last time, because I had no room to put the new snow. This time it was a nice wet snow that was good for snowmen. The kids and I made a snowman complete with button eyes and a carrot nose (per James). Later, just after I pulled our dinner out of the oven, the transformer in our backyard flashed a few times and the power went out. Apparently this happens every few years and it takes the power days to come back on. So, we decided it was in the best interest of the kids (and us) to head to Mom and Dad's house til things came back on. We camped out for the night and fortunately, our power was already back on this morning! So, Jeff brought us back before he went to work. (yes, he had to go to work today...) I am glad we had a warm place to go, unlike these birds that were hanging out in our backyard:

Monday, February 08, 2010

Snow...

If you didn't figure out from Jeff's crazy guest post, we got another snow storm this weekend! I like snow, I really do. But I am ready for spring. Apparently we are supposed to get another snow storm starting tomorrow into Wednesday, so for now I had better enjoy it! At least I have a fun project to work on. For the first time in a long time I am sewing something for myself. Yipee!! I am working on a dress and it is about 2/3 finished so far. (I picked an easy one and started on Saturday) I am really having fun with it! I'll post pictures when I am done.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Guest Post by Jeff

The last big snow storm resulted in two herniated discs, a month of extreme pain and three weeks of physical therapy. Well, I'm not going to do that again! The video says it all...



Gotta love her!

Friday, February 05, 2010

Air Pheasants

Here is a funny little story that happened the other day. (I just checked to make sure I didn't blog about it already. If I did...oops!) So Katie comes up to me with a big grin holding something in her hands. She proudly announces that she has a 'pheasant' for me, about which I quickly determine two things. 1. Pheasant=present, and 2. The present was imaginary. I oohed and ahhed over it accordingly, and she was happy with my reaction. She gave me several more air presents, which I 'picked up' and looked at carefully. It was cute. Then, her older brother decided to come and 'steal the present.' He pretended to take it from her and said 'I took it from you! I have it now!' This led to Katie crying and screaming at James to give the 'pheasant' back, and they continued to fight over the air pheasant and I tried very hard not to laugh. I admit, I did sit and watch it go on for longer than necessary, but just because it was too darn funny!

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

The Latest Adventures...

James is very interested in helping in the kitchen. (Yay!) Quite often, he asks to check out kids' cookbooks at the library. We got a new one last week and so far we have made popovers (awesome!!) and this really fun turtle bread. The kids loved making it and eating it. We made a big deal of it and pulled out special plates to eat it on. (an odd assortment of 'not-our-regular-plates,' which caused Jeff to ask if we were all out of clean dishes...ha!) Little do they know my evil plan of not only teaching them to cook, but to count too! (I ask them to count each cup, scoop, etc.)

And speaking of learning, James is working on writing his name. He is learning the J and the A right now, and he is getting good at writing them, as you can see. We have been doing different activities to learn letters, and I think his favorite one is lining up food bits in the shape of his letters, because he gets to eat it afterward. And if you know my kids, you know they are all about eating. And eating. And eating. They each ate a bowl of cereal, two bananas (EACH!) and a piece of turtle bread for breakfast. And at 9:30 they started asking for snacks. Another growth spurt perhaps?

And what does Tyler do when we are busy practicing letters? He falls asleep in his chair of course. He has actually never done this before, and was watching us intently one second, asleep the next!

Monday, February 01, 2010

Sparkles

Finally, Katie likes having her hair done. She used to kick and scream anytime I would approach her with a comb. Now, she tells me in the morning, 'I need ponies in mine hair.' Of course I am happy to oblige. My personal fav is the pig tails, which we embellish with barrettes or other cute little hair thingys. Too cute and too fun! Saturday she told me she needed 'ponies in mine hair.' As I was getting the supplies together, she dragged me to the linen closet, pointing up on the shelf. 'Sparkles! I need sparkles!' She wanted for me to paint her fingernails and toenails with the sparkly nail polish Auntie Rachel gave her. So, we had a fun 'girly' time of hair braiding and nail painting. She also wanted me to paint mine so we could be matching. Hey, grown-ups can wear sparkles too, right? :)