Are You Ready For Some Football?

We are gearing up for a very fierce Super Bowl Party! Joel is cheering for the Cardinals and since no one else has an opinion, we're all rooting for the Cardinals. I found a pack of red napkins at Wal Mart for $1.00. ...I think I feel a theme coming on. The kids suggested all red and white food, but I don't think so. Anyway, the kids get so excited about the Super Bowl. They don't even get to watch the whole game because it's on so late, but they are still excited. Any time they get to stay up late, yell/cheer/boo loudly in the house, eat in front of the TV and wear their old football jerseys must be a great night!

Busy Evening

You know how sometimes you are running around with lots to do and you just don't have time to...put your dolls to bed properly? When I went upstairs to make sure everyone was settled for the evening, this is what I found by Alyssa's bed. She covered them up with her Christmas pajama top so they would not get cold.

Isaac's Ode to Andy Warhol

The dots are really small and hard to see in this photo. Dude, pretty cool! In our house Andy Warhol is known as the Campbell's Soup artist.

Staying Warm

The four seasons are so beautiful here in the Mid-West. (Not that they're not beautiful anywhere else!) We look forward to each and every season...including winter. But it takes a little work to stay warm in the winter.

Going outside to play is not for the faint of heart. It takes an entire wardrobe of outdoor gear to stay warm, lots of hot air to yell through the scarves in order to be heard...by everyone in the neighborhood sometimes, lots of energy to move through all that bulky clothing and you have to be prepared for the occasional snow ball in the face.

When the kids come back inside, the coats, snow pants, hats, gloves, scarves, and boots all need to laid out for the next outdoor adventure. But the best part of coming inside is the hot chocolate. Today I even splurged and made hot chocolate from scratch. I never mind making hot chocolate for the kids if it means a little quiet time all to myself while they are outside playing! :-)

A Mom Moment

I love my kids. I would not trade them for anything. However, there are times...

This morning I thought I was the first one awake. I love those moments in the morning when the sun is coming up and the house is still silent. I made my bed and slowly got dressed. The sun was so bright and the sky was so clear this morning. I could not help but thinking about how lucky I was. ...and then I left my bedroom.

I opened my bedroom door. Isaac was sitting on the bottom step waiting to for me. Before you think that he could not wait to see me, let me tell you what he really wanted.

He could not wait to ask if he could invite his friend over so they could build up the ramp they had been working on in the back yard and he did not care what time Noah came over, but could I please make homemade pizza for lunch? Noah would want pepperoni and Isac would want sausage. If I did not have everything I needed to make pizza, we could stop at the store on our way to pick Noah up. Also, after lunch, could he and Noah make cookies all by themselves in the kitchen? He thought that oatmeal cookies with dried cranberries and pecans sounded the best. He knew we still had some of the pecans Grandma gave us for Christmas and we had plenty of oatmeal and cranberries. He had already checked. Did I want him to go take some butter out of the fridge for the cookies?

Alyssa was also up. She wanted to make book markers and what table should she work at? She was going to use the construction paper scraps unless I wanted her to use the scraps of scrap booking paper. Oh, and how many book markers would I like and do I have any color preferences?

Daniel wanted to know if he could build a fire tonight, what was for dinner and did I want to watch a movie after dinner tonight.

I went and pulled the coffee pot out and made a couple of really strong cups of coffee and decided it was a great day for the kids to go outside and play.

Weather Day!

We learned something about our new community. When the weather gets too cold, school gets canceled. We have been hovering around -25 degrees (including wind chill factor.). Today we hit -30 degrees with the wind chill factor and there was no school for anyone in our area. The actual temperature was -6 degrees.

Usually snow days are greatly anticipated as they are the best days for sledding, snow-man-building, creating snow angel families, building forts and of course the very serious snow ball fights. This weather day was very different for us due to the frostbite factor.

After the cheers died down when the kids found out there was no school, they quickly starting looking for something really great to do with their day off. They finally decided it was a great day to unload the little bit of Play Dough and get creative with Alyssa's play kitchen stuff. Except all the Play Dough was dried out and hard as a rock. So, we made a few batches of homemade dough and did they have fun.

They played "Iron Chef, Wisconsin" all morning long. They would set the timer and each 'chef' had to create a work of art with their little collection of doughs. It was so cute and it kept them quiet for about four hours! I was amazed and delighted. They made a huge mess and it's a good thing Joel wasn't around, but they had fun. Nicko is drying one of his masterpieces and the rest of the kids couldn't wait to tear theirs apart so they could make something else.

The pictures above are Alyssa working with her play dough, Nicko's blueberry cheese cake, and a beautiful turkey burger with some of Alyssa's plastic play food.

Out of Order

We are all in mourning right now as our computer keyboard has died. I know it's a very sad thing. We have another one coming, but until we get it, there will be no more blogging with pictures. I have been writing the blog posts on one computer and adding the pictures on another computer and I am giving up! It is too hard. Nicko has been copying and pasting the blog address to pull it up because we can't type anything! While that is a smart solution, it takes forever and it is very frustrating. So for now, we are pictureless. We should be back up in a week or two.

The kids went back to school today. :-) I painted. :-(

6'5" Versus 5'2"

Project Day!

Since we have moved Joel has spent most of his time working in Michigan. It is hard for him to get stuff done around the house. When he's here, there are five of us clamoring for his attention. This weekend he finally had some time to do a little organizing and get a few projects finished up. I could not believe it when he called me down to see the storage closet that he had organized. Everything looked perfect. He had very nicely mounted MY screwdriver set on the wall of the top shelf. Of course, since I am not 6'5" I could barely see it let alone actually touch it. When I mentioned this to him, he just scratched his head. Puzzling, isn't it?

We also took the Christmas decorations down today. Alyssa pulled off the ornaments she could reach and the boys helped Joel remove the lights. Everything looks so naked and boring without the greenery everywhere.

Happy New Year

We broke out a very old bottle of very cheap sparkling wine to celebrate the new year. It was great!