Snow, Christmas and More

As they say at Menard's, "Christmastime is here, Good savings and good cheer..." We have been busy doing our Christmas preparations. The tree is up and all the lights are outside. We are less tacky outside than we were last year. This has much to do with the cold weather and the fact that half of our lights died over the hot summer in the attic. I don't think Jim will be testing each bulb, so it is up to me to find a place to recycle all those strands. The girls set up the nativity set. Everyone wants a close look at the Baby Jesus. He's in there somewhere amongst the crowd.
The weather turned delightfully cold and Minnesota like here. We had about 3 inches of snow and the kids played outside for about 2 hours with only brief breaks for bathroom and hot chocolate.

I guess the snow doesn't taste too good.

I had to share this. I made this Christmas Tree Hat for my baby niece, Georgiana. She may live in SC, but she will be all nice and toasty and festive on that bald head of hers.

We visited Conner Prairie and was inspired by the ginger bread houses there. I don't think there is enough time in the world to try to make my own ginger bread and then assemble it with frosting, so we take a shortcut by buying a kit and hot glueing it together for good measure and structual soundness. Check out Annalise's skirt. She wears this every week to church and it always slides off her butt giving everyone around us a view of her underpants. I have to get that fixed this week before church on Sunday.

Two girls sacrificed some of their leftover Halloween candy for the barn. There wasn't anything good left anyways.

Our sweet presents under the tree.

Christmas Card Outtakes

For about 2 weeks, I have been trying to get the kids to smile nicely so I can make the yearly Christmas card. At times, one would be too squrrielly, the other would be grumpy and then the punch to the neck would happen. So things weren't looking too good for a picture. I even contimplated just putting a picture of Jim and I from our trip and writing on the card that we do still have children, but they are uncooporative. Today, with the threat of not putting up the outside Christmas lights, we managed to get a decent shot. Not photographer's quality, but at least there was no punching involved. The goofy face picture.
The one really nice picture of Shlee, and Evie is looking away...ggrrrr.

I considered this one to be the card, but we should probably save the eye rolling until they are teenagers.

And we are done. That's all you get mom. After all this, I looked back, and I think Evie may have been wearing this dress in last year's Christmas card. Oh well.

Thanksgiving in Ohio

We were all excited to go to Grandma Seibert's house for Thanksgiving. Not only did this get mom out of the majority of cooking, we also were going to see Grandma and Grandpa Taller! What a treat to have both sets of grandparents in one place. That doesn't happen much. But with all the excitement, the morning came with sickness. I woke up in the middle of the night with a really upset stomach. I probably shouldn't have made the drive, but I did and spent most of Thanksgiving day sipping Siera Mist and laying on the couch. No over eating for me. Unfortunately, Evie also came down with something while we were there. Hopefully, no one else ends up with our germs. We also suspect that Annalise wasn't feeling well because she actually took a nap and was very hard to wake up. She is sitting with her legs crossed under her while sleeping. She must have been very sore when she woke up. But wake her up we did because we had to go to Archbold for the Festival of Lights parade. After hearing about it for so many years, we had to see it for ourselves.
We all got bundled up in our snow pants and winter coats to sit out and wait for the parade to start. We went with Grandpa and Grandma and the Edgerton Meyers and the Archbold Seiberts.

Long parade with lots to see. I sat far from our kids so I didn't really hear many of their reactions. I do know that the people who threw candy just came up into the grass and dropped handfuls on them.

These kids on the front of the crane had the best seat in the parade.

Man, that's a big big tractor!

This was my personal, non agricultural entry in the parade because the jaws of the spider opened and the legs all moved.

This was interesting, a float with a fountain! Love the water and electricity mixture.

Santa on a School Bus! Wish he would come to our bus stop.

The family favorite for best entry. Too bad we can't photo shop out the archbold equipment and make it our Christmas card.

We came home on Saturday because Grandma and Grandpa had a party to go to today and they were probably also tired of listening to the girls have tantrums. I am convinced that they had some sort of bug because they slept until 8 am this morning after going to bed early on Friday. I retreated to the basement with my pizza and beer to watch the Buckeyes and Jim headed up to do a science experiment with Evie. This is their floating whirly gig made with candles. Tomorrow...outside Christmas lights!

Annalise's Thanksgiving program

Tuesday marked the traditional Preschool Thanksgiving program. It was just as adorable in years past with all the kids picking their noses, pulling up their dresses, punching their friends, and just plan old turning around and facing the wrong direction. Adorable. When we started at this preschool, there were 5 classes. Now there are at least 10, maybe 12. They started with the youngest classes, which meant that Annalise's class was 3rd to last. They did a nice job with their songs and poems. Here's her whole class. She's the one in the pink sweater and the falling off skirt. She wouldn't let me fix it with a safety pin. I will have to sew it to take it in when she is sleeping.
In her class, Annalise's best friends are Arielle and Sadie. She is standing between them.

Telling the Turkeys to watch out for Thanksgiving.

4 year olds are so cute. Can't believe this is our 4th preschool program. One more to go until Kindergarten.

Company

This past weekend was a busy one for us. On Saturday, we welcomed our friends, Jen, Moe, Mazie and Adli all the way from St. Louis. We hung around on Saturday just visiting and watched the lights get turned on in Carmel. On Sunday, we opened the Children's museum We covered most of the museum, including the basement!
In the Polar Bears and Penguins, exhibit, the kids all pretended they were penguins. All except Annalise who wanted nothing to do with it.

What's a trip to the Children's musuem without a ride on the merry go round?

Mazie entertained us all with serving us fake food.

Evie, Annalise and I built the high tower together in the construction zone. Thanks for coming, Jacobs family! We had a great time seeing you and would love to come visit St. Louis, even if it is the country's most dangerous city.

Back at the homestead, our artist created this landscape.

After a morning trip to the zoo on Monday with the Jacobs (in which I took no pictures), we met up with Erica and Elle for lunch at my favorite place, Patachou. Then we crossed the street to visit the Indiana state capitol building. Erica and Clay were married there 10 years ago this month.

It was still as pretty as when Erica got married, and empty too! We basically had the place to ourselves.

Evie and Annalise played so nicely with Elle. She was never in need of a playmate. Elle rewarded us all with lots of smiles and giggles. She is such a sweet baby!

Annalise and Elle play before school. Thanks for visiting us Erica and Elle!

Drama

For about 6 weeks, Evie has been attending an after school program to learn about putting on plays. They all learned lines and made scenery. The Drama part was probably easy for all these girls :) This week was her play. The class was split into two groups. Her group put on The Ugly Duckling. Evie's role was "The Old Duck"
She remembered her lines and spoke clearly and loud.

At the end of the program, all the children introduced themselves for the audience. If you are interested in enduring the 10 minute play, email us, and we can send you the link to the teacher's website where it is posted.

When we got home, we discussed the play and Evie said something along the lines of "I'll miss Drama". There's enough drama around here every day.

Fancy Nancy

Early Tuesday morning, the furnance broke. Fortunately, the house never got colder than 60 degrees. But in the interest of staying warm, I let Annalise stay in her jammies all day. check it out, it was cold enough in the house that even Annalise kept her socks on.
Evie's class has bag that have a library book and some toys in it. This week's was Fancy Nancy. There was a doll too, but it was much more fun to get all dressed up Fancy and dance around.

Annalise was fancy in her jammies.

Annalise wants to write annalise

Messy Annalise

On a daily basis, we have to sweep the floors. Especially under Annalise's chair. She is a little like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown. She seems to leave a trail of crumbs and tiny pieces of paper wherever she goes.This is one day's worth of filth from under her chair. This doesn't count the stickers that were stuck to the floor.
It was a nice day on Thursday so we decided to have a picnic (and I wouldn't have to sweep after lunch). Annalise spread the jelly on our sandwiches and counted out carrots for us to eat.

We sat in the front yard under the still shady trees with our lunch. I even let her have juice. We watched the garbage truck go by.

Then things started to get a little goofy.

I was trying to take a nice picture...

This is the best we captured.

Later that night, I saw John Melloncamp in concert at Hinkle Fieldhouse (home of the Butler Bulldogs and site of the the filming of Hoosiers). We had awesome seats and it was a great show.

Jim didn't think he had that much Indiana in him, so I went with my college friend, Katie. We even stayed out until 1 am!

Evie the Professor

On Sunday afternoons, Jim and I take a nap. The kids are encouraged to read or play just as long as they don't wake us up. This afternoon, we gave them some pipe cleaners to play with and Evie constructed a model of the water cycle.

closed for the season

Well, as it is the first full weekend of November, we couldn't put off the yard any longer. It was a nice day so we closed up the yard for the year. But first, the girls built this tower. They actually built it several times because it got knocked over by a "cow" a lot.
And as long as we were outside rolling up hoses and putting the patio furniture away, Jim fired up the snowblower. It started on the first try. Now we'll just wait until January to use it. That's ok with me. Put off all that nasty snow for a little longer.

And of course, we had to dispose of the pumpkins in the most hillbilly way we could think of. Smashing them on the street. Some of the neighbors came and got into the action too and I ended up with 10 pumpkins worth of compost on my garden. The most important part is that the kids had fun.

Evie and Annalise and their "best Friends" Paige and Taylor get into the smashing fun.