At Grandma's House

This past weekend, the girls and I loaded up and went to Grandma and Grandpa Seibert's house for the night since the girls didn't have school on President's day. We didn't want Grandpa to be alone on the Anniversary of Dale Sr.'s passing (you can start healing, now, Grandpa). While we were there, we flopped around on the couch, went swimming, and generally let Grandma take care of all of us. It wasn't all play. Grandma has been cleaning house for an upcoming garage sale and she found some of the priceless treasures that I had as a child. She found a stack of Valentine's from my first grade class and this lovely drawing. When I was 8, Happiness was a clown. don't worry, I have the original and can make copies for all of you for Christmas.
The Archbold Seiberts came over for a President's Day lunch that included a surprise birthday party for Evie! (this was the day that the ice and snow rolled in and we were stuck in Ney for the storm).

Tessa and Annalise played nicely in the kitchen.

Uncle Kevin came over with Natalie, but left with this horse.

To pass some more time (while mom was napping--it's the life at Grandma's house), Grandma took the girls to the basement beauty shop and cut their hair. They requested more inches off than I expected. I think it looks nice and it is certainly easier to take care of! Less Tangles!

Then we decided to go to Great Grandma Wagner's house to visit. While we were enjoying our lunch, we decided we needed to through Great Grandma's button tins. Annalise and Evie both found some beautiful buttons to bring home.

When I was about 4, Great Grandma taught me to sew buttons. (probably to get some piece and quiet). So with Great Grandma's buttons, I taught Annalise to sew buttons too. She is really good at it.

It's official

Last night at dinner, the girls and I were talking about state birds, the national bird, state flowers and such. We decided we should have an official family bird too. We never did decide on the bird (Evie nominated robin, Annalise--peacock, Jim and I--turkey vulture), but we did come up with a list of official things that pertain to our family. This will probably be boring to most of you, but since this is our family blog and scrapbook, I'm entering them here for my own amusement.

Breakfast: cinnamon rolls
Lunch: grilled cheese
Dinner: tacos (which we happened to be eating when they decided this. Mom voted lentils)
Drink: Girls vote lemonade, mom and dad vote beer
Dessert: Cherry pie
Animal: Fish
Flower: violet
Fruit: apples and cherries (because they grow in the yard)
Vegetable: Carrots
Holiday: 4th of July
Book: elmer's day out
Car: Corvette pace car (in our dreams--kids can't vote because they can't drive)
Time: 12:34 or bedtime
Ice cream: moose tracks
Confrence: Big Ten
Fundamental: Defense
Nut: pecan
Connor Prairie Farm animal: goat
School: Smoky Row
Donut: custard filled
TV show: Mythbusters
Snack: popcorn
Bug: lady bug
Riddle: What do you call a dog, rug and bird? A flying carpet!

I'm sure that there will be additions to this list through the year. It was just a fun thing to talk about over dinner.

gymnastics

We have a general rule in this house is that you can do one sport at a time. For a long time, Evie was involved with soccer. Annalise's main sport was driving in the car to Evie's sporting events. This fall, they both asked to do gymnastics. Once the dust from the holidays settled and everyone's arms were back in working order, we enrolled them. The very best thing in my book is that they go at the exact same time so I don't have to make 2 separate trips. And I have 55 minutes to listen to pod casts and crochet whatever I want. There is a walking track there at the gym, but they also have couches and free wifi. Annalise is really getting the hang of tumbling, but she still can't figure out the cartwheel. It's cute that she stands there for a minute or so psyching herself up and then barely gets her feet off the floor.
Evie has a good time and when she isn't distracted or goofing off, she does a pretty good job. This isn't a hard core place with strict rules and that is ok with us. The good part is they keep the kids moving and wear them out.

Another neat thing is that they put all the kids on the appartus right away. Evie hasn't fallen off the high beam yet. I think her balance is improving. It helps your confidence when the floor is padded with cooshy mats.

I am happy to say that Annalise has mastered the forward roll. See video at the end of this post

They don't let the little ones on the high beams yet. Annalise will be moving up a class in the next session and she will get to move up with older kids. I hope she gets the hang of the cartwheels.



Evie is really confident in class. We asked her how she learned to do this flip and she said she just decided to do it one day. We were impressed. I think she learned it from her trampoline days.

Annalise is really good at the forward roll!!

Winter is over

It's 60 degrees here today and I think this message Evie wrote on the driveway pretty much sums it up. So now, bust out the 1888 Bock. We survived.
Of course, several inches of ice and snow just don't disappear. They make a lake in our back yard that should dry out sometime in May.

All that melting snow means running water and the kids were totally into cleaning out the gutters to watch the water flow. Where we lived in MN, there were kids that played in the gutters every single day. We actually called one of them "Gutter Boy" because he would be out there even if no one else was. I always used to wonder what kind of mother would allow her kids to play in the gutter. Now I am that kind of mother.

Annalise is so completely happy to be outside without a coat or hat. I worry now that I have let her out once, she may be ruined until next fall.

Valentine's Day

Quiet Valentine's day around this house. We did our normal running around shuttling people to school, work and religion class. We celebrated in the evening. Of course, Annalise got dressed in her new Valentine's day present from Grandma and Grandpa TAller. It fits great (for a pillow case dress that she favors) and she loves it. Did you know there were pockets?
Evie had to finish her homework before she could participate in Valentine's fun.

We gave Evie the gift that keeps on giving. a 1000 piece puzzle. This should keep us busy for the next week or so.

Jim tries to steal a kiss from Annalise, but she was being too goofy.

Channeling our inner MInnesotan

Kind of a lazy weekend around here. Jim hurt his back this week so we just hung around the house and even watched a movie! Inception is really good if you are looking for a rental. My newest theory in life is that you are what you eat and if you eat junk, your body will hurt. Here's Jim's lunch. Meatloaf with BBQ sauce, a brat and a bowl of Velveeta. This is probably why his back hurts. He needs some lentils--which we had for dinner.
Evie and I decided it was a fine day to take in a skate. Evie's skills have really improved since last winter and she hardly feel at all!

We tried to get Annalise to come with us but she refused. Instead, she and dad went on a "date" to the candy shoppe.

Later, when we came home, it was 45 degrees! A lot of people were out chipping away at the ice and we decided to join in on the fun. Since the gutter on the front of the house was making a lake on the sidewalk, a channel needed to be constructed to direct the water away from the house. Jim and Evie did half. He had to quit because of his cheese ball induced back pain. I stepped in for the second half.

We finished up. This picture should be in the fleet farm catalog. I feel alive, Aunt Becky.

Sweet heart pops

Annalise was having quite the whiny morning. I think it is because she isn't sleeping well at night (yes, again) and having bad dreams. Dreams which she decides to get up and tell me about at 3 am so I haven't been sleeping well either. Tuesdays are our down days. Sometimes we get the groceries, but today we had a couple of errands. It was miserable getting her out of the house. But then suddenly, she turned the corner and was all skipping and cheerful and delightful. I think they call that a mood swing. Anyway, a while back she spotted this craft in the good old Family Fun magazine. Since she was being good, we stopped at JoAnns to get the supplies. We had some left over mini candy canes from Christmas.
We get started and she layed everything out.

Mom was in charge of melthing the candy and putting it in the hearts. Annalise did the sprinkles. I have to say, this took a whopping 5 minutes to make and bought me all kinds of peace this afternoon.

A closer look at ours. Didn't quite look like the picture, but that was ok with us.

Meanwhile, Annalise models her new boots that we found on super clearance at LandsEnd. We love you Lands End. I think she will be wearing these the rest of the winter and all of next.

After dinner, they ate their treats.

I guess they liked them

Best Wife Ever

I ventured out this morning to buy beer for the Super Bowl (Indiana has blue laws). I found a mini log of velveeta so I caved in and bought it for Jim under the condition he eats it all by midnight Sunday. Gross.

The Icy Aftermath

Finally, the kids went back to school today. The schools said that they had to remain closed through today because of the horrible task of getting the ice cleaned off the sidewalks so the children and teachers could enter safely. I do have to say that the city has done a great job getting the ice off the roads. The most trecherous street is the one that runs in front of our house. After that, it's pretty clear.So I decided that since the sun was out softening up all that ice, I would go out and do some removal. I also needed to capture some pictures to show Jim the conditions of the house/yard. This is the mound of ice in front of our house almost completely covering the crawl space vent and an outdoor spigot.
This has frozen pipes written all over it. Ugh.

The ice is melting off the roof, but the only downspout that is exposed is this one on the south side and you can see that it isn't doing much good. The gutters are full of ice. Ice dams are something I didn't think I needed to think about anymore. More Ugh.

And this downspout just goes under the ice. What are you supposed to do in a situation like this????

The north side of the garage has a healthy ice dam. Arg.

I blame the next part of my afternoon on the fact that I am a survivor. I lived in MN. I am trained and equiped to handle snow. So I pulled on my Sorrells, (wish I had some Choppers) and got out the "ICE MUTT" (real name) to bust out some of this ice. I can handle this! Hear me roar. Just wanted to show exactly how much Ice we were talking about. 1.5 inches.

And after an entire hour of pounding away, I cleared this much ice off the drive. Didn't even make it over to the sidewalk. I thought this was a pretty good accomplishment.....

...until I went to the end of the driveway. A drop in the bucket. I should have just stayed inside in front of the big TV.

The kids are enjoying the ice. They have found that even the smallest hill is pretty good for sledding and going far. It's just tough getting back up that hill.

Sledding action.

The uneventful update

There really hasn't been much going on around here. That's the reason for lack of updates. I can report on this. We survived the storm of the century of the month. We were hit with the ice on Monday night. Everyone stayed home on Tuesday. The kids played with the neighbor girls all day (we even ate dinner with them). I cleaned and washed and cleaned and cooked. I knew that we would be home a couple of days and I wanted to get all the work out of the way so we could play. Wednesday rolled around and we were in full on sloth mode. Evie read some books to Annalise and I was wearing my second sweat suit of the week. Bliss.
Jim stayed home on Wednesday too. He even delayed a trip to MN until Thursday so he could be sure to get out safely. While I was on my second sweat suit (and shower), Jim rode this storm out in the same clothes and no shower. Good thing he didn't wander too far from his computer with his stinky-ness.

Here's some ice on our trees. The kids didn't have school again today ( Thursday). Because of the difficultly of cleaning up this ice, they are on a two hour delay again tomorrow. They have really enjoyed skating around on the ice. i was impressed that no one had hurt themselves.....until tonight. We returned from gymnastics, which wasn't canceled--yay, and I decided to see if I could chip some ice off the drive. Evie was excited about the big chunks of ice. Perhaps too excited because she slipped and caught herself on her chin. She was bleeding and convinced herself that she spilt her chin and needed stitches. I am happy to report that she only scraped her chin and has a big old band aid now. Here's hoping that she's the only one that slips.

Annalise's Farm

It recently occured to me that Annalise gets the short end of the stick being the second kid. When Evie was this age, we spent a lot more time doing things one on one while Annalise was napping. Now Evie is at school and Mom wants to nap :) So I decided that going to Meijer or arranging playdates don't qualify as one on one time. I busted out a craft that I had tucked away. A 3-D foam farm! Can it get any better than this? I was lucky enough to hot glue each and every piece. Yeah me.
Annalise loved punching out all the pieces and getting them ready for the glue

Half way done. At this point, I had burned my fingers about 5 times and even Annalise got burned once. And, the table was a casualty also getting lots of hot glue on it.

Carefully placing stepping stones on the pathway so the Pollies can get to their cows

The Pollies and the cows love their new play set. This was well worth it. We really enjoyed working on this together.

Later, we had to go to school to take a quick pic of Evie's class for the upcoming silent auction fundraiser. they are a good looking bunch of kids.