Catch up

So it's been quiet around here. Everyone has regained health and we are back on our normal schedules of school, work, and bathroom cleaning. This is what has been going on the last week and a half. We celebrated Fat Tuesday. I was able to find a decent baguette at Whole Foods. Who knew? Shlee liked it.
I made this awesome red beans and rice. Of course, we drank hurricanes and wore beads.

We also endulged in the Polish tradition and ate Paczkis filled with raspberry filling. We each ate one. I can't speak for them, but my belly hurt.

This is actually what Evie ate for breakfast. Mom of the year. I made sure to pack her an extra healthy lunch to make up for it.

There has also been a lot of cuddling going on. Aren't they cute?

I went away last weekend to meet my friend Jen in Springfield,IL. We learned all about our 16th president and toured his home. We also attended the town's St Patrick's Day parade and drank beers with bagpipe players and did lots of shopping. It was a great time. My kiddos must have missed me though, because we needed to all lay on the couch together.

And the weather started to turn and we started thinking about the garden. Annalise has been after me to start the seeds for the garden. I finally caved in and she planted her zinnia seeds and my tomato plants. It's probably a little early, but she loves to check on her plants.

My little gardener.

And we celebrated with another theme meal. Guinness stew and Irish soda bread. We took a break from the first day of games to eat and then it was back to the TV.

Evie's Art debut

Last week, a note was sent home from school with Evie. It said that her artwork was chosen to be displayed in the World's Smallest Children's Art Gallery in downtown Carmel. The opening was Sunday afternoon. We went to see her masterpiece and get some cookies and punch. If you have ever been to Carmel, you know they have a tendency to do it up all fancy. This is the sign in front of the one stall garage sized building that houses the World's Smallest Children's Art Gallery--yes it is in the Guiness Book of World Records. Here is the artist pointing out her masterpiece. The graphic squares in the upper row.

A close up of her art.


Her art teacher for most of this year has been a subsitute as the full time teacher has been out on maternity leave. I think that she is fresh out of school because the caliber of projects have gone way up and the children are learning about artists and doing work inspired by works of these artists. Evie's work was inspired by the artist Piet Mondrian.


Evie and her teacher, Mrs. Gaw. It was a nice event and we enjoyed seeing Smoky Row's best and brightest artists.

Celebrity look alike

Annalise has taken to wear her sunglasses in a particular manner. I think she looks a touch like a Disney Channel Celebrity

Scott from Imagination Movers. Yes, it is Disney, but it is a cute show with songs about brainstorming ideas.

More happy Birthday

This weekend, Grandma and Grandpa Taller came to visit to celebrate Jim and Evie's birthdays with us. They were supposed to come a weekend before, but we called and told them to wait unless they wanted our sickness. We are still harboring some germs but we hope that they make it through without getting sick. We celebrated Jim's birthday in his favorite way. With a pie. Yum. We had to celebrate his birthday late because he spent most of his birthday in the airport waiting to go to Minnesota for work. Don't feel too bad for him. He treated himself to a milkshake for lunch and went to his favorite wood fired pizza place for dinner. This wasn't a big birthday, but we did learn at church that he is too old to attend the "young adult" events. He is just a regular adult now.
Grandma and Grandpa also brought Evie her birthday presents. A rocket car that goes 200 feet! We can hardly wait until the weather warms up to show this off in the cul-de-sac.

Grandma also must have known that Evie's rain jacket was getting to small. We still can't believe how big she is getting.

and it fits! Thanks for coming Grandma and Grandpa!

Erruption of Mt. Evelyn

It came time for us to cast and errupt Mt Evelyn that Evie received from GG Seibert.Evie was kind of excited, kind of sick. For about a week, she has been battling a fever and headache that comes and goes. I think she may have licked it by now.
Shlaw. What a Shlaw.

Then she gets caught picking her nose. Now that's embarassing.

Here's Mt. Evelyn made out of plaster of paris.

We also learned a lot more facts about volcanos.

Evie puts in the "erruptions tablets" not too many since we didn't know what would happen.

And the Mt. errupts!

Maybe not as lava-y and errupt-y as she was expecting.

Dad thought it was cool though.

And team forehead enjoyed the erruption too.

Evie's Birthday Party

Today we held Evie's Birthday party. It was a far cry from last year's 14 kid party. Suprisingly, it was just as loud. Girls scream a lot.The theme was science experiments. For once, we had enough for them to do to fill the 2 hour time slot. First, we started with chromotography of Crayola markers.
Then we moved on to showing how your sense of smell effects how you taste things. We did this experiment with Jelly beans.

Everyone had a partner.

And then the mess began. We made slime. This was by far the messiest and loudest activity because there were a lot of girl screams.

Paige thought it was cool.

Lizzy let the slime fall off her fingers.

Gracie just went nuts. Note to all parents out there, this is a good outside activity. Lots of cornstarch all over the floor.

Cadence had a great time.

Evie makes a super long slime string.

After slime, they all went out side and shot off a mentos/diet coke rocket. They also played with some dry ice while I cleaned up the slime mess. Then we sang Happy Birthday. The cake was recycled from last night because the baked ice cream melted in the oven. Whoops, science doesn't always work on the first try.

The crowd at the party

Everyone enjoyed cake, opened presents and then it was all done. A success. I then retreated to my big TV to sleep off my cold medicine in front of a couple of basketball games.

Evie's 7th Birthday!

Happy birthday to our beautiful seven year old daughter. The day started out great with a two hour delay from school and got even better when school got canceled because of the overnight ice and snow. Yay! A whole day at home because why go to school 2 times in one week? We started the day with the traditional number pancakes.
And then she got to open some presents when dad came inside from snowblowing. She opened some jacks from Annalise.

And a book from mom and dad

Dad and Evie work together to open a package from the TX Tallers

Yay for books! She opened other presents from The Browns and GG Taller. Thanks everyone. We will post pictures of the upcoming science that will be conducted in the kitchen. I already have plans to extract some DNA from the kiwi and then stain it and look at it under the microscope.

In light of the science theme birthday year, I talked her into a volcano cake. It was much easier than trying to figure out how to decorate a mythbusters cake. I had a lot of fun with this one because lava is nice a free form type of decorating. The dry ice was better than the icing or the cake!

After birthday dinner, the girls played with the dry ice. It was super fun for them to experiment with blowing on it and trying to catch the steam

Our best buddies, Paige and Taylor came over for some cake and dry ice fun.

Dad got super creative and put some soap in the dry ice bowl and made cloudy bubbles. As you can see, Annalise was pretty excited about it.

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.