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.

The Palladium--The Carmel Center for Performance Arts

Today was the big day, the grand opening and ribbon cutting of The Palladium. We have watched it go from a hole in the ground to a pretty impressive building since we have moved here. And we have watched people complain about the tax money being used for this thing during a recession. I have to say, I was on the side of the complainers (give me more parks and stuff the entire community can use!!!). But I have to retract those statements because today we were able to go inside and check it out and it was amazing. This is the view from the outside--all covered in Indiana limestone. We read in the paper that the roof is a foot thick concrete!! This is our new town tornado shelter.
There are a ton of stair cases in the place. They probably could have cut the budget by millions if they just scaled back to 10 stairways instead of the 25!

This is looking down from the top of the stairs at the big chandlier. And al that pretty marble steps. When we walked in, I noted the floor looked like Nordstroms. That got me some serious looks from the Palladium lovers out there. I didn't mention that to the Mayor when I talked to him today. I just said, nice job, when's Melloncamp coming?

The inside view from the cheap seats--which really aren't that cheap at this point, but as you can see, not a bad seat in the house. Today, members of the community were performing. We sat for a while up here, but we weren't done exploring.

We wandered down to the lower level and checked out some bathrooms that have tile work to look like piano keys and then found a seat in the box seats. This is looking up at the acustical glass ceiling.

This is the view from the not so cheap seats. Pretty nice. Hopefully, someday, we can go to a concert there.

Talk like a Polly

We had a fun weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Seibert. First, Jim and Grandpa cut a bunch of half dead trees out of the back yard. Then after a quick Mythbusters nap, we went down town to go up into the Soldiers and Sailors Monument that is in the smack middle of Indianapolis. All of us opted to take the elevator, except for Jim. He walked up all 331 steps. He said that he was taking the Elevator down.
Before we went down, Evie points out our house to Grandma

Then we decided to go to Buca's for dinner (thanks Grandpa!). Annalise was kind of a pistol the whole time. She drank 2 glasses of lemonade, ate the bread basket and declared herself done. that was fine with us because that meant more tiramisu for me!

Evie works on the noodles. Unfortunately, this whole weekend, Evie was battling fever and headache. She even spiked up to 103 before we sent her to bed last night. So I made the mental note that we were going to the dr. on MLK day.

So after a fun weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Seibert, we stayed home in order to not infect many more people. Annalise got out the Pollies. You can't play with the Pollies without making your voice sound really high. There is also a farm bent to Polly because someone has to take care of all those cows and generally, some sort of natural disaster occurs when Evie plays Pollies with us. Why is there an ice cream parlor and Princess in a barn? Why not?

The disaster of the day was a tornado and a possible Jaborwacky attack.

Evie, after her dr appt (no ear infection--just the normal ibuprofen and rest), made this solar powered boat. Not a lot of sunlight in the bathroom after dark, so she had to chase it around the tub with the flashlight.

She doesn't look so sick anymore, but is ready for an early bedtime tonight.

And this girl. What a ham.

Stuff and Things

Arg, Winter. My least favorite time of the year. If there was a way that I could sleep straight through January and February, I totally would. As it is, I am going to sleep extra early at night and sleeping until it's time to get Evie up for school. In fact, there are only a few things that get me through this dark, cold time (as Garrison Keilor would say--I identify with this because it was winter about 7 months of the year up there and in a way, those are still my people. I am way out of practice at snowblowing and I am embarassed about that). So here's my list of things that get me through the winter:

1. sweat suits, velour or otherwise. If you are stuck in the house all day, you might as well be comfy and have an elastic waist band.

2. NCAA mens basketball, specifically, the Big Ten. Every night there are at least 6 games on the ESPN networks and I make sure that I watch at least part of two of them. Nothing like getting to know your commentators and making fun of the low point totals. I also like to see students dressed up as Mario and Luigi. And I also like to see which college kid can be the all time Ugliest player. Right now the reignning champ is Kyle Singler from Duke. When that kid gets sweaty and mouth breathing, he is UG-LY.

3. The Gym. Seriously, the only thing that gets me dressed in the morning is my trip to the gym. You may have heard that I have committed myself to running the Indy 500 Festival Mini Marathon. That's 13.1 miles. That's about 10 more miles than I have ever run at one time in my life. But in the interest of fitness and the fact that I'm not getting any younger, I am doing this. Plus, I do have to admit that I feel a little better when I leave the gym.

4. Wine. A glass of day is recommended for heart health. And it gives me a reason to look forward to dinner. And if I go to the gym regularly, I am working it off anyway.

5. The snowblower. I still maintain that this is the best gas powered thing we have ever bought. It may have even saved our marriage when we lived in MN.

Anyway, now that I have that off my chest, I will give you the update from the last week.

The SC Turners rolled in last Tuesday on the last stop of their Ohio Valley Christmas tour 2010. Henry was bribed to eat dinner with the promise of ice cream.
What's up with this kid??

June flat out refused to eat.

At some point, Evie decided that she had a scratch on her eye. Since Uncle Bran is a Doctor (in what emergency would you need a Dr. of Political Theory? ) he examined her eye and determined that she would , in fact, live to see another day.

Georgie sat in the middle of the table commanding attention, but not getting any ice cream. Probably because she slept for a grand total of 46 minutes while at our house. Her mom was not happy with her.

Uncle Jim tried to hypontize Georgie to sleep, but as we said, it didn't work. Probably because he isn't a doctor of anything.

The next morning, June didn't want to go home, but didn't want her picture taken either. We had lots of fun with all the Turners. We were sad to see them go, but they had enough travel and wanted to get home. Now because of a crippling blizzard that dropped 4 inches of snow, they have been stuck in their house since Sunday. Ha.

While in Cleveland, Grandma Taller took the girls to a pottery painting place and they painted new mugs which work great for Hot Chocolate. Thanks Grandma!

Now we are home. It's been snowing and I don't really want to go out unless I have to (like a class at the gym). So to fill my time, I have started spring cleaning from top to bottom. So far, the guest bedroom and each of the kids' bedrooms have been cleaned, polished, vacuumed, dusted, windexed, and all the furntiture moved. Next up, the upstairs hallway and the bathrooms. I hate to think about the family room because that's a lot of wood to clean.

I just haven't been sitting around while watching the basketball. I have been knitting. Evie requested a hat like "Waldo". This is what I made up. I think it looks cute.

Let's Bust some Myths

Dear Discovery Channel: Since we shameless advertise for your show, please feel free to send the checks to the Taller Girls. Evie received her last Christmas present today in the mail. A Mythbusters water experiment kit. We ate dinner quickly so we could get down to experimenting.
Everyone got in on the action. Is it bad that my kids know the guys on this show by name and I don't? I suppose it could be worse, they could be into something really nerdy like Lord of the Rings or Dungon and Dragons role playing....

Christmas presents

I bet you were hoping to see some pictures from our epic Christmas vacation trip. Well, sorry. When I left last Sunday, I forgot the camera. I asked Jim to bring it on Monday. He did, but left the memory card at home. And since this was the first trip to Bryan without a stop in the Walmart, we didn't get a new memory card. Go over to the Turner Family Blog. Becky has some pics of us posted--or will shortly as she should really get her blog updated. Today is the last day of winter break and in many ways, the last days of Christmas around here. Jim took down the outside lights on the unseasonably warm New Year's Eve when it was 60 degrees. We still have stuff up inside because I have been enjoying blobbing around in my sweat pants. Tonight was the last of the Christmas cookies. Who wants to bite the head off this gingerbread girl?
Annalise has a pretty good herd going. I'm not even sure this is all we have in the house. I think there are more hiding out in the Barbie Carriage.

Evie was giving us a magic show today. Let's just say her slight of hand isn't so slight.

Then we played some Lego Creationary. Annalise had the theme "place". None of us could guess this was a playground. She called it a "high couch". Ok.....

Evie rolls the dice for some more Lego fun. I have to say, this is a good game, but could benefit from the 10,000 Lego pieces in the basement.

Here's Evie's Magic in Action. Watch out if you come visit us soon. "It's Illusions", Aunt Becky.

Evie's First Rube Goldberg contraption

So Evie's Favorite Show is Mythbusters. We normally DVR them for her as we watch them ahead of time to make sure that there isn't any questionable or inappropriate content (like the sobering up episodes). Before Christmas, there was a special and the guys decided to build a Rube Goldberg Machine. We are big Rube Goldberg fans in this house and have spend several hours watching You Tube Videos. We are even planning a family trip up to Purdue when the state wide competition occurs this spring. Anyway, this first video is the the machine made on Mythbusters.

Evie decide that she wanted to build one in the basement. This kept her busy for almost an entire day. It was great because I was also sick with a cold that day and she was pretty much out of my hair. I did place three rules: 1. you have to use your toys 2. no pop explosions and 3. don't set the carpet on fire. Pretty simple. This is what she came up with all on her own. I think if she would have the patience, it would work without any outside assistance, but as you can see, she was well on her way.

We are wondering if we can submit this with her college application in 12 years????

We're Home

After approximately 1000 miles in two cars, a sick kid, 4 Christmas Parties, one baptism, a set of lost keys, and hundreds of cookies eaten, we are home. We enjoyed a quiet and quick dinner.
The kids among the Christmas presents that exploded from the car top carrier. We will all sleep well in our beds tonight.

Christmas Day!

Evie got up first this morning and came and woke us up. It was 6:55. Annalise was still asleep so we told Evie to go back to bed until 7:00. At 7 on the dot, she came and woke us up again (it's funny how fast you can fall back asleep) and then woke up Annalise. They were down sorting presents by the time we got out of bed and made it downstairs.

For some reason, Evie thought it would be hilarious to give Jim a box of lint for Christmas. So this is the yield from this week's laundry.

Check out that smile! Annalise is excited to get her Barbie horse and carriage.


Evie opens another present from Santa--scrabble Flash.

Here's the least surprising present of the day. Cows for our Future Farmer. The bull is anotomically correct. Try explaining that to a 4 year old.

Evie made some presents at school for us and she gave one to Jim to open.

Amongst this brewing fight, I get to open the other one that she made at school.

More Barbies. This is definately my kid. And they are cheerleaders!

Take a closer look at the wrapping paper Evie made in school for our present. Guess they aren't doing much in the way of separation of church and state.

We also received a book from our friends up north. The 12 days of Christmas in Minnesota! We love it.

Jim opens his big present. A beer brewing kit. JIm comes from a long line of men who make alcohol in the basement so it was only a matter of time before the brewing bug bit him. The kit comes with everything to make beer execpt the bottles. So save all your pry top bottles for us! We need 53!

This was our awesome breakfast. I made the cinnamon rolls according to an ancient Sherwood, Ohio Methodist Church Lady recipe. Jim made the eggs Benedict and holidase sauce from scratch. It was pretty filling and we didn't eat lunch until around 2 pm.

When all the stuff was removed from its packaging, we got down to playing. Annalise can really keep herself busy. I think if you look closely, there is a calf in that carriage.

Evie busts out her circut kit or "engineering kit" as she calls it. You can make 300 things with this and she is already through 20 of them.

Unfortunately, we also got a sick kid for Christmas. Evie seems to have her yearly case of croup. I even called the dr. today because I was wondering if we should get her an antibiotic. The dr said no to the Rx and to keep her away from all elderly and babies. So she is stuck at home with Jim for a few days while she heals. Annalise and I are heading to Ohio for the beginning of the trianglar family Christmases. You never know what happens around the holidays. We could be back home with Jim and Evie on Monday. Cross your fingers that Annalise isn't a carrier.

For now Annalise seems fine as she tries to interrupt my lounging time on the couch this afternoon. I am happy to say that we played with all the toys and stayed in our jammies all day. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.