Winter Wonderland

Just wanted to share some pictures of the beautiful white stuff!!

 

Just some Randomness

A few pictures of the stuff lately with a couple more drawings from Laina:

The boys in their Jeep.

Laina picked out her own clothes. Doesn't she do such a GREAT job!?! :D That's a sticker on her mouth. Silly Girl!

A teary "cheese" because he wasn't allow to go on the carpet because of potty training.

"Cheese"

The snowman Laina, Sutton, and I built.  He kind of blends into the background! haha I had told the kids that as soon as I was done with the driveway I'd make a snowman with them. Mark came home in the meantime and asked what was for dinner. I told him. So he said that he'd make it so I could make the snowman with the kids as promised. What a sweet guy!!!

A snowman with a broom

Spot, an Easter egg, a chick, and a heart.

The chick Laina made all by herself. She cut it out, colored it, and taped it together while I was up in my room reading my Bible. I thought it was so cute so we had to show you. :)

I tried to add videos but it wouldn't let me. I don't know if my video is not compatible for blogger...so maybe I have to change it somehow...I don't know. I'll have to figure it out.

More to come!

Hearts, Flowers, and Candles

I know that I have Christmas and Sutton's birthday to share about yet but thought I'd share how our Valentines' Day went. Not that it is an overly interesting story but it was a day in our life. And a memorable one for me. :)

I am potty-training Bodie. Usually I let Bodie run around without pants on and keep him on the linoleum so that he isn't having accidents on the carpet. I just want him to become aware of when he goes... Anywho, we decided to get a new company for internet. The technician (a man named Jim) was to come yesterday between 10a-12n. I couldn't have Bodie running around half-naked so I didn't put a diaper on him and just put pants on. It was a few minutes before 10a I smelled something.....he had gone number two in his pants.....I pulled the pants off so carefully but he still ended up with a brown leg....ewwww. So I was able to get that cleaned off before the man got here. It probably still smelled like poo.... I decided that we were forgoing potty training for the day. hehe

I had a list of things to do: I wanted to make a craft with the kids and just make the day special, a candle-lit dinner for supper for the fam so I had dinner to get ready and I wanted to bake a heart cake for dessert, I knew something was going to be delivered (Mark told me to expect something today in case they needed to call me first), laundry to do, the floor was covered in dog hair but I had Chester out in the garage where the central vac leads and wasn't sure how he'd handle turning that on, the floor also needed a quick washing (which it  needs practically every day), the counter (peninsula part) was full of things that just needed to be put away, AND I wanted to try to get some school in with the kids. After thinking about my list, I decided since it since it was a holiday it's a fun day and we were just going to make the craft for school.

First during breakfast, I was looking for a Valentine's movie on netflix but couldn't find one but Sutton saw this and HAD to watch it!

MONSTER TRUCKS!!!

This is them watching it. haha Zoned for all 25 minutes.

 We started watching "Hello, Kitty" for Laina but then the cable/internet guy came. And after I had cleaned the floor, he didn't even need to be in the kitchen using the phone jack that I thought he was going to need. He needed the cable up in my bedroom. Thank goodness I am good about keeping my room clean and my bed made! And he was here when I got my delivery so that kinda took away from the moment. hehe

Aren't they beautiful!? They came with a box of chocolates. First time I think that I have ever gotten chocolates!

   I was able to make the craft with the kids but they didn't like it because they had to touch goey glue (it took me probably about 45 minutes to get the craft ready - it was making hearts our of yarn and glue but i find the recipe to make the glue) so their hands got gross but I made them do it because sometimes it's OK to get yucky!!

  Oh, by the way, I bought Mark the candy hearts he likes a couple days ago but he saw them and then was playing with the package by throwing it in the air. The bag dropped and broke open so he said that he "needs to eat them otherwise they're going to get hard and gross (whatever allows me to eat them early)." Most of his Valentine's present was gone by the time it was Valentines' Day but Laina decorated a can and we put what was left in it at his place at the table

I didn't get the cake frosted or dinner made until after Mark got home. But I DID have the table set when the kids got up from nap/quiet time. Laina said, "Pretty!"

When I lit the candles at supper, Sutton asked if we were going to sing "Happy Birthday."

After dinner we watched a movie together.

All in all the day was crazy busy (what day isn't?!) but it was a really nice day.

December....

...At least the beginning of it. :)

Our house all festive for Christmas but missing snow!

No lights, except around the two living room windows from the inside. I was going to put them outside but the only outlet was by the deck in the back and we didn't have a long enough extension cord...oh, well, there's always next year!

 Bodie decided one day that he was going to pretend to drink out of one of those cups on the shelf with the green pitcher.....Well, it broke. He wasn't allowed to touch them again! hehe

More of December to come.

Drawings

Laina thought she'd show you a few of her drawings. 

She was very excited that she could see her drawings on the computer!

Can you guess what they are?? The bottom right is NOT a giraffe....that's what I guessed too. :)

The circles around it are a design. The pink circles on top are clouds, except for the bird and sun.

Sutton and Laina both colored this one. Laina the stuff you can figure out and Sutton the scribbles and dots. :D

Sutton wanted to show you his too.

"Thank you for looking at our drawings!" - Laina and Sutton

November

I didn't take a lot of pictures in November but here they are:

At the beginning of November, Mark had an extra day off work so he surprised me with a trip down to what I thought was Wabasha. As we were headed down, he prayed for our trip, as we always do when we go somewhere. His prayer was something like this, "Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for a safe trip and that the kids are good for Nancy and Keith and for Lindsay's parents. And that we ahve a safe trip down to Dubuque." I looked at him with a "what?!" kind of look. He was surprising me for my birthday with a trip down Memory Lane to Dubuque. What a sweet husband I have!!!

So we dropped off the kids at Nancy and Keith's house and then made our way down. We were about an hour away, I was listening to an old Newsboys tape (hehe) and out from a ditch on the left came a big deer. I didn't even see him until he was about to the center line. I slammed on my brakes, which didn't help at all, and SMACK!!!! The car quit but we were still moving down the road. Mark woke up just then and said, "Deer, huh?" I said, "Yeah" as we're still going down the road. Mark asked, "You gonna stop?" I said, "But the car quit, and I...uh...uh...don't...uh...."  Then finally my senses came back to me and we stopped a half mile down the road from where I hit the deer. Mark being in the profession that he is, knew exactly what to do. I was soooo glad that he did.

My cousin Randy came up from Dubuque and got us and then the next day we looked for a van to buy after trying to figure out what to do. Randy said that we could borrow one of his vehicles if we needed to. That was really nice of him. But we knew from the tow person that helped us, our van was totalled. At the end of the next day, we bought a Town and Country. What we thought was a great deal and had lots more features then our Windstar. We were very excited!

Now a month later the engine light came on so we brought it into the repair place, and $1700 later, we have a nice little vehicle. hehe Even though we had to pay so much to fix it, it's still better than our other van. But I'm going to keep calling the dealership that sold it to us and keep saying something even though he's blown me off 3 times. Ugh!

But overall our trip to Dubuque was very nice! We had a great time!!

We went to the Mines of Spain to where Mark had taken me on a scavenger hunt 12 years ago for my birthday. It was beautiful. (I was going to post the pictures of the Mines here and have had this post ready since the beginning of December but I kept forgetting to get them off of Mark's phone...sooo here's a really late post WITHOUT the pictures. :D)

These pictures are from the Mall of America where we went for Melissa's birthday. First we went to IHOP for a yummy brunch and then to here to entertain the kids at Lego World. It was a very nice day!

The loved the escalators so my mom brought them up and down and up and down....

Here we all are!

Just the kiddos.

The sisters

 These are from the brief snow that we had - about 2 inches. If you have gotten our Christmas card, you would have already seen these. :)

 The boys were ready to come in after about 5 minutes but not Laina!

She loved the snow!!!

I put Chester out there (although forgot to take a picture..hmm) to be with her so she wasn't a lone and I kept close watch at the patio door. :)

 Next: Thanksgiving but hardly any pictures. hehe

Me and little Liddy!! She's sooooooo sweet and cute and I just wanna kiss her cheeks!!!!

Jack-Jack Attack!! Playing with a shoe!

And wrestling with Sutton.

Not sure why this picture is turned...it wasn't when I put it in here.

 This is after we got up our Christmas tree! Laina and Sutton wanted to read a book.

 Bodie wanted to play with the Christmas tree box. :)

 It's all decorated and lit up in our new house! :)

These are just pictures I took to put on Valentines' Day for a calendar I made.

That's it for November. December is sure to come soon. I hope!! Since now it's FEBRUARY!!! hehe