February fun

Reading books with Dada, all clean from baths and ready for bed

Carrie and Dada made sugar cookies for all our buddies to have for dessert Saturday night. We had Rita, Lee, Nina, Bing, Christine, Molly, Michael, and Jeannine over for dinner. It was great!

Well? I DID tell you they were SUGAR cookies!

Liam in the couch. "I seeping, Mama!" Ohhhhkay, Liam...

Those are our balled up, clean socks. Liam decided Triskal needed them in the kennel as opposed to having them in the laundry basket with the rest of the clean stuff. *siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

I got him up after break and look what he'd done to his pants!

"Mine turn!"

This child is obsessed with putting playdoh in his hair. Must be his beauty secret...

Snow day silliness

Here's our handsome boy, otherwise known as Gozer the Destroyer (yes, like in "Ghostbusters"). He had more fun bashing the snowman into smithereens than he did help build it. Boys.

OFF with his head!

Bashing all the snow right outta poor Mr. Snowman...

I know there's grass under here somewhere!

Crazy Care Bear. Her hat kept falling down into her eyes but it sure didn't slow her down any. Guess who didn't want to come in?

Triskal sure had a good time out there. As soon as I opened the door, she ran in a circle and then proceeded to eat all the snow off the chair. When she came back in she kept belching at me!

Yep, still winter

This is what our yard looked like a few days ago. As you can see, our resident Newfie prefers the cooler, wetter to the nice dry sidewalk of our patio. By yesterday, naturally, all of it was gone except for the "iceberg" heaps from plows and shovels.

Then comes the wet, chilly mist that you know in your bones brings more winter weather. It obscures the streetlights, makes you shiver as you wait for the car to warm up, and seems to suck all the moisture out of your skin so that you need lotion applied 20 times a day.

Now here is my favorite part: waking up in the morning to that incredible stillness. That special kind of quiet that can only mean one thing- SNOW DAY!!!

You guessed it. This is the view out our patio door to the left. The little tree looked really pretty from my upstairs bathroom window.

This is the view to the right. You can see how much snow is on the chairs, and they're almost right up against our house!

An often photographed tree between our house and our neighbor Christine's. They are planted between her driveway and ours, and are some of the oldest trees in our neighborhood. Considering our house was built in 2001, it gives you some idea of their size. I love them all year long but they really are spectacular all laced with winter!

Life with the kids

Check out the cool block tower they made together! I think it's pretty darn awesome. Liam doesn't look too happy, though...

The flash caught him with an octopus on his head!

What a silly hat for a silly boy ;)

Grandmama is coming today but they don't know it yet. I can't wait to see their faces! She'll get to stay a few days and play with us. Hope everyone had a pleasant Valentine's day. Thanks for all the cards and cash and well wishes. Always nice to get mail and calls! Have a wonderful weekend and try to stay warm! At least the sun is shining LOTS today. Ooooh, here comes the mail truck. Hey Muggin, "maiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime! Mail mail mamamamamamailmailmailamilamail" Muahahahahahah! Hehehhehee!

Hin clone

This kid is without a doubt related to his uncle Hinrew. Yesterday while Care Bear was at preschool, I hear some mysterious crinkling and cardboardish sounds. Sure enough, he'd swiped the "peanut butter kix" box (Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch- they get the addiction from Dada!) right off the counter and was eating straight out of it. Fortunately, he'd only gotten about 16 on the floor instead of the entire contents of the box all over the rug like Hinrew had with HIS box of Kix. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, my brother dumped a whole box of Kix into his lap while sitting on the floor... he was younger than Liam is now when he did it, I think. My parents have an excellent picture of him making fists and grinning in glee as he sits in the Kix. It's an awesome picture =) I was a little late grabbing the camera- I confiscated the box first! It was either grab the box now or probably have a Newfie with indegestion...

This is our handsome friend Bing! Isn't he so cute? =D We love our baby Bing soooooo much. Such a snuggly sweetie. He is Nina's little brother.

Can you tell which one is the Hinrew carrot? Hehe! The kids were really impressed when I pulled that huge one out of the bag of baby carrots. I looked briefly for the picture of the Hin corn we saw in Streator, but I didn't find it. Would have been fun to compare ;)

Yes, I realize he's holding the wrong ball for this outfit, but I wanted to show off the Steelers garb. Fits him just right right now. =) He got syrup all over it later that day when we had pancakes for dinner. He was impressed with the zipper on the shirt and kept flashing me with his onesie. Hehe!

Have a great week. It's sunny and 7 degrees here now. Radio guys were commenting about a supposed 3 inches to come before morning tomorrow. Yippie.

And the funny for the week is this: last night we were watching "The Muppets Take Manhattan" and there's a scene where Kermit goes incognito in a pinkish trench coat, big sunglasses and a black wig of curly, tight hair. As he's making his exit from the elevator, Carrie calls out, "GRANDMAMA!" And I almost lost it completely. Had to call Mom right then & there. Hehehehe. Keep smiling! =D

More randomness

This is one of the blankets my aunt Kay bought the kids. They put it to good use right away!

This is Liam in the giraffe shirt my mom bought him. She requested the picture ;) That basketball is never far from him these days...

Where did my chubby, fat boy go? Where did this tall, skinny kid come from!? Look at him! And yes, that's a scraped lip. Don't ask how he got it. I had nothing to do with it!

Our resident chatterbox in her jogging suit that she's worn twice this week. Safe to say it's a hit, too. This is her caught off guard. Ha!

The Bible thought for last week (from her preschool) was pretty apt: He gives snow and ice, who can stand the cold? I thought it was right on for what insane weather we've been having. We've lived quite a few places and NOWHERE is the weather as bizarre as it is in NW Ohio! Myyyyyyyyyyyyyy stars...

And the latest Carriese was last night's prayer at dinner. "Dear Jesus. Please bring me a new Mama. Amen." She turns to me and says, "because I don't think you're doing a very good job." (This was, in part, because I insisted that she eat at least a banana. She didn't want to eat anything. We fight over food a lot. We fight about a lot of stuff, a lot.) Today she informed me that she didn't like me very much.

!

I thought this stuff was supposed to come about 8 years from now. At least by then I'll be numb to it, I guess. Right now all that comes to mind is Bill Cosby: You roll those little eyes at me, I'll roll your little head across the floor. I brought you into this world and I can take you back out. Don't make no difference to me, I can make another one, look just like you. (etc.)

Whoever out there is praying for patience for me, please stop. I have a feeling Jan is having a good laugh. Cut it out!

Have a great weekend, all. Off for my pint. Of Ben & Jerry's, that is...