Flashbacks

I'm sitting here eating my Spaghetti-O's (Mommee, quit banging your head against your computer table- I promise to have some fruit with them!) and contemplating the amount of snow we have this winter. Fortunately, we're not on the East Coast. Those poor guys will probably still have snow piles like icebergs lurking around in May. These 4 pictures are from just two years ago, in February of 2008. Pretty similar picture of what we have these days snow-wise, but look how tiny the kids were! What a difference two years makes!

Playing in the snow 2010, take 346824785918634657

My little boxer, ready for the prizefight:

Starting The Snowcreature:

And the fun continues:

He's really just a big kid himself ;)

Our snow sentinel!

The Broccoli Broad

Ta da! The finished product! There's a pink hat, a carrot nose, and broccoli that had gone to the dark, er, yellow side. What a masterpiece.

Since these were taken, the broccoli making the mouth fell out. Carrie announced that it looks like the Broad is whistling, hehe!

This is what Care Bear wore for her Valentine's party at school on the 11th. The shirt is a 4T, oopsie! It has since migrated to Nina's house. And just please note that she is not really that much taller than Liam- if you look closely you'll see she is in snow boots and he's in slippers. He also had a really good time at her school party. The kids played Bingo with those candy hearts that have sayings on them. It kept him and the other 4 and a half year old sibling busy hunting for the numbers that were called! The students got tons of candy in their goody bags and multitudes of Valentines, cupcakes, and rice krispie treats. Lots of sugar, lots of red dye, good times! ;)

And this is me at 24 weeks, for those of you keeping track. Care Bear thinks the world will end before this baby comes, and it blows her away that she'll be 7 before this baby is born. It WOULD blow our minds as well, but it already feels like we've had her for absolutely forever, so what's 7 years? Eh, as they say in Canada. =)

Kids caught in action, or inaction...

This is Care Bear, absorbed in playing the Wii:

Liam had been watching her. These were taken Sunday afternoon. We'd been to Marcello & Carolina's on Saturday night for a party, and got to bed much, much later than the kids are used to going to bed. Then we had a leisurely morning before going to the 12:30 service, so it was almost 2 by the time we were done and home. Add lunch, no naps, and this is our poor big boy, sacked out on the couch. He'd fallen asleep with a bowl of apple slices still in his hands!

Carrie's been doing dental education in school this month and that included making this big mouth with dried beans glued on for the teeth. Liam found it and declared, "this is too big for me!" but was happy to "cheese" for the camera anyway. He cracks me up!

Masked Crusader reporting for housework?

Yesterday we had a 2 hour delay. What a great kind of day! I put this child labor to good use. The kids cleaned everything off the floor, I vacuumed the carpet, and Carrie used our small sweeper to do the hard floors. She informed me that since it was loud, she needed her hat. And then she said, "this is Carrie:"

And that "this is a knight."

And "this is Spiderman." I told her Spiderman could come back later, but right now I really needed Carrie to get to work.

For the winter blahs

Click on the title to see why sometimes I miss the Pacific Northwest so fiercely. Thanks to Stephanie of 3191 for taking these shots... hopefully they will help the rest of us buried in white to remember that spring truly is coming, slowly but surely!

Fun sayings & doings

The kids have been pretty funny lately, not that they aren't usually, but I wanted to share a Carrie-ism and a Liam-ism before I forgot them. They're already on the quote board too, but here you go.

Carrie, during dinner last night: Did this chicken come from a chicken?

Liam & Carrie are playing with Legos at the kitchen table. I'm in the kitchen & Dada is on the couch. For whatever reason, Liam is getting frustrated.
Liam to Carrie: ARGH! I am going to BEAT you!
Dada, from the couch: That's my job.
Liam, without batting an eye: We could both beat her.

Yes, that would be Children & Family Services knocking...

And for the funny "doing", click on the title to go to a black page. Then click your mouse around on the black page and see what happens. Or click and hold your mouse down and slide it along. To clean it off and start again, just hit refresh (the circle arrow button at the top left of your page). Thanks, aunt Chris! Enjoy!

Eraserhead

Talk about a random title. "Eraserhead" is a way crazy movie I watched in college with some guy friends of mine. I'm too lazy to look it up to see what genre would describe it, and I really don't want to know all that badly. At one point, this cooked chicken begins to flap its wings in a rather distrubing manner.

Anyway, I keep telling Dada how much I prefer these little Cornish hens to regular grocery store chicken. They are so much tastier! I cooked this one with honey and spices and dug in. The side is tomatoes, basil leaves, "ghost" cheese, and balsalmic vinegar. Carrie even tried some of the chicken and pronounced it good. Until, that is, her tongue "ran into a spice," and then it was hard to convince her to have any more. Yes, that made the quote board, so you'll be seeing at again at a later date.

Dancing in the ocean

Last Friday I asked Liam to bring down his sheets and pillowcase. He gleefully stripped his bed, tossed everything down the stairs, and proceeded to tell me he was "dancing in the ocean."

I guess a wave got him.

Miscellaneous photos

I almost always type "random" because it's too much of a pain to try to figure out how to spell "miscellaneous". I even had to look it up. But these photos really are, so there you go. This one is of a perfect coffee grounds drip. It looked like a cartoonist had done it, so I had to take a picture.

This one is for Wendy. Old habits die hard. ;) I should get one of Carrie's on here... hers have these same colors AND dark blue in there!

And this crazy dog. It was below freezing, and there she is, hanging out in the snow. She might never qualify as a true water rescue dog (since she's been known to knock children INTO pools instead of pulling them out), but she sure is a snow dog!

Snowstorm I

I took this from inside the front door. We had a lot of wind and some great drifts!

These are the crazy kids who couldn't wait to get out there and play in the snow. Dada was on the other side of the house using the snowblower to take care of the drifts in our driveway. Matt & Christine's side of the driveway was scoured clear from the wind.

Bird's eye view

I took these of Liam from our upstairs bathroom- that's why there is screen in the photo. He didn't want to come in even though he had to be freezing!

Freezy Trees

I know I've blogged these same trees before with ice on them, but I never get tired of seeing them like that. I love the way they look fuzzy in the shade, and like sparkly crystal in the sun. This first one I tried to get the sun glinting off the ice, but got just the sunrise instead. Oopsie.

This tree houses our bird feeder, which I'll have to go fill today, I see...

And this is our next door neighbor's tree, the same one from the first picture, with sunshine dressing it. And yes, that is GRASS you see in the front yard. We were mostly spared the snowstorm that a lot of you are weathering even now. We have big drifts, but also grass. The wind was the worst part here. However, we may not be as lucky tomorrow- another system is coming through. We'll see how we fare!