Trees and Snow!

We usually have a nice big christmas tree with glass ornaments downstairs with all the decorations out and it looks beautiful and I love it! But this year we decided to have the tree upstairs and since I didnt want my whole livingroom all tree we opted for a smaller tree! We also got plastic ornaments this year which actually look like real ones, because I lost alot of my nice ornaments last year to little fingers and with a 14 month old I had visions of none of the ornaments making it to next year! And I didnt want to spend the month stressed out about little fingers touching things! We let the kids decorate this year, since the ornaments were shatterproof!, and they had a blast!

Then we got a big blast of winter after our little blast that we had on Sunday! I really think that snow is only good for one thing and that is to look pretty on Christmas morning! After that I don't want to look at it, shovel it, drive in it, watch it fall. Nothing! Unfortunatly for me I married someone who lives in a place where we typically have snow till around march. Not cool!! But as much as I hate it the kids love it! Last year they really weren't into playing in it. But I let Abby and Dylan play while I was shoveling and they had so much fun! I had to make them come in after a 1/2 hour because it was so cold! Abby actually asked me if we could go to the park this morning! I told her no way! It was like 10 degrees this morning! I know the pictures look like I was only watching Dylan but I got more videoclips of her because she was alittle more interactive with the snow than Dylan was!

A little fun with books!

Abby decided that she needed a doll house for her princess figurines and being the creative little girl that she is built one with a bunch of books! She was very proud of herself!

Lacey decided that she would pull on the books she could reach from her seat and knock down the doll house that Abby had worked so hard on and read a story by herself! She was very proud of herself!

Dylan decided to take over the space where the books are supposed to go! He was very proud of himself!

A Little Holiday Cheer!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

and winter is here!

Well goodbye fall and HELLO winter! Yesturday I woke up to shouts of "it's snowing it's snowing lets go make a snowman!" So I figured we had snow. Not my most favorite thing! I had to quickly pull all the blinds before little hand pulled them off the window. They were so excited! It is our first snowfall with some accumulation. So there we were getting ready for church and Abby and Dylan were jumping up and down saying "let's make snowballs!" They didn't quite grasp that you need more than 1/4 inch of snow to do those things! Seriously there was about enough snow to leave a footprint! Getting them in the car was a real treat. They were running through the yard and having a really great time so I had to be the mean mom and stop the fun! Then I finally got them in and then the complaining started "my feet are wet, I am cold"! It's funny how those complaints in the 2 minute drive to church simply disappear when they hop out of the car and run to the grass to make more track in the snow!

Thanksgiving Delivery!

Anyone want to deliver papers for us tomorrow morning? Its only 187 papers! We will write you out a route list! Any takers?! Happy Thanksgiving!!

A little bit of everything!

Well some of these pictures are alittle old but when I took the parade pictures off and saw them I had to do something with them!!

Lacey has started flipping her plate and whatever is left on it over her head and then playing with her hair when she is done eating! Not fun to clean up! this particular night we walked into the kitchen with spaghetti noodles in her hair. Let me tell you those are not the easiest things to get out of hair

Dylan decided to go trick or treating around town as a football player. We went a couple times this year and most of the time he was batman but Bryan was excited for him to wear his Bears jersey! If you haven't guessed we are Bears fans in this house! He also likes to sneak out into the hallway to fall asleep. Sometimes I don't even know he is there untill I go to bed! It surprised me how quiet he can be when he wants to be! Atleast I know it is possible!!

These were when we raked leaves the first time! Abby and Dylan loved it and I practically had to drag them inside! Lacey on the other hand was not thrilled at all by playing in the leaves and took every oppourtunity to escape when they arose! She crawled across the yard, across the drive was and down the sidewalk before she would stop and turn around! it was really funny!

these are from the second time we raked leaves! It was cold by the time we actually got them up and out of the yard!

Festival of Trees Parade!

Every year around Thanksgiving there is a Festival of Trees out here. It is held in a Downtown Convention Center. People sign up and very elaboratly decorate trees, mantles, stockings, doors, and ornaments. They have a huge room full of Gingerbread houses. Everything can be bought. It is really cool. It is kicked off by a parade. It is the largest helium balloon parade in the midwest! The kids got a kick out of it but man it was FREEZING!!! It was about 25-30ish degrees and WINDY! It lasted about an our and when it was done the feeling in my fingers, with gloves, and my toes was pretty much nonexhistant!

The kids were awesome! They didn't ever really seemed fazed by the seriously uncomfortable weather-they just kept asking for food! They sounded like we never fed them! Anyway the parade was filled with tractors (of course it is a must have!), bands from the local high schools and troups from some of the dance studio. We even had Miss Iowa! And of course the balloons! The one sad thing was that since it was so windy they weren't able to have the ballons fly very high so that was a bummer. The parade was even complete with a sleigh pulled by Deere. And no before you laugh at me and think that I don't know how to spell remember where I live! We are in John Deere country out here! The sleigh was pulled by John Deere tracktors! It was totally fun! Unfortunatly that was one picture I didn't get, sorry!! They had on troup of

batonists(?) or baton twirlers which ever(!) and the poor girl in the front she must have been freezing!

New Moon Movie!

Hey for those of you who haven't heard Summit Entertainment has annouced that they are moving forward with plans to film New Moon! So that is very exciting and something to look forward to!!!

The Movie!

Well the day finally came! I went out with a bunch of girls for a Girls Night out! It was so much fun! There were eight of us who had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse-which one of my total favs! Just can't get enough of the rolls, those of you who have been know what I am talking about! I was in charge of getting the table and ended up sitting at a huge table by myself for like 20-25 minutes till everyone got there! When I called for call ahead seating they said that I should get there as soon as possible for a group that size so I was just down the street and thought I would be able to go check in and get a buzzer thing and be good to go. So I get there and they are like well we have a table open if you want it-so I was like well if you don't mind me sitting there for 20 minutes by myself then I will take it so there I sat! The timing worked out great after everyone got there we ordered, ate, and went over to the theater, everyone had pre-bought tickets so we just walked right into the theater! Looking around at how packed the theater was my friend said it best I think! She said "I don't think I have ever been in a theater with so many girls!"! It was pretty funny to listen to all the teenage girls while watching the movie!

I of course loved the movie! It was filmed at little weird, I would have rather seen it filmed with a still camera but I can't change that! Then you have to remember that is was a huge book and they can't possible make the movie exactly like the book! And it is really hard to go from a first person pov in the book and try to put it into a movie! There are some things that i wish they they had kept the same like Bella escaping Alice and Jasper at the Airport, I liked that part. And I thought they needed to develop the bond between Bella and Edward alittle better-it moved from "hi" to "your a vampire" to "i love you and i will die for you" alittle fast, and I thought they could have done more on Alice's visions and Jasper's mood control! But hey you can't have everything right! It is one persons view and take on the book!

I did totally love when Edward to Bella to his house-that was so funny! And while Emmit didn't look quite like I pictures him he did portray him like I thought he should be! I also liked the part when Bella brought Edward home to meet Charlie! So I will totally be buying it when it comes out and totally waiting for the next one!

Reading Radar?!

I decided that I would reread Twilight in anticipation for seeing the movie on Friday because after reading the series it was hard to remember where exactly Twilight ended! So I gave myself a talk and told myself that I could read it if I didn't get tunnel vision this time! Usually when i read a book it is all I want to do so i wasn't going to do that this time, I was going to read it slow and enjoy the story! Well that didn't happen! I opened the book to the first page and before I knew it I was closing the back cover and putting it back on my bookshelf. My eyes slid over to New Moon and my fingers itched to read it. So I pulled that one down and read it-I couldn't help myself! Not reading the rest of the series was like watching half of a movie and turning it off! I couldn't stop in the middle of the whole story!! So now I am half way through Eclipse-kinda defeated the purpose of reading only Twilight right?! I put forth a concerted effort to not let everything fade into the background-I kept up with the dishes and laundry so that is good right?! Bryan on the other hand is never all that thrilled when I pick up a book! But thankfully he puts up with me while I read and I love him for that! However that being said he has this incredible annoying "Reading-Radar"! I can be reading through the low-impact part of a book in silence but as soon as I get to an excitingly-fantastically-gripping-switch-your-sitting-position-read-way-to-fast-and-have-to-reread-because-you-read-too-fast-with-anticipation-and-didn't-really-understand-what-you-read passage----he starts TALKING!!!

He asks me questions and how to spell things and telling me stories about things that happened at work and school! How does he do that?!! How does he know when I am getting to one of those points?! I really try to be calm and helpful especially when I am in the middle of a book that I have already read before but man! It drives me crazy! And the funny thing is is that his radar has no distance limit-I can be starting a good part and he will call-just because-which is really sweet and I love when he does that so I can't get mad at him!

Oh well I guess the reading radar is the price I have to pay if I want to read! But does it have to be so annoying? Isn't there a price I could pay that wouldn't interrupt me?!!

Have you ever...?

Have you ever been looking at something really quick on the computer and heard a shout out by your daughter for you? I was checking my email and I hear Abby say "Mom! Lacey is eating white butter from the cooking stuff!" I was like what?!

Have you ever walked in to the kitchen to see you 13 month old with both hands in the crisco, yes I said crisco, and have it all over the floor and on the sleeves of her shirt!

Have you ever backed away and said "No no no don't touch me!" to your baby as she crawls, very quickly considering all the crisco on the floor, towards you?

Have you ever slipped on crisco while attempting to grab your baby and trying to wash off globs of it in the sink?

Has you ever had your 4 year old try to be the family photographer while you are washing the baby's hands? Have you ever had a better morning?!!

Astronomy and Fruit

We were in the car going to the store yesturday and the sun was shining and there were only a couple clouds hanging around with the moon in a beautiful blue sky. Abby was sitting in the back and pipes up with this! "hey Mom-the sun looks like lemonade and lemons and the moon looks like a watermelon!"! It was so cute! It is fun to see her learning and using her imagination like that! When we got out of the store it was dark and I heard lots of "hurry it's dark I am sacared of the dark!" Then she asked the question of why it got dark so we had a very simple astronomy lesson! I thought it was fun! I can't wait for her to be old enough to pick out constellations!

Scrap'n Fun!

Because my link to my scrapblog was taking so long to load up I changed the link. It now goes to my page on scrapblog.com. So now for those of you who look at them you won't have to wait all day! It is one of my total favorite sites! But be warned it sucks you in and before you know it you have lost a couple hours! It is a lot of fun and they even offer printing now! It is totally free and if you end up joining make me a friend!!

A Change of Song!

In honor of Twilight coming out in a few weeks I decided to have "Bella's Lullaby" playing! It is just beautiful and actually sounds like what I imagined it sounding like! Kinda funny! If anyone knows where I can get the sheet music let me know! That would be awesome! I hope you all like the song!

Voted!!

Well one nice advantage to living in a small town is being able to walk to our voting place! This afternoon was absolutely beautiful so when Bryan got home from work we decided to go for a walk. We took a stroll through all the fallen leaves, voted. Another advantage is while we got over there at 4 o'clock a time you would thing would be really busy and have long lines, we walked right in, got our ballots, filled them in and put them in the machine! No waiting here!! Then we went across the street to the local grocery store and grabbed some things for dinner and where on our way home! Another fun thing about small towns is after we got done voting and crossed the street a guy pulled up to the stop sign and said "Congratulations kids! You just participated in your first election!", obviously he was talking to the kids not Bryan and I! I thought that was really cute! So a couple points scored for the small towns today!!!

Is this November?!

We are enjoying 75 degree weather today which is just amazing for a November day out here! Totally not normal! But in no way am I complaing seeing as how it is suppose to only be in the 40's by the end of the week! So I think all the house chores will have to wait alittle longer so we can go outside and take advantage of the gift of a warm autumn day! Who wants to clean when you can be outside anyway right?!!