ANOTHER one!

Yet another snow day! We are up to 6, 4 in just the last week. Today is the first one that we'll have to make up, Ohio schools are gifted 5 (a new concept to us Hoosiers!). Today we hit the Columbia sled hills, something we'd never gotten around to doing. They usually sled down the big hill on our backyard, but this was a lot of fun. The snow was pretty packed down and they flew down the hill! Really funny to watch, but I couldn't resist and took a few runs myself.

Fat Tuesday!

Eddie had the fun idea to celebrate Fat Tuesday with the kids, and they loved it!
We had jambalaya for dinner, one of our favorites. Neily and Jack were on board until they tasted it, and immediately decided it was too spicy. They choked down the three or four mandatory bites and waited (im)patiently for the Kings Cake.





We even decked the dog out in Mardi Gras beads- he wasn't too happy about it!


King Jack! Actually, when I cut the cake, as luck would have it, I cut right down the middle of the baby. For real?! What are the chances? We had to make a decision on which kid would get it, it was like Sophie's Choice, terrible!



Happy Mardi Gras!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We enjoyed a great night out with friends that celebrated a good cause for Valentine's Day! With such a big group, it's always a small miracle when we can almost all get babysitters on the same night!

Valentine Craziness!

I hope that I remember this post when NEXT Valentine's Day rolls around! I asked Neily what kind of Valentines she wanted to make for her class, and she wanted these little iPods made from Sweetheart boxes and peanut butter cups. Jack, of course, jumped on board. Okay! So cute, right?! Easy, right? I'll be supermom, right?!
Not so much.
For starters, you can buy a box of Valentines for $3. I ran into my friend in Target lamenting that she needed 28 and they only came in boxes of 24, so she was frustrated that she was going to have to spend extra. This should have been the first alarm to go off in my head and tell me that this was way too much effort! But instead, I spent $24 on the boxes of Sweethearts (yes! You read that correctly, we needed 8 boxes at $3 each). Normal, sane people would have seen that alone and decided to bag the whole idea. Then the peanut butter cups were $12, I needed 3 bags. I was out of foil (okay, maybe that doesn't really count). I am happy to say that I tapped into my frugal side and used string I already had. Go me!


Next step- assembling the pieces. It's not hard, but tedious. WAY too tedious for Jack, that's for sure. He lost interest in about ten seconds and left me to assemble the rest of his Valentines.


Neily was slightly more helpful. ;)


The finished products- cute, but not cute enough to warrant the time and money spent. And to top it off, at one point, I muttered, "This is ridiculous. Next year it's Star Wars out of a box," to which Jack exclaimed, "Star Wars?!? I want those!" I had to restrain myself a little. ;)


Neily's Valentine box for her classmates, she worked very hard! My favorite part was the little "Thank you!" I thought it was very sweet and very much showed her personality that she would think ahead to put a thank you sign on her bucket.


So, in the end, learn from me and buy them from Target! I wish I could say that this was a sweet, fun experience that we shared, crafting these up together, but it really wasn't. They lost interest really quickly and it just wasn't worth it. If they had enjoyed it, I would have at least had that on my side, but they mostly just whined about how long it took! Ha!

Buried!

I think we've had just about enough snow this year! The kids went back to school today after 2 days off. I saw this one coming a mile away so I was well prepared. We made our Valentines, baked, and watched new movies. Two days was about all the fun I had in me, so it was a good thing they went back today, I was running out of gas!

The first go-round of snow was great building snow, they made a fort with Daddy!





For rounds 2 and 3 of the snowstorm, my "I'm sorry, I don't have snow clothes" excuses fell on deaf ears and somehow, I wound up outside in a foot of snow. Neily reminded me that I had my 'cool boots' from Aunt Icky... darn her, she was right.

I'll tell you what, those suckers are worth every penny! Not just for looks, apparently, I played outside in 15 inches of snow for over an hour and my feet were warm and dry.









We had a little over a foot overall, but huge snowdrifts up against the house that came up to their waists!

I shoveled the walkway and that was enough for me!

The Life

Sully has a rough life, I tell ya.

Roller Derby, here we come!

Well, maybe that's a stretch.....
My friends and I took the kids roller skating a few weeks ago- all kids from 3-7. It was hilarious, stressful and fun! Neily loved it, but she had the benefit of having been to a roller skating party not too long before we went. Jack had never been and let's just say he didn't pick it up that quickly! He couldn't quite get the hang of it and his balance got the better of him. Luckily, none of the boys were exactly stellar, so they had some good laughs. He wanted to give up for a while, but we bribed them with a snack break. A few Slushies and a candy bar, and everyone was happy again. Poor Jack finally got the hang of it about 20 minutes before open skate ended. He has been asking to go back over and over again. I think we should have earned some brownie points from the dads for going it alone on this outing. A spa day, maybe?


The girls giving us a pose


Sweet Neily helping Jack along





Jack and Evan spent a lot of time like this! Once they realized that they were both doing it, it became a game and they laughed about it.



All the kids

Aaaand two seconds after that, haha!


The Mommies, not bad for a 6 year old photographer!


Jack took this one of Neily and I

Undergoing construction!

I'm trying to make some updates to the blog so that I can have larger pictures in posts. The only way I've figured out how to do it now is to eliminate all of the columns on the sides where you could see recent posts and other little gadgets we had. I don't miss the gadgets, but do you miss the recent posts or the option to search back by month?
Also, I'd love to know if you can see the pictures clearly without scrolling back and forth on your monitor. I know most of the family and friends who read this have a widescreen monitor, but if you don't and you can't see them clearly, let me know with a comment and I'll make them a little smaller.

Gettin' crafty

I had seen this wreath around BlogLand and put it on my must do list. Neily wanted to help, and luckily, it was the perfect craft for us to do together. She loved it! She didn't last long, but she definitely helped and we had a fun evening.





The finished product, ta da! It is proudly hanging on the front door now.