Happy Easter!

What?!  It's not Easter?  I missed updating the blog for Easter?  Easter has come and gone?  I still have jelly beans (and no, not just the black ones....)

Better late than never:

Shaeleigh is behind that hair somewhere.

There she is.  Hm.... two baskets?

What?!  Two baskets?!  Shaeleigh has TWO baskets?!  And no, I'm NOT opening the eggs.

I don't know what she's doing here.  I only know that I had high hopes of getting a cute shot.

And there you have it - Mr. Face.

In case you think the sun is in his eyes - that's a wink.  I should note that he was the one who insisted on bringing the tricycle.  He refused to pose at all until I let the bike in the photo. 

And so Easter is behind us and Spring is in full bloom.  We went to the carnival last weekend.  Kenn is actually on the ferris wheel (top left in the blue car).  He was the only one on the whole wheel.  The carnival was a bit of a bust although I guess the kids had fun so I can't really say that.  No one would ride anything though.  Well - they don't really have too many options for riding together and either Chance was too short or we were too tall.  There was no convincing Shaeleigh to ride on anything with him either so after buying 40 tickets, we ended up going back to the gate and selling them back (and of course we had to sell them to someone waiting at a slight lose).  But, we took the money and went back in and blew it on games and popcorn and so in the end, a good time was had by all. 

Chance came home with Batman and Shaeleigh won the big pink duck.  Just what this house needs eh?

MORE STUFFED ANIMALS - YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But really, what else is new?

Shaeleigh lost another tooth today (#2).  Must remember this before I go to bed.  Oh, we did learn from the dentist that the bottom teeth are supposed to come in with little ridges on them.  Phew, we were afraid her new teeth were already chipped

So the other day I'm driving with the two of them in the back seat and Chance is in the midst of a lengthy story when Shaeleigh says, "Chance, I'm going to take your batteries out."  Chance replies, clearly annoyed but very serious, "No!  You can't take my batteries out- I'm TALKING!"

Taking care of his whiskers.

Am I handsome or what?!

Shortly after this photo he got the faux shaving cream in his mouth and hurled in the tub.  I should have gotten a photo of that.  That way, when we all go back and look at the photos of years gone by, we can recall these memories with a little more accuracy. 

Check out the wontons.  Shaeleigh and I made these - really!  Ms. Mindy (my Chinese teacher) is now our cooking teacher as well.  She's going to give us a lesson on fried rice next. 

Traffic.  Another bad commute.

Ewww, he did NOT just cut me off!

Road Rage!!!!!!!!

And hey - Happy Earth Day!

Until next time ------------

Hm....  not feeling inspired but I need to post before the events of the past month completely fly out of my brain.  Let's see what we got....

Ah, Chancie Pants turned 3.  Wow, where does the time go?! 

I made the mistake of telling Chance that "his birthday was next" way back in January.  Between November and January we have a flurry of family birthdays and I meant that his was the next one in the family.  Well as it turns out, just about every kid in his class (and several in Shaeleigh's) are born in Feb/early March.   We must have had 5 birthday parties in a 3 week span - the arrival of each invitation met with, "NO!  MY birthday is next!!!"  But he actually took it pretty well - in fact, Shaeleigh and Chance were both invited to birthday parties on Chance's birthday (which fell on a Saturday) so we told Chance his birthday was Sunday. 

Kenn's creation this year.  Chance loves Lighting McQueen and Tow Mater.  He usually falls to sleep with a little pile of cars next to his head.  

Chance completely enjoyed heading off to Chuck-E-Cheese for his birthday where we met up with his cousins and then we came on home and ate cake with Grandma and Grandpa.  All in all, he was quite content.

 What else...

Shaeleigh participated in her first science fair.  They did the 5th - 8th grades the week before so Shaeleigh's was K - 4th.  It was optional and interestingly most of the kids were from the K and 1st grade classes.  Seems the enthusiasm dies down after the first few years.  It wasn't particularly well organized - mostly just the kids ran around the gym, the parents talked, and mild attention was paid to the exhibits. 

Scientist Shaeliegh works on her display.  Her final conclusion?  "Crystals are boring."

Teeth on the other hand....

How gross is that?!  Shaeleigh lost her first tooth.  Now THAT was exciting.  She was pretty darn pleased.  She was sitting on the loo when it "just came out."  The tooth, that is.

Toothfairy left her 5 quarters.  We've noticed that the adult tooth that is growing in seemed to be chipped or something - it has two little sharp peaks instead of one flat surface.  The kids both have dental appointments next week and the toothfairy is glad that she added the kids to the dental plan this year.

PIG FOOT

Kenn took umbrage at the title of this photo.  I don't know, the hand on the left looks like a pig foot to me.  I suppose I could have titled it, "Kenn takes a tumble.... again."  I suspect that would not have gone over too well either.  Or maybe, "Yes, it's broken," or "Not to worry, we have the Orthopod on speed dial." All of which are equally true. Mountain biking again, and, as usual.....right at the start of Spring. Bummer. Teh tendon chipped the bone on the outside of the thumb. New one on me, I'd have thought the tendon would have given first.

Yee Haw. Sheriff Chancy. Looks more like one of the Three Amigo's!

Little sleepy head.  He had gotten soooooo crabby Saturday morning (note the little tear coming down his eye) and finally just tucked himself in on the couch and fell asleep.  He still wakes up entirely too early and he wears himself out long before most of us are even fully awake.  I will say he is getting more reasonable, and now when he wakes up at 4:30 or 5:00 I can tuck him back in and say, "it's not morning yet, it's still dark outside," and he'll go back to sleep for 30 minutes or so.  Last weekend though he starting waking up at 2:30 and I had re-tucked him in 4-5 times before 5:30 at which time I walked into his room and he was standing on his bed with the curtain open and says, "Look, it's morning!  The sun is up mom!  It's up!"

Not sure he said, "Mom"  he's still a bit cavalier with his use of "Mom" and "Dad."  He just doesn't seem to care what he calls us.  He's funny - he does know and will correct himself but he doesn't focus on it.  Mom/Dad, whatever.  And it's the same with other things - Broccoli is still corn, Chicken is pizza, footballs are soccerballs - which brings us to our trip to the pediatrician. 

The pediatrician was testing his various skills and he came to colors.  He pointed to something red, Chance says green.  He points to something blue, Chance says red.  He points to something green, Chance says yellow.  The funniest was that Chance managed to get 5 or 6 wrong in a row and yet he didn't repeat a single color and announced each of his answers with great conviction. 

Shaeleigh, on the other hand, not to be cut short on her share of the laughs....  She had a scab on her knee right where the doctor usual hits it with the little hammer to check the reflex.  As a result, the Dr. hit her knee a bit higher to spare her boo-boo and nothing happened.  Shaeleigh, eager to please, gives it a half second and then kicks her leg out.  Hahahaha.  Cracked us all up but I don't think she realized why we were laughing.

But, despite our quirks, the kids seemed a-okay.  Shaeleigh was 37.8 pounds, and 42 1/2 inches and Chance was 26 pounds and 35 1/4 inches.  Both growing on a steady curve upwards. 

And finally - the quilt.  I was the volunteer quilt maker for the OLOH auction.  These are all the little handprints of Shaeleigh's classmates.  It had a few anomolies but came out okay.  I only sewed the table cloth into it once during the process.

Close up of Shaeleigh's hand.

The back of the quilt.  I found this fabric online.  It was really cute.

And now, I must get to bed.  Kenn has left me alone here in the family room and he has tomorrow off.  What's wrong with this picture?

TTFN

Is this lady ever going to update this blog???

It's been weeks!!!!

And she calls herself a blogger?!

Hahahaha

Chance recently remembered that he knew how to wink.

Shaeleigh's been on a roll the past few days:

Today is Ash Wednesday and Shaeleigh's class was going to mass in the morning.  Last night Shaeleigh comments:

Tomorrow I'm going to get an ass on my head. 

 

After that we sat down to watch the figure skaters from the Olympics.  I had taped the pairs skating. 

When one of the guys falls down on the side by side triple she comments: 

The girl must have practiced 254,000 times and he must have practiced....  less.

Well, maybe that was part of the show. 

Ew, I see a line going up his bum bum.

Well that would pull my arm right out of the socket.  (and I must add, she speaks from experience)

They don't look Chinese to me.

 

Happy Year of the Tiger!!!

Happy Valentine's Day too!!!

Looks like this will be our last day of goofing off.  The skies are blue and winds have died down.   I imagine we'll have to return to work tomorrow although how convenient that it's Friday and Monday is a holiday.  This really must be the most brilliant February ever!

In addition to the snow and the extra sleep and playtime.  I have to say, I really love the icicles.

Through the bushes.

Through the bedroom window.

This is one of our bushes out front.

Yeah, I don't know...  Kenn put it in the sink.  I'll take a picture of anything apparently.

Shaeleigh the stork is helping me dig out the car.

In motion.

And finally...  I'm not a homeschool Mom but I could play one on tv:

Shaeleigh and I tried growing our first salt crystals this morning.  I can't say it's been precise but we are focusing the experiment on the difference between crystals grown from different varieties of salt.  So far we have observed:

• Kosher salt crystals grow immediately.  The ones above are only an hour old.
• Sea salt appears to be a dud.  Nothing as of 4 hours.  Water was very clear from the start.
• Iodized salt grows fairly slowly compared to the Kosher salt and has only grown a few threads (which did not appear in the photo we took).

I'm hoping that we can tie a seed crystal onto a thread and try to grow a larger crystal but we'll see.  We still have to try non-iodized salt and "No Salt."  We didn't get all five going at the same time due to waning interest.  We did also try to grow sugar crystals (aka:  Rock Candy) but so far that has also failed.  There is a much greater interest in this so we may re-boil the water and add more sugar to see if we can get it going. 

I really just want to try to spark an interest in experiments and how to make "observations."  We do a lot of art around the house but not much science. 

Shaeleigh's school sent home some science fair information a few weeks ago and there were some pretty neat ideas and links.  I think I might try to start branching out with some of our activities. 

For the kindergarten at least, participation in the science fair is optional and everything is done at home.  Shaeleigh can bring in a display but I don't think she needs to stand next to it or anything.  I think it just goes in the gym.  Very low risk and stress free. 

WOO HOO - Just got another day off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I had just updated the blog with all the adventures of the past few days but when I hit the update button it just hung and then....  it was gone.  Like a snowflake in water.  Did somebody say snowflake????

Well, I am not going to try to retype everything I typed earlier.  Safe to say it wasn't Yates.  Nap/Rest time is over for the kids.  Kenn, who has been sick for the past few days, is still sleeping poor fella.  But I'll post what I can while the kids watch "Little People" or as Chance calls them, "Faces."  I'm not sure why he calls them faces - not like he watches a lot of shows where the characters don't have faces.

So, where was I?  It's snowing.  Last I heard we were supposed to get another 8-12 inches.  I don't know,  despite multiple doppler images, it is really hard to believe we are really going to get this much snow.  But, I did go out with the kids this morning and get a new supply of batteries. 

Okay can you believe I lost the above post too?  Somehow lost the connection (but I was able to cut and paste it into an email so I guess it wasn't really lost) and so I gave up and the kids and I made a chocolate cake.  Nothing like chocolate to ease the troubled mind.

It is now 9:18 PM.  Snow is tumbling down and I just got another day off work.  It's just like Christmas around here.  If Kenn weren't sick he would be out getting a first round of shoveling under his belt.  I'm thinking that I don't have any plans for tomorrow and might as well do it in the day light.  Call me Scarlett but there's ice under the snow now and I really don't feel like cracking my rump open before I get a good night's sleep.

So earlier today Kenn was explaining to Chance that he's sick and not feeling very well and Chance said, "Did you fall off your bike?"  Hahahahahahahahahaha

And now, since it has been promised, a quick summary of the past few days:

Thursday, in anticipation of the big snow, all the schools announce that they are closing.  Kenn goes into work early on Friday because the bakery wants to call their customers to pick up the Saturday cakes on Friday, in anticipation of being closed on Saturday.  He's home in time for me to get to work as I was in a 6 day training class.  We were sent home 4 hours early and, in anticipation of having Monday off (our last day of class), were told to take our books home and not to worry, we still get full credit.  As you can tell, there was much anticipation.

Then it snowed.  Lots.of snow.  It was awesome.  Okay, I thought it was awesome (so pretty) but Kenn hates it, Chance says it's scary, and I think Shaeleigh only tolerates it because I drag her out with me.  What's wrong with these people.  Shaels and I did have fun though when the power first went out.  We went out to the backyard and I started a mission to save the poor trees and bushes.  I would put the shovel up in the air and start shaking the branches until and avalanche of snow came ploughing down on my head.  She finds this amusing (as do I).  So much so that we we dug a path all around the house and saved the bushes in the front. 

And then we went in and good gravy those lights never did come on.  We enjoyed a fine dinner of cracker sandwiches (peanut butter, jelly, cream cheese, nuttella).  Mmmmm.... then we ended the evening by some flashlight coloring, we bundle up and hit the hay.  In thinking about it, it occurred to me that power outages in this area are usually due to summer storms.  It's usually peaceful - nice and quiet - reading by flashlight - slightly warm once the air goes out.  It's not nearly as romantic in February.  It fact, it gets pretty nippy.  Sunday morning (24 hours later) the house was 50 degrees.  We were all wearing multiple clothes and I was in sore need of decent cup of coffee (Note:  Kenn did do his best kitchen camping and used a blow torch to warm up a pot of water and ran it through the coffee machine).

We were overdue to visit my parents anyway so the kids and I decided to venture to Arlington.  The snow had topped off at about 20-21 inches but the roads weren't horrid and we very nearly made it without incident.  Oh, but for that final block.  There was a heap of snow blocking my way and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could just barrel right over it.  Not so much.  "Hi Dad, it's me.  I'm a block away.  Can you bring a shovel?"  Hahaha.  But by the time my parents arrived I had five nice neighbors digging and pushing and then a snowplough came along and I have to say, there are some nice folks in the world.  Another neighbor brought his snowplough down and carved us a parking space.  So a big thank you to any of the people out in Arlington who follow this blog.  The kids and I are grateful.

Kenn had been planning to join us for the game (Superbowl Sunday) but he was (is) sick and decided to stick it out in Sterling.  He and the pups hunkered down.  The house got down to about 48 which made sleeping between a couple of wiggle britches not as bad as it seemed.  (That's me between the kids, not Kenn between the dogs - although that is a funny image).  We woke up around 7:00, which is sleeping in for Chance, but the house was dark so we snuck downstairs where Chance promptly spies his favorite make-your-own-really-loud-plastic-whistle toy.  I tell him he can't play with it because Babcia is still asleep.  Two hours later he sneaks into the kitchen and spies Babcia going to the bathroom.  He runs back in carrying the case that carries the whistle pieces shouting, "Babcia is awake!  Babcia is awake!"  And thus we continued to wear out our welcome. 

I called Kenn around 9:00 am and at first it seemed that our power would be out for days.  But, when we touched base again around 11:00 the lights ahd blinked and things were looking up.  We went out for a walk and enjoyed our stay a bit more.  By 1:00 we waving goodbye and by 1:05 both kids were snoring in the backseat.  Thanks again Mom and Dad, for letting us visit.  If you lose your power this time around, consider the parking spot here in Sterling, ready and waiting for your arrival.

And now, I'm off to bed.  Guess we'll see what we get overnight!

Well, the good news is...  losing your power for 48 hours does make for a clean refrigerator.  Phew.  First - thanks to Mom and Dad for letting us hang out at your nice warm house, eat your food, sleep in your bed and make a wee bit of noise. 

As usual, I really need to be doing other things than blogging (sleep is what I am planning for in the next few minutes) but I wanted to at least get a few photos up.  The adventure tales will wait for tomorrow.  Yes, tomorrow.  Schools are closed ALL WEEK (can you believe that? all stinkin' week) but, I really can't complain, Federal Government is closed again tomorrow as well -  woo hoo - the whole house is wearing their pajama's backwards these days.

That said, I really did not need to hear that we have another 10 inches coming our ways.  What in the world?!  Shaeleigh and I went to the grocery store this afternoon and I'm glad we did.  It wasn't bad when we went but by the time we left it was fast becoming a madhouse.  We may need to take a trip out tomorrow for batteries or candles - just in case - or maybe just to get out before we can't...  again.

Herbie the Love Bug. 

The kids are in there somewhere.

Here they are.  It was still snowing at this point (and we still had our heat so we were getting wet with abandon).  Chance enjoys digging for a time but ultimately concludes that snow is, "too scary."  I guess when it comes up to your elbows, you can make a case for that.

Our neighborhood.

We lost this one tree but given the number of trees that have come down, we've been lucky to just lose the one.

The backyard.

Never stand under the icicles!

This is Chance when the house got down to about 50 degrees.  The kids didn't really complain about the cold but when I touched their hands they were like ice.  I made them both put on two pairs of clothes.  Hahaha. 

Grandma and Grandpa took us in when we learned the temp was going into single digits overnight and the message on the power company phone line said, "if your power is not on by nightfall, find another place to stay..."

Walking about in Arlington.

Shaeleigh, kickin' back at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Until tomorrow....................

So....  the schools announced last night that they weren't going to open today (kids happy) and the government announced, shortly thereafter, that it was planning on closing 4 hours (mom happy).  Kenn went in early to decorate Saturday's cakes for early pick-up today since the bakery is closed tomorrow (Kenn happy) and now....   we are awaiting the blizzard. 

I fear we may just be awaiting the confirmation of a big false alarm but in the interim, here are a few photos of the 5 inches we had on Monday:

I did go out last night in anticipation of being snowed in.  Not to the grocery store with the other nuts but to the craft store.  I stocked up on valentine making supplies.  Better to run out of milk than to run out of glitter

Meanwhile, there's not really too much to report.  I do have an inordinate number of gross stories I could give you but Kenn has deemed them too disgusting for public consumption.  Stories that involve dogs, kids, poop and blue projectile vomiting.  But I'll let you imagine what you will.

"Mommy will you play hook with me?"  This was one of Chance's favorites until the injury above.  Awhile ago Kenn had tried to teach him the ol' "hut, hut, hike" between the legs.  Chance turned it into a game he just called, "hook."  He'd want to "hook it" through his legs and then chase me around until he tackled me.  Sadly, during our recent, and final, game, he was taken out by his own feet and went head first into a wooden chest that was too near the field.  Kenn chastised us all for playing such things in the house and now Mr. Football says, "We don't play ball in the house.  That a bad idea."

A close -up view of the injured.

It's been a big month for birthdays (and a big shout out to Sara who is celebrating today). 

Neither kid is fond of moonbounces (not that they don't enjoy the parties - just won't go in the bounce houses) but Shaeleigh did finally try out the big slide at the last one and had a good time.  Of course this past week a co-worker is telling me how her daughter broke her leg in a moonbounce and her neice broke her arm.  Perhaps I'll cease encouraging the bouncing.

Phhttttt.............

Mr. Cool.  We did have one big victory in the past few weeks.  We threw out all of the sippy cups!  We became disgusted with the valves which are really too hard to clean well enough.  I was surprised at how little they are missed, especially by Chance  "I-Drink-A-Gallon-Of-Chocolate-Milk-A-Week" Smith.

Suzanne - Shaeleigh has finally grown into the toe socks you gave her.  Brings back memories....

And here is Shaeleigh in her "Make Your Own Tutu."  Well, that's what the box said.  I told her that it should have been called, "Dance Around the Kitchen While Your Mom Makes a Tutu for You."  She just laughed.  It was actually pretty fun (glad I bought it for myself hahaha) plus it was a bit of a challenge as the directions were in Spanish - somehow they left out the English version.  

I promised myself I would finish Chance's lifebook by his birthday in March so I need to get cracking.  If we really get two feet of snow I'll post photos tomorrow from NoVa, "The New Buffalo."

Toodles...............