Snow Day Fun

We were lucky enough to have a snow day today. We only ended up with about 3" of snow and it didn't really start until school would have been getting out anyway, but I'm not complaining. A paid day off work to stay home and hang out with the kids? I'll take it.

Tyler was happy to be able to spend the day playing online with his friend. Danielle and I picked out a handful of Christmas crafts to make and got busy.

We made glitter glue snowflakes to hang on the windows around the front door.

We made a clothespin wreath to hang on Danielle's bedroom door.

We picked up some green spray paint at the dollar store in town, but it was, as Ron put it, "the worst spray paint ever". So we ended up painting the clothespins by hand.

We need to add a red ribbon for a finishing touch, but we'll have to pick that up later.

We made an ornament wreath for the front door. This one was my favorite, but it was tedious to make. These are cell phone pics and really don't do it justice;The wreath is very pretty. I'm not sure it is weatherproof so we might end up hanging it inside somewhere, though.

And today I received my canvas print that I ordered. I am so pleased with how well it turned out! I can't wait to get it hung up!

Candy Cane's Adventures - Hoping for a Snow Day!

Candy Cane can't turn his pjs inside out, but he flushed ice cubes down the toilet, put a pastel bear in the window (never heard of that one but Danielle said it's a must), and is sleeping with a spoon under his pillow. Bring on the snow. (Estimates are 5"-7"!)

Candy Cane's Adventures - Pinewood Derby Racing

Candy Cane's Adventures - Eating Tyler's Gingerbread House

 

Candy Cane's Adventures - Building a Christmas Scene

Candy Cane's Adventures - Flying a Paper Airplane

Danielle made Candy Cane a paper airplane tonight. After everyone went to bed, he borrowed some aviator goggles from the Littlest Pet Shop folks and took a ride.

Candy Cane's Return

Bball Preview Weekend

Danielle's basketball team played in a league preview today. They played 4 games, each only 20 minutes with 1 timeout and no breaks. They won all 4 games, 3 of them by quite a bit. I don't think it's necessarily a good indicator for how well they'll do in the regular season because the games will be so much longer, but it was encouraging for the girls. Danielle did well and was happy that she scored. It's been neat to watch her improve. Regular season games start in a couple weeks.

Yes, she's #0. She prefers to be #8 but each number had to be something that could be shown on one hand. Rather than picking numbers that add up to 8, she thought it would be funny to be 0.

Tiiiiimberrrr!

We had strong storms move through on Sunday. Neighboring counties were under tornado warnings, but thankfully we didn't have anything more than really strong wind and rain. The storms passed in time to put the kids to bed, and we thought everything was fine.

We found out the next day that everything was not fine. One of our 40'+ trees fell over. It fell sideways and knocked out a portion of our fence, landing in the neighbor's tree and against our other neighbor's fence. Thankfully it didn't fall backwards and land on our neighbor's house, or forward and land on ours!!!!!

It's a little difficult to see the details, but here are some cell phone pics I snapped.

 

We called a local company who was able to come out first thing the next day. They checked it out, gave us an estimate, and returned the next day to remove it. Ron repaired our fence today, and enough of the dents popped out of the neighbor's vinyl fence that he didn't want Ron to replace it. It's not fun to spend that much money on something like that, but the damage could have been so much worse!!

I think it's a little funny that despite all the storms and bad weather we've had in the couple years we've owned it, this always remains standing strong.

What I Want for Christmas

I finally spent my birthday money & some money I earned for taking some pictures back in May. I splurged and bought 3 Lil DaVinci child artwork frames on Amazon. They are really expensive and not a necessity, but that's what birthday money is for, right?! I got them today, and I love them!!!

These frames can store up to 50 pieces of paper and you can open them to add more pictures while the frame is hanging on the wall. You just clip the picture you want to display into the front of the spring loaded frame and close the frame back up.


I love this picture for a couple reasons.  I think it's a nice drawing. I also like it because Danielle drew it while we were eating dinner at an open air restaurant while on vacation in Hawaii. She was busy drawing this while Tyler was throwing up on the shoes of the drunk guy at the table behind us. We were in and out of the bathroom with Tyler, cleaning up vomit, ordering food, sending food away, and Danielle just calmly sat at the table and drew this picture. I love it!

The kids' artwork looks so much nicer behind glass!! They both loved the way their drawings looked. I think Danielle was disappointed I framed 2 of Tyler's and only one of hers, but I could only afford 3 frames! I am hoping Santa will bring me another one (or two or three) for Christmas.

Tyler loves to draw intricate pictures like this. There are always so many details to take in. I love them. He drew this one last year and it's been taped to the wall since he brought it home. It looks so much nicer behind glass!

A Pat on the Back

Today we attended Danielle's conferences. We always look forward to hers because they are always so pleasant. It's like a 15 minute pat on the back, even though she's the one doing all the work. This one was no different. She really is an amazing kid. Not only is she intelligent and a hard worker, but she's thoughtful, kind, considerate...there are so many adjectives that describe her. We are blessed to have her for our daughter.

I think what I appreciated the most today, though, was seeing this hanging in the hallway.

Tyler's conferences have always been full of ups and downs. He's an amazingly intelligent child, but he's also difficult because he doesn't fit into the "good student" mold. He questions things, has trouble sitting still, and somehow can never manage to fly under the radar. His school handles conferences a little differently than Danielle's. This year we received an email that said everything was going well and there was no need for a conference at this point. We consider this one of his best conferences yet. :) He is pretty amazing, too, in such a different way than his sister. He is intelligent and witty, resourceful and creative, and such good company that you forget he's a kid. He is meant to do great things. I found a picture of the same paper Tyler completed when he was in 4th grade.

Sometimes during the noise of dinner I sit back, take it all in, and can hardly believe how blessed I am to have such a wonderful husband and two very amazing children.

And then someone spills something and the moment is broken.

Still Here!

Yep, we're still here! Life just keeps marching along.

Danielle has been busy balancing softball practices, basketball practices, school, and her social life. Considering she had 3 100% and 2 99% on her grade card, I think she's doing just fine. She had her first basketball scrimmage Friday night. They stopped keeping score after we were ahead more than 20 points. Danielle is not the best player on the team, but she is a hard worker and a quick learner. She has already shown improvement this season. It was fun to watch her at the scrimmage, especially when she switched hands and dribbled right past the girl that was guarding her to shoot and score.

Tyler has been busy pretending school doesn't exist and spending as much time as he can playing Minecraft with his friend. Occasionally he fits in a trumpet practice or two. He still manages to read a ridiculous amount of books in a week, and he also brought home all As, so I'm not messing with his plan. We really like his friend and his friend's family. One night last week his mom showed up on our doorstep with a bag of chocolates and a bag of wine. I don't drink wine, but she had me with the chocolates. :) This friendship has been an answer to prayer and we are enjoying it for this season.

Ron spent last week in the UK. Before that he hadn't traveled in months, so we were all a little out of practice. He had a successful trip and made it back safely, so there's another answered prayer. He managed to get back just as Danielle's scrimmage started, which made for a very happy blond basketball player.

Watching Dad leave

I have been busy filling in for the head cook at work. Short of planning the menu, I do just about everything else. It's really rather ironic because I hate grocery shopping and I'm really not that crazy about cooking. I miss seeing Danielle in the mornings and often have second thoughts about whether or not I'm doing the right thing by working full time, but Ron and Danielle keep assuring me that it's bothering me more than it's bothering Danielle. Somehow that doesn't make me feel better.

Tyler, Danielle, and I were all sick last week while Ron was gone. The three of us stayed home from school on Friday. We napped and watched movies, and it was kind of cozy in a sneezy, achy sort of way. We're looking forward to Thanksgiving and having several non-sick days off together.

And that's what's been going on here.

Happy Halloween!

The weather here for trick-or-treat was miserable tonight. 30mph wind, pouring rain. Ick. We tried to make the best of it by wearing clear ponchos and covering Tyler's head with contact paper to make him a little more water resistant, but there's only so much sogginess a cowgirl, Steve, and their escort can handle. They hung in there for about 30-40 minutes. Then we shut off the porch light and went out for dinner. That was a much better choice. We have a ton of candy leftover. I think maybe I'm going to put some aside to use in the kids' stockings this Christmas.

Halloweens Past

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007 (That's his scary face.)

2008 (That's his the sun is in my eyes face.)

2009

2010

2011

2012 (Hated Tyler's costume last year!)

Profanity

Tyler had to sit in the hall for a few minutes today for using bad language. His teacher was assigning a lot of homework and Tyler commented, "Well, that sucks!" She directed him to the hall until she could talk to him afterward about using the "s" word.

Tyler said his teacher looked mortified when she asked if his parents used that kind of language at home and he said "yes". (Actually, he said "Her eyes got really big and her voice got higher", but I'm paraphrasing.) He also said that she asked him if he could think of any other words he could have used instead. What kind of question is that to ask a 12 year old boy?! Thankfully he was respectful and just said that he couldn't think of anything. That really could have gone either way.

Tyler told me all about this in the car on the way home. I explained that regardless of how we feel about it, now that he knows she finds it offensive, he shouldn't say it any more. Her classroom, her rules.

When we got home, Ron asked Tyler how his day went.

Tyler said, "I had to sit in the hall."

Ron replied, "Well, that sucks!"  :)

Halloween Stuff

The kids got to wear their costumes to church yesterday. Clara didn't get to go, but she dressed for the photo op.

I etched another pumpkin last night. I like the first one better, but this one looks pretty good. Danielle wanted to make one, too, so she made the ghost. It's kind of hard when mom won't let you use a knife, though. :)