Date Night

Cool Daddy-O and I went out on a "date" tonight. It was actually our Valentine's Date, but due to illness we had to postpone it til this weekend. We ate at one of our favorite restaurants in town and both had fish...I had catfish (yummy) and my date had the cod. We then went to our local coffee house for dessert and a game of Scrabble. Wish I would have had my camera to photograph the board. We both had lots of consonants early in the game and we had some cool words, but then the vowels started showing up in bulk and it became harder and harder. Cool Daddy-0 won. It was a bit hard to concentrate on the game though, as most of the other customers were 7th and 8th graders and the hormone level in the place was sky high. The girls had fun with their sitter tonight and played games like Cariboo, Go Fish, and Sorry. They're in bed now. Cool Daddy-O rented a few movies to watch tonight and tomorrow night.

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Little Squirt is looking forward to seeing grandma tomorrow. She's prepared to keep her eyes open in hopes of getting her fingernails painted by grandma. It's also time to trace shamrocks to hang in their room. I took down the red hearts today.

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We made some plumbing improvements in the laundry department today. We installed special hoses that will keep water from spraying everywhere if there is a malfunction some day.

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Daddy-O and the girls went to the fun place today since there was no school. They ate lunch at Subway. They've decided that the only pizza better than homemade comes from Subway. The girls enjoyed their fun with daddy and I enjoyed staying home and dusting, vacuuming, throwing stuff away, and sorting all the Kindergarten and preschool papers and putting them in the Squirts' memory boxes.

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Other news...for the rest of the school year, the school day will start 10 minutes earlier and end 15 minutes later than usual. This will add enough time that it will equate making up 4 snow days. Sounds like they want school to end the first week of June. I think that's a pretty good idea. We'll have to get up earlier, but we'll manage. Not sure what they'll do if we have some more snow days. March can be really nasty in Iowa sometimes. Only 3 more weeks til spring. I can't wait!

Another Snow Day!

We woke up this morning as usual. I climbed in bed with Big Squirt to snuggle and gently wake her up. Little Squirt joined us. Then we heard noises. We thought it might be a cat, but was a bit louder than a cat walking around. We soon learned that Cool Daddy-O returned home from an attempt to get to work. Apparently, the road to work was "impassable", so after talking to a few buddies, they all decided to go to work later in the morning. We then learned that school was delayed 2 hours. We made eggs and toast and started getting Big Squirt ready for school, when we learned that school was cancelled for the day. Daddy-O went to work mid-morning and the girls and I had a lazy day. I even napped a bit in the afternoon.

We had homemade pizza for supper. The girls kept saying how wonderful it was as they were shoving bites in their mouths. Ever since I've started making pizza sauce from scratch, they like homemade pizza. It was always hit and miss before. The sauce recipe? Basically, it's a can of tomato sauce, a can of tomato paste, 1 Tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp garlic, 1/8 tsp pepper, 3/4 tsp oregano, and about 3/4 tsp pizza seasoning. I also threw in a pinch of basil (actually I dumped the tiny bit that was left in the container). Well, that's the recipe as I remember it. Each time I make it a bit different based on what herbs I'm in the mood for.

Now, I'm listening to the Democratic debate. I'll be curious to hear the post debate commentary and see who the media thinks wins. Next Tuesday night should be interesting with the Texas and Ohio primaries.

My hope for tomorrow? School on time and as scheduled. Little Squirt has preschool and is taking the snack. She happily picked out Scooby-Doo dog bone shaped graham crackers to share with her classmates. Later this week it's supposed to get into the 40's! I'm soooooo excited!!!

It's starting to snow..... again......

Meet Snickers, the cat.

It’s a Monday. It was supposed to snow today, but so far, we’ve dodged the bullet. We overslept this morning and were kinda running behind schedule, and as a result, Big Squirt had her first tardy today. Sorry, kiddo. I guess there’s a first time for everything.

It was Pajama Day at preschool today. In the spirit of the letter P, they had Pizza for their snack. Little Squirt reports they were round and yummy. We dined out for lunch at our regular Monday hangout. We dined with 3 other little kids, also wearing their pajamas. I’m sure we were quite the site to see.

That’s all for now. I’m feeling a bit guilty about all my computer time. Big Squirt says I’m always sitting here. Time to get up and do something else for change.

Cool Daddy-0 scooped some snow yesterday and made a path to the grill. Tonight we’re going to grill a steak! Yummmmmm…..

I left the house!

Cool Daddy-O went on a mission to buy OTC cold/flu medication and tissues the other night when we were in the midst of our illnesses. We also needed bread and milk to prepare for the blizzard that was scheduled for the following day. Before he left, Big Squirt ran up to him and told him a secret thing to buy. I had a feeling this is what he would come home with, because when she and I were at the store the other day buying things for Valentine's Day, I hinted that daddy could buy me some for Valentine's Day if they went shopping together. It was nice to have our own bit of springtime in the house during the remainder of our home bound status. Thanks go out to Cool Daddy-O and Big Squirt for this wonderful surprise!

Today was an awesome, fantastic day! It was just a normal Thursday, but the beautiful thing about that was.....Big Squirt got on the bus this morning and went to school, Little Squirt and I went to mom's group, Little Squirt and I went out for lunch, we went grocery shopping, welcomed Big Squirt home from school, made supper, went to Daisy Scouts, returned home, ate supper, and now I'm vegging out! It was the first time since a week ago today that I got in the car and went somewhere. I still have a cough and runny nose, but compared to how I had been feeling, I felt awesome.

As I was driving to mom's group this morning, I realized that I had never been so sick for so long that I couldn't leave the house for a week. I was up on my feet after each c-section quicker than I was with this virus thingy I had. It was great to touch base with friends today. After comparing stories, I learned that lots of other moms and kids have had the same thing for the past week. Some even had it worse. So, today, I'm thankful that we had an average Thursday and that we're all getting better.

Oh, one other thing....since Cool Daddy-O did such a fine job nursing us back to health, while staying healthy himself, we encouraged him to buy tractor # 107 for his collection. He didn't waste any time and bought it yesterday on his way home from work (no wonder he got home late).

I guess if I ever start running out of material to blog about, I could do an entry on each tractor in the collection.

I'm playing with text colors and such tonight....trying to figure this whole thing out. Maybe someday, I'll get smart and type up everything in word and then just copy and paste here. That's for another day.

One more photo before I go. Big Squirt loves drawing on our big dry erase board and started requesting photos be taken of each drawing before it gets erased. Here is one of yesterday's works in progress....notice how much she's concentrating.....she says her teachers tell her she's going to be an illustrator when she grows up.....COOL! I especially think it's cool, because I can't even draw good stick people and never had any artistic confidence while growing up. In fact, I was usually ashamed and embarrassed by my artwork in school. I think we can attribute some of her skill in that we never encouraged her to color in the lines. In fact, she prefers to color on blank paper and create her own stuff.

Winter, we're tired of you...go away. Spring...you're welcome anytime.

At 11:40 we began putting on the layers of snowpants, boots, coats, hats, mittens, scarves. At 11:55 a.m. we headed out the door and were greeted by very bright sun and 2 degrees (above 0)...yeah, it's a heat wave. The girls then climbed onto the snow (it's about 2 feet deep out there) and commenced the celebration! To keep a short story short, we then ran inside...cuz, it's just too cold out there to play or do anything else.

Happy Hoodie-Hoo Day to one and all! Here's a short clip of our festivities!

Hoodie-Hoo Day

My favorite winter holiday has arrived. Today is the northern hemisphere Hoodie-Hoo Day. No, it's not a joke. Here's how to celebrate this official holiday: At noon, go outside and yell "Hoodie-Hoo" really loud while waving your arms in the air. This is supposed to chase away winter and welcome spring which is only one month away. As today is the THIRD snow day in a row here, we WILL be celebrating this fun holiday. Pictures to follow in a later post.

I've not been out of the house since last Thursday at 3:30 pm. All the females in our house were afflicted by a nasty bug that left us feverish, lethargic, coughing, and using massive amounts of tissues. Now that we're almost 100% recovered, the weather is preventing us from getting on with our lives as regularly scheduled!

I'm so looking forward to noon today. More later...

New Boots!

We had a nice, relaxing weekend, interspersed with fun! Best of all...it didn't snow like it did the weekend before. Yeah, it was bitterly cold, but the sun was out part of the time and that helped my disposition. On Friday night, we went out for dinner at our favorite restaurant that recently reopened in a new location after being closed for several years.

On Saturday morning gma and gpa came to visit for a bit. Big Squirt and gma read and put stickers in a Snow White book. Little Squirt closed her eyes and burrowed into Cool Daddy-O's shoulder the entire visit. She's going through some interesting phase. You see, since January, whenever gma or the world's coolest children's librarian are near by, she just kinda freaks out and tries to disappear. We haven't quite yet figured it out.

Last week, due to all the snow, school was cancelled for 3 1/2 days. Big Squirt was all out of sorts and missing me after a full day of school on Friday. I promised her a "date" on Saturday. We had lunch at her favorite resaurant (aka "the chicken leg place"). She told the restaurant staff she planned to eat 400 pieces of chicken. She managed to eat 1% of her prediction. We then ran a few errands and bought supplies for Valentines. Our search for the perfect snow boots took us 10 miles north on a windy, blustery day. Our speed topped out at 45 mph due to the blowing snow and accumulating snow/ice combo on the road from all the blowing. We found some cool boots that will keep her feet dry. After all that hard work, we went to our favorite coffee house, where we played Monopoly Jr. and Clue Jr., snacked and drank tea.

Little Squirt just climbed up on my lap. She wants to help and wants me to tell her which buttons to push. a There...she's feeling pretty cool, she got to push a button. Now for the e button. d.....She excitedly announced "I pushed a d".

Little Squirt and Cool Daddy-O hung out at home and stayed warm. They were going to go to the library, but she was afraid she might run into someone there and she'd have to close her eyes and disappear....so they stayed home.

On Sunday we went to a Birthday party for Little Squirt's friend at the FUN place. We all ate at the chicken leg place in a nearby town with another friend and her mommy. The rest of the day Sunday, we just vegged out and relaxed...preparing for another fun filled week of school and Valentine parties.

Welcome!

I've been thinking about starting a blog for over a year now. I've enjoyed reading blogs and now it's my turn to start writing something and in some way contributing.

A little over 6 years ago, I started a baby book for "Big Squirt". At first I did really well at making entries...I made entries on the date of each new tooth, etc. Then 28 months later, when "Little Squirt" was born, I started making entries in a new book. Let's just say, she'll never know when exactly her third tooth came in. Does it really matter, anyway? She was a toothless wonder until after her first birthday.

Anyway, perhaps I can make a permanent record for the squirts to read someday. And even if the first four years' of little squirt's life isn't documented very well, she'll have a record from here on out. How's that for an excuse to start blogging?

So there, I've done it....created my first post! I'm soooo excited! I'll post some pictures along the way and hopefully share some funny and sometimes insightful stories. Oh, yeah....I tend to ramble and I'm best at procrastinating.....that could just result in really long, infrequent posts....tune in and see what happens!