We're having fun now!

Today was a busy day. School, moms group, lunch, preparing for Daisy Scout meeting, buying supplies for meeting at Wal-Mart, picking up Big Squirt at school in the rain, going to story time, getting ready for scout meeting with Little Squirt's help, scout meeting, and Pampered Chef party. Whooo! I was glad to see the wine at the last event! Overall, it was a fairly good day.

As I was doing stomach crunches this morning and counting out loud, Little Squirt asked if she was in time-out and asked what she had done to be in time-out. I had to explain that I was counting how many exercises I had done, and she was not in trouble. It was kinda humorous.

After we picked up Big Squirt at school I was asking her to tell me about her day. As she answered I felt like I was in that new Tide commercial, where's there's a talking stain. Little Squirt was yelling gibberish as Big Squirt was talking. LS finally started screaming. BS and I both encouraged her to scream louder and louder. At one point, BS said "mom, if she keeps screaming like that she'll lose her voice"! I told her that was exactly what I was hoping would happen. We then resumed telling her to scream louder and that we couldn't hear her. Hee-hee-hee. Finally she grew tired of screaming.

At our Daisy meeting, the girls who attended completed 2 more petals by doing 2 crafts. We're half done with the petals now. It's kinda crazy, but it seems the girls are having fun.

Yesterday, we played outside a lot. After Big Squirt got home, the girls transformed the tower into a pirate ship complete with signs declaring: "we are pirates. we are mean. we are rich. we have a lot of gold." Unfortunately, the rain we had this morning demolished the signs. Seems they didn't weather proof the pirate ship like they did the doll house.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the weekend. No big plans here, but I'm sure we'll find something fun to do.

The Easter Bunny hopped through the snow

Big Squirt was about as excited last night as she was Christmas Eve. She kept coming out to the living room after she went to bed to report that she just couldn't fall asleep. She went on and on saying it was weird, but she was probably going to stay awake all night and then the Easter Bunny wouldn't bring her anything....and on and on. She eventually fell asleep.

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When Cool Daddy-O and I turned in for the night, it was snowing lightly. We had a light dusting of snow this morning. Fortunately, Mr. E.B. left the Easter packages inside the storm door to keep them safe from any critters (aka the neighborhood feral cats).

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The girls were delighted with their stuff. Fortunately Little Squirt didn't make any comments about any of the stuff that was purchased when we were together. I think it was long enough ago that perhaps she had forgotten we had purchased the items.

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On our way home from our zoo trip, we stopped and purchased a "little sister" dress and some matching pony tail holders . Here they are in their dresses (and sweaters) before we left for church. We were in a hurry and didn't have time for a really good shot...so Big Squirt doesn't look very happy.

After lunch we hid the plastic eggs once and the girls put on winter coats, mittens and boots and found them. BRRRR.....it was COLD and windy. The girls still had fun and grandpa and uncle D. got to watch them running around. It was worth it, as they were able to eat more candy.

I think we'll take a break from the candy tomorrow and focus on carrots and cauliflower. Spring Break is officially over and the girls return to kindergarten and preschool in the morning.

Even though there still may be a teeny tiny pile of snow at school, I am NOT sending snow pants to school tomorrow :)

Fun with eggs

Today's fun included boiling eggs, coloring them, and then hiding plastic ones. Big Squirt sat on the counter watching the eggs bubble as they came to a boil. Little Squirt had a lot of fun making orange and green eggs. Big Squirt was in charge of the other colors. Both girls were much more independent this year with this process. In total, we colored 2 dozen eggs. Only a few were cracked, but we decided to color them anyway. I'm looking forward to some egg salad sandwiches for lunch this week.



Cool Daddy-O and I then put small pieces of candy in the plastic eggs. Big Squirt searched for pink and purple eggs and Little Squirt searched for yellow and orange. We also hid 4 bonus blue eggs in exceptionally tricky spots. We hid them twice and then the girls hid each other's once. After that, they came inside and sorted out the good stuff inside the eggs.


Tonight I prepared some food for our family dinner tomorrow. Perhaps I'll include pictures of the desserts in tomorrow's post....made 3 so far...one should look very "Eastery" when it's done.













The highlight of the day? Well, that was finding perennials popping up through the spring soil, including: daffodils, tulips, peonies, fern leaf peonies, irises, and sedum.

WhooHoooooo.... It's SPRING at last!

A chilly, windy, fun day at the zoo

We were very glad we saw the outside exhibits at the zoo on Thursday. Friday was chilly with a brisk north wind. Cool Daddy-O took the girls to their favorite exhibits (Desert Dome and Kingdoms of the Night) while I spent time watching the gorillas and orangutans. I had a blast. I think the rest of the family had fun too.

One gorilla pulled a big stick out of the icy pond. He seemed to be having fun with it. Another gorilla was eating the ice he found. They had just been released into the outside part of the exhibit when I arrived. They were a lot of fun to watch. It seems they're performing at times and interact with visitors.


Here's Big Squirt posing with a shark in the aquarium.

A New House

A few months ago, a friend asked if we'd mind if his father built this for us. We said, "No we don't mind...we think that would be pretty cool". It arrived on Thursday morning. The girls love it. Until we get "real furniture" they're using their Dora dollhouse stuff. Here they are posing with the "builder" of the house. A big Thanks for building this awesome house.

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Today, they covered the enclosed side with pillows and a blanket to "tornado proof" and "hail proof" it. I guess it's their version of homeowner's insurance.

Fun at the Zoo

We've gone west! We had a nice, fairly quiet journey and spent a couple hours at the Henry Doorly Zoo. We visited the zebras, sea lions, elephants, giraffes (in their winter enclosure), and watched some fairly active gorillas doing interesting stuff. We ate at a cool pizza place near our hotel and now the girls have jammies on and are getting ready for bed. Tomorrow, we're going back to the zoo for the day. We did the outside stuff today as the temps were in the 60's. Tomorrow we'll focus on the inside displays because it will be in the 40's outside. Fortunately, we'll be dodging the snowstorm this time.

Our original plan was to go to Minneapolis for the weekend. We'll do that some time when it's warmer outside.

Signing off from the Cornhusker State...

Happy St. Patty's Day

We're all wearing our green today. For breakfast we carried out the tradition of green food...green pancakes and green eggs and ham. The eggs tasted a little weird today, so we just ate the pancakes. The girls liked the green milk too.

For lunch we joined some friends for a play date and ate some more green food. Both girls tried spinach from the salad for the first time. Big Squirt said it was "just o.k." and Little Squirt said it was "good".

This post was just interrupted by an important announcement. Big Squirt declared a pain when chewing. We then went and got a flash light...she laid on the bed and opened wide....yep....I think the six year molars are visible beneath the surface and one is getting ready to poke through. I think that's what's hurting her. It was kinda gross looking in there because she was eating an Oreo when she announced the pain.

There are still no loose teeth. We've decided to have a pool to guess when her first tooth will fall out. I'm guessing August and Cool Daddy-O is guessing February '09. Anyone else want to venture a guess? The winner can make a donation to the tooth fairy. Oh wait....shouldn't the winner "win" something? Maybe the winner can have the tooth if she wants to part with it.

The other night at supper we were talking about losing teeth and I told the girls I lost a tooth on the bus one morning when I was first grade. After I told them it was downstairs in my memory box, they couldn't wait to find it. While looking in the box, we found a bean bag I made in kindergarten, the lost tooth we were searching for, 2 of my wisdom teeth, and a recorder (musical instrument). We also looked at a lot of old family photos. They seemed quite intrigued. It was fun looking at all that stuff.

Tonight I have a meeting at my favorite coffee house....hmmmm....what to order.....perhaps an Irish latte to end the day's celebration in style.

Happy "Pi Day"

Welcome to Friday and the beginning of the weekend. We've been searching for a lost library book for a couple weeks now. I talked with Big Squirt's awesome teacher and she found it in a pile of books in the classroom (books from the public library). So, we're off the hook and don't look like irresponsible people who lose library books in their messy house. Whooo! Now she can check out a new book today and bring it home. I promise to keep track of it!

Big Squirt and I had a discussion about the remaining snow this morning as we were waiting for the bus in the dark. There's still snow in the spots where there were huge piles. We now predict that maybe the snow will disappear by Tuesday.

Today's special holiday is the celebration of Pi....you know 22/7 or 3.142857143... Yes, I just did that on my calculator because I don't have it memorized like some of my friends who go around wearing it on T-shirts and stuff. So, to those of you who care....go eat some PIE (pun intended) and celebrate.

Today's goal is to fold "the pookie load" (aka the children's laundry). Yesterday's accomplishment was watching a few short on-line videos about blogging. It was quite informative for me as a new blogger. I know a little more than I did yesterday....that's always a good thing.

After school today, we will declare the start of SPRING BREAK! Now, we need to plan some fun events for next week.

adios

Who messed with our shrubbery?

We welcomed the warmer weather last night by going to a "family fun walk" after supper. We followed our regular path on our street. Little Squirt didn't even ask to be carried...she walked the way (about 3/4 to 1 mile).

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When we returned home to "inspect the grounds" as Cool Daddy-O calls it. We noticed that the dwarf burning bushes had taken a hit. At first I thought it was from all the ice storms, but then noticed that it looked like there were piles of animal droppings all around and some of the bark was chewed off in addition to pieces of branches being broken off.

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Then we noticed that all the bark was off the lilac tree in front of the house. There were droppings by it too. My first thought was deer, but when I googled deer droppings, they were described as dark brown to black in color. Rabbit droppings were described as light brown. Whatever it is, it looks about the color and size of large dog food kibble. If anyone knows or has a guess, let me know. Maybe it was a combination of the two. The tree bark is off from the ground to about 3 feet off the ground. That made me think deer, but we did have a lot of snow out there...so I'm perplexed. Either way, I'm mad!

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A couple years ago, the deer ate all the bark off our crab apple tree and it died. I'm hoping there's a chance for the burning bushes, but I feel less positive about the lilac tree.

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The past 2 days, we've had little girls here to play. Little Squirt was bummed that no one is coming to play today. We'll have to think of something fun to do together later. For now, she's munching on a cherry pop-tart. She had some cereal a little while go, but didn't finish it.

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The only snow remaining is where there were big piles. There's still a HUGE drift by the neighbor's shed. Big Squirt said there are still big piles of snow on the school playground and yesterday she was able to touch the net of the basketball hoop from the top of the snow pile. Sounds like a pretty big snow pile. I'm sure it would have been a sight to see all the kids in their boots and snow pants playing outside in the snow yesterday when it was over 60 degrees outside.

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If you have any guesses about the droppings (I'm not posting a picture at this time, but I could later), leave me a comment or e-mail me with your guess.

Silly Day

It's silly day at preschool today. We managed to get 7 pony tails in Little Squirt's hair. She is kinda cute that way. Her main colors today are orange, pink and purple. She's not exactly mis-matched, but is using silly colors together in a cute way. She has pink socks, purple sweat pants, an orange sweatshirt over a tie-die t-shirt with all the colors in it. Pony tails are green, pink, orange, purple. I think she'll have fun.

Slim pickin'

We just got home from lunch and saw 4 male pheasants outside the window. I think they're starving. Yesterday there were a few in the neighbor's yard all morning. Because I'm soft hearted, I went to the garage and got a 5 quart bucket filled with birdseed and an ear of corn and spread it on the east side of the house. Of course, they flew away when I opened the door, but I think they'll be back. I'll try and get pictures if I catch them. Not sure if it's right to feed them, but they must be starving. The grass is finally starting to reappear and the snow is dwindling.

As we were waiting for the bus this morning, I told Big Squirt that all the snow will be gone by Friday, with the exception of the big drift in our neighbor's yard.

We sprung forward on Sunday. Big Squirt didn't think it was right getting up before the sun this morning. Little Squirt is all messed up too. She slept until 20 minutes til preschool this morning. She did wake up on her own though. However, after lunch today, she had a temper tantrum all the way home and then it continued for about 30 more minutes or so. I may be exaggerating...it felt that long though. The cause of the tantrum? Well, usually, when we go to McDonald's for lunch, she gets 2 moist towelettes. She uses one there and then puts one in her pocket to save for later. Today, she shared her extra one with her friend. She planned to pick one up on our way out, but we forgot. A couple blocks away from McDonald's (on our way home) she realized she forgot to pick one up. So, the entire way home and then after we got home she kept repeating, "GO BACK TO MCDONALD'S". I just ignored her. I knew that I had some at home (left over ones that she brought home before). I planned to give her that later....after she calmed down....as a surprise. She eventually calmed down and I gave her the towelette. She said thanks, but that's about it. She's forgotten about it now. She looked like she was going to fall asleep for awhile. It seems kids have such a difficult time when the time changes.

Last night we had friends over for homemade pizza. We did a new experiment and made taco pizza (similar method to how Casey's does it, as that's where I used to make pizza....in college). It turned out very yummy. We also made a cheese pizza for the girls. Big Squirt ate 2 pieces and then proceeded to have 3 brownies throughout the evening. She was HUNGRY! We made a sausage pizza too, for Cool Daddy-O. He ate only one piece. So, we're having left-overs for supper tonight.

Little Squirt claims to be hungry...I think she just wants candy. The little turkey. Today's goal is to further organize the toys and hopefully find the lost library book that is supposed to be in the house somewhere. The weird thing is that Big Squirt checked it out on Valentine's Day....the day we three girls came down with the flu. I don't remember even seeing the library book come out of the back pack. Wish me luck!

Hey, readers...feel free to comment on any posts you want....we love the comments when we get them. Sorry it's been so long between posts. I'll try and do better this week.

Not Again!

I'll start off with a synopsis of Sunday. The highlight of Sunday was the warm weather...it was in the 60's. We took the girls to a nearby parking lot where they like to ride their bikes. Big Squirt thought it was cool to drive through the water (melted snow) on her bike. After a few minutes of that, I realized a trip home for dry clothes was necessary, as she was not getting in the car like she was. She was literally dripping when she got done riding. She was laughing as she was changing clothes in the trunk. You see, since we don't have a mini-van, we use the trunk as a changing room when necessary!

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We then went on a Sunday afternoon drive to a nearby lake. As we were meandering around (read as getting lost), we found ourselves on a road that had several other roads leading off it....all of which ran into the lake. We quickly made a U-turn and found our way out. We then consulted our map and found our way to the dam. We hiked on the slushy path and then watched the bald eagles diving for fish. The girls quickly became bored with the eagle watching, so we headed back home. It rained on our way home. We were glad it didn't rain on our hike.

We ate supper at our local coffee house and headed home for bathing and early bedtime to prepare for an early start Monday morning.

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This morning I was awoken by Cool Daddy-O telling me that due to the snowfall overnight (yes, you read that right) school was delayed 2 hours. That meant no preschool for Little Squirt. We slept in for another hour and then made whole wheat pancakes for breakfast. Big Squirt wore one of her new outfits today. Little Squirt and I just hung out at home. We made spaghetti with broccoli in it for lunch. After one huge bite of broccoli, she declared she didn't like broccoli in spaghetti. Fortunately, she chewed it and swallowed. I was a bit nervous for awhile. When she was younger, she would spit stuff out if she didn't like it. Gross!

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Big Squirt rang the doorbell to be silly after she got off the bus. Her face was painted to look like a cat (see picture above). Well, Little Squirt was quite sad and wanted to look that way too. After questioning Big Squirt as to the method of application, we determined a Navy Blue Eye Liner pencil was the closest thing we had to do the job. Little Squirt was pleased with her cat face and posed nicely for some pics.

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Well, that's the highlights of the past 2 days. Who knows what tomorrow will bring....tune in and see!

We shopped til she dropped...

Today was the big day for Little Squirt to keep her eyes open when Grandma visited. She was so calm this morning and seemed to be looking forward to her finger nails being painted as planned. Well, she melted in a ball on the floor when g-ma entered the house. Cool Daddy-O and I had threatened to leave the house if she did that today, so we headed out to the Big W store. We got the 4 things on our list and got out of there. When we returned home, Little Squirt was snuggling with g-ma. We call it progress....she still had her eyes closed, but at least snuggling happened and that was a HUGE step in our opinion. G-ma agreed to paint her finger and toe nails, despite continued eye closing. As soon as our visitors left, she returned to her usual self. What an odd kid :) She says that next week, she'll leave her eyes open....we'll see.

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After eating some leftovers for lunch, Big Squirt and I headed for the capital city to search for some spring clothes and an Easter dress. We had great success at one store where she got a dress, a sweater to wear over it (since there will likely be a snowstorm on Easter), blue yoga pants with a matching shirt, 3 skort/T-shirt outfits, and 3 pairs of socks (have to have matching socks, ya know). We had a 15% off coupon, so that helped. We spent some time in a toy store playing with everything, buying nothing. Then we returned some cat food to the pet store and bought the kind they like. Big Squirt was amazed at the size of the chinchilla...I think she thought they were smaller.

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She got to eat her favorite meal of macaroni & cheese with a side of lima beans at the Cracker Barrel. I had a pork chop, baked potato and green beans. The only bad thing was having to share about 1/3 of my pork chop. In return, I helped myself to a few bites of lima beans and macaroni. We each had a biscuit and then shared Coca-Cola cake with a scoop of ice cream. Big Squirt was so full when she finished, she came over and gave me a hug and told me her tummy hurt really bad. She rarely eats that much. She fell asleep in the car on the way home, listening to my new favorite CD by Robert Plant and Allison Krauss. I love their voices together. Another of my favorite CD's is another interesting mix of artists: Linda Rondstadt and Mark Knopfler.

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I'm hoping to stay awake for a movie in a bit. Last night I fell asleep 30 minutes into Oceans Thirteen. I think Daddy-O and Little Squirt had a fun day too. They got to go out for ice cream... who doesn't have fun doing that?