And They're Off....

Today is the first day of school! Big Sis is now a second grader and Lil Sis is in kindergarten. They were up late last night because they were too excited to fall asleep when we sent them to bed. Things were a bit slow going this morning, so we told them they could eat breakfast at schoool. Lil Sis thought that sounded like a good idea. They were both smiling and excited when they got on the bus.

Who Knew Cactus Grow In Iowa??

The four of us went geocaching this afternoon.  The first ones we found were located at the Sand Prairie near Eddyville.  We had heard a lot about this area before, but had never visited.  Yes, it's a natural prairie area and yes, the ground is very sandy.  Yes, there are cactus plants there!  In Iowa???  What's the deal?  

A few years ago, when a new 4 lane road was built by-passing the town of Eddyville, there was much conflict regarding where the road would be, because the original plan took the road near or through this prairie.  The short story: preservation of the prairie won.   

We decided March was a great time to discover these caches, as most of them will be more tricky when the prairie grass gets tall and thick.  We all agreed to return here later in the spring and summer to investigate tadpoles, frogs, and other plant and animal wild life.  This is truly an awesome place to visit.
We found four geocaches hidden in this area.  The girls were very instrumental in retrieving all of them.  Big sis found the first one on her own.  Cool Daddy-O found the second one, but we needed Big Sis to retrieve it (cramped quarters).  As a reward for being the first to find this cache, Big Sis pocketed a gold dollar coin.  Lil Sis retrieved the third one and it's obvious by looking at the above photo how proud she was.
After we left the prairie, we went back into town where we climbed down a hill and managed to be the first to find this cache well hidden under a big tube.  The cache container is actually shaped like a hand (very clever).  

This week is Spring Break around here.  Today marked our 93rd geocaching find.  I think we can hit 100 this week if we go out another day or two.  Look out world, here we come!

Face Book Eats My Time

Um, Yeah.  I'm o.k.  I'm still here.  I just spend too much time  on Face Book playing with those silly applications like Farm Town and Mafia.  

My one year Blogiversary has come and gone without my acknowledgement.  I haven't even checked my stats lately.  I'm sure the few readers I did/do have gave up on me weeks ago.

Lil Sis is playing with playdough and I'm listening to Days of Our Lives.  I've totally lost track of what's going on there.  I used to be a diehard fan and even if I didn't watch it, I read updates on line.  It's just not the same anymore.  What's going on with Bo and Hope anyway?

The girls and I are struggling with the time change.  In addition to losing an hour, we have a brand new feather bed and it is so comfy, it's hard to hop out of bed in the morning.  And for some reason, my alarm didn't go off this morning.  

Looks like the bachelor (Jason) is on the Bonnie Hunt Show, so I think I'll watch and see what's new there.

I'm also going to try to update the background here.  I do not need snowflakes cluttering the background.  I need to find something springy.

more soon :)

January Thaw

When we last left off, Lil Sis was recovering.  Let's just say, she's back to her normal self.  Enough said :)

One cold weekend recently, we were bored and in need of something fun to do.  We were organizing our new markers, crayons, paints, and other Christmas gifts.  I came up with the brilliant idea of recycling our old crayons.  The girls busied themselves peeling the paper off for a couple hours.  They grew weary.  I peeled more crayons while watching a movie.   

We eventually sorted them by color (a day or two later), melted them and poured them in the above mold.  

Voila!  The finished product...pretty cool!

In other news, the girls continue to take the camera on adventures in the house.  Here's a self-portrait of Lil Sis.

Here's a self-portrait of Snickers....or is it?  I think Lil Sis took this one too.  Snickers seems to be doing better.  We switched up a few things with the litter box and medication.  He's not much interested in eating a lot, but he has become one docile, snuggling cat.  Lil Sis carries him around, they fall asleep together at night, he sleeps next to me when I go to bed, and spends the day letting Lil Sis do anything she wants with him.  

One night during the girls' bath, Cool Daddy-O played a little trick on the girls, HGTV style.  We converted the toy room to a bed room and vice versa.  They're still adjusting to the new set up, but one of the first days, Big Sis built this structure on her own.  Usually, she gets really frustrated when playing with Lincoln Logs, but pulled this off effortlessly.  Not sure who took this photo, but I think it's a pretty good shot.

Not sure if this is a self-portrait, but it probably is.

On Inauguration Day, I informed Lil Sis that we'd be watching "grown-up TV" all day.  She found it incredibly boring, however, she loved the opportunity to paint and make a mess without getting in trouble.  She had fun and clean-up was a breeze.  

Unfortunately, our TV decided to die during the Inaugural balls.  Fortunately, I was able to watch a lot of it on the internet (thanks to CNN and facebook).  
Today we had some awesome weather.  Technically, I guess we would call it a January thaw.  The temps were close to 50.  Lil Sis happily pulled on her snow pants, boots and a light weight winter jacket and ran out and dove in the piles of snow.  She had a blast throwing snowballs...

at me!  She has good aim!

She also enjoyed playing with a neighborhood kitten.  This kitten lives outside.  It was -17 a week ago.  This kitten looks fat and healthy.  Not sure how, but that kitten and its twin sibling must have good genes.

After swinging awhile, she said she was done playing outside and ran in.  Tomorrow night it will be approaching 0 degrees again.  It sure was nice to be out and soak in some rays today.

Before and After --- An Apple A Day

Lil Sis has been down in the dumps.  We initially thought she had a case of the 24 hour flu that lingered on.  She had one bout of vomiting, no appetite, no fever, just lethargic.  Last night, we finally figured out, that was no longer the issue. Instead we were battling a bad case of constipation.  After several unsuccessful attempts to resolve the problem on our own, Lil Sis said she wanted to go to the doctor.  We needed medical intervention on this one.

Our regular doctor was booked up today (which is probably a good thing) so we saw the on-call doc.  We explained the situation and asked him to "clean her out".  He accommodated us.  Even though Lil Sis was asking him to "please stop doing that" and "when will he be done?" and "how many more times is he going to do that?" the whole time, she remained a trooper until the project was complete.  

After all was said and done, she walked herself out of the office, with a smile on her face, carrying a handful of stickers.  After that experience, I told her kindergarten shots are going to be a breeze.

We met friends at McDonald's for a celebratory lunch.  When we returned home she said she was hungry again.  I happily gave her an apple and she said it tasted delicious.  When I tried to take her picture, she just kept making silly faces.

"Take a picture of my hand."

"Take a picture of the apple."

Nice and relaxed and watching one of her favorite shows.  I was surprised she chose to lay on the floor.  I think she just needed a change of scenery.  She spent the past 3 days laying on the couch or hanging out and snuggling with me.  I think she's still in recovery mode and she still looks tired, but things are looking  up big time!

2008 -- New Year's Eve -- Celebratory Fun!

Note:  This is the second post of the day.  Please enjoy the post below this one first as it summarizes Christmas.  Thanks.

This morning, we hopped in the car and headed to Des Moines.  We met an old friend of mine from the college days, along with her four kids and celebrated the Noon Year at the Science Center of Iowa.  We arrived in plenty of time and had a blast playing.

We created bubbles.

This is my favorite picture of the day.

You'll see a video of the balloon drop at the end of this post.   Big Sis sat on Cool Daddy-O's shoulders and caught a balloon.  Lil Sis sat on my shoulders and caught a balloon.  A friend of ours from our home town caught a picture of us, but I don't have it.  I have a picture of our friend's son on his dad's shoulders taken from a distance (not posted).
Here are the girls predicting stormy weather for our forecast.  There's a green wall where the kids can stand and view themselves on a TV screen.  This seems to be a favorite spot.

After we returned home, Lil Sis thought it was dance party time.  

She's so goofy sometimes.

More dancing.

Next came the jumping.

Jumping and dancing.  It was a wild scene.

Mid-air for Lil Sis.  Post jump for Big Sis.

Big Sis takes off.

Mid-air... someone's head is missing.

More jumping and general craziness.

Celebrating Christmas with Family

On Christmas morning we awoke and  found this on the floor.  After reading the note from Santa, the girls looked out the window.  Big Sis thought she saw something peculiar in the yard. Both girls immediately grabbed their snow boots and went out to investigate.  They found sleigh bells that fell off Rudolph and then spied some "reindeer poop".  Hmmmm...  There was also a pink tooth fairy angel bear which was accompanied by a letter from the tooth fairy.  The tooth fairy told Big Sis that she'll likely be needing to leave her first tooth behind in the next year.  When she leaves the tooth in the bear's pocket, the tooth fairy will know it's time to visit. We're still a bit perplexed about how the tooth fairy and Santa communicate.Big Sis said she heard the bells jingling in the middle of the night and knew Santa was visiting.  She was very happy about the bells that fell off the sleigh.

We then opened the presents from Santa and the presents under the tree.  There were packages of toys, art supplies, and new clothes.  Cool Daddy-O got a toy John Deere R tractor and I got a GPS for the car.
We then drove to grandma's house and consumed a delicious lunch and had another small birthday celebration for Big Sis.  Next was a visit to the nursing home to visit both great-grandmas.  Here they are with their 88 year old great grandma.
Here they are with their 91 year old great-grandma. She lives across the hall.  The girls had fun skipping between their rooms.
Lil Sis seems to like her new jumper, scarf and hat.  She seems oblivious to the 80 degree temperature in the nursing home.
Now, jumping ahead a couple days, the girls tried out their new baking set.  They each mixed up and baked 2 cakes, one heart shaped and one teddy bear shaped.
Here is Lil Sis showing off her completed cake.  They enjoyed eating their cakes too.
Now, jumping ahead a few more days (yeah, I could have made a separate post, but I'm on a roll and wanting to wrap things up) to another family Christmas celebration.  Here are my 3 brothers cutting and serving the pie made by my sister-in-law (wife to the brother in the middle).  It's rare that they are this close and even more rare that all three would be serving up the dessert, so I had to take a pic.  They were so busy, they didn't even notice me taking their picture.  All of us (except for my second oldest bro) are turning gray at alarming rates.  (I cheat though.)
We have a grab bag on my side, but we did get a gift specifically for one of our nieces who happens to be a big Jimmy Wayne fan.  We exercised our connections and obtained an autographed photo for her.  She was quite surprised.

I'm going to end this post now.  There's going to be another one immediately following.  Next stop, our New Year's Eve celebratory festivities!