Weathered the Storm

So we had our first Missouri ice storm this last week. We were kind of excited! and I told the lady at Walmart that when I was buying our provisions, and of course she thought I was crazy. The last two years they've had horrible ice storms, with power out for days, if not weeks, trees breaking everywhere, bad bad stuff. So no one here was excited for it! But we wanted to see what all the hubbub was about. So we filled our propane tanks, made sure our gas fireplace was working, got plenty of necessity food, i.e. chips, ice cream (it'll keep in the snow), and fruit snacks, and hunkered down for the storm. It was pretty fun to keep running to the window to see what the weather was doing, freezing rain is an interesting thing to see, hear, watch. It's like rain, but frozen! :-) in little droplets, and freezes again when it hits anything. It coats everything, the roads, power lines, trees, grass blades, Chris had fun taking shots of it the next morning. It's very beautiful, but very dangerous. If the power lines get more than about 1/2" of coating, they sag and snap. Trees often snap as well onto the power lines and cause outages. Nobody goes anywhere after an ice storm. Maci's school was cancelled for 3 days! But we never lost power and have been fine, besides trying to keep the kids occupied! We got about 3 inches of snow on top of the ice, so the kids had fun playing in that, although it is NOT the greatest snow on earth. Anyway, I'm glad to say our first ice storm is behind us, although I doubt it will be our last.

A Great Day Off

I totally meant to get this post up much sooner, but this week has been crazy! with a cold, about 10 orders to fill, and just general family business, or busyness. . . but here it is a little late.

We had a fantastic 3 day weekend last week. On Saturday we headed down to Branson to the 4th annual Ice Scupltur Contest at the Titanic Museum. It was free :-) And actually fun to see how creative people are and the kind of tools they use to cut the ice. I leaned over to Chris as they broke up their mega Dremel tool and said, "I could get into this!" but I think I'll stick to wood for now. Maci's favorite was the Pegasus Unicorn, and Gavy liked a cool Gecko. The weather was really warm and windy, probably around 50 degrees, which is warm when you're carving a block of ice, so the competitors were struggling with that. But it was still really fun to watch. We didn't stick around to see who won. We took off to the outlet malls instead! I got a new pair of tennis shoes, mine were 7 years old and had holes in them, and of course I had to stop at the Children's Place and check out their deals. I got lots of stuff for Maci and Gavin for next fall at killer prices. Anyway, it was a perfect "vacation" day and we had a great time.




On Monday, we told the kids we could go to the Children's Discovery Center, we bought an annual pass so we can go whenever we want. It's a great science center and the kids love going. We got to do a couple things we haven't had a chance to do before, they let us light a lightbulb with our fingers when we touched the globe thing with the electric currents running through it? I'm sure that makes no sense. And then the thing that makes your hair all static-y and you can shock people when you get off it, anyway those were fun things we haven't done before. We walked around there for an hour or so, and then went to Lamberts for Lunch, where they throw the rolls. Yummo rolls. Then we went home to tackle some house stuff.
This is like a hamster wheel that creates energy when you run on it, I think we'll get one installed to run the washer and dryer!






Walking on the "keystone"

I've been working on my craft room since we moved in, but have never gotten it completely functional and "done". Well I think I'm about 75% there now, which is closer than before! It was in a complete state of disaster, with boxes and bins everywhere, stacked, unstacked, you couldn't even walk in the room for the most part. So we really wanted an Ikea piece with about 9 shelf boxes on it, so all my stuff could have its own compartment. But seeing as the shipping was as much as the piece, and we didn't want to wait till summer to get it cleaned up so we could buy it in UT and drive it home, we decided to make our own, less fancy but just as functional piece. Chris made me some shelves and we just put them on brackets. We got a ton of rubbermaids, all the same sizes and colors so they matched and looked nice. We got them up and filled on Monday and it looks SO much better! I even have room and bins to spare, so I can buy even more stuff! Just kidding. But it feels good to have a functional space, now I just have to keep it that way. There's one wall that still needs to be painted, and has space for a crib someday when we have another baby. It sucks the baby will have to share the craft room, but he/she won't mind for the first couple years I don't think!



So that was our fun and exciting weekend. It was the perfect combination of fun and productiveness, family time, and togetherness! Now that Chris is back in school, we take those weekends when we can get them!

My Little Man!

So there was one more important development during Christmas Break, Gavy got somewhat potty trained!! Thanks to Grandma Sharon for some needed motivation and a small potty seat so he wouldn't fall in! He's pretty much done with diapers during the day, and even most nights wakes up dry, which I'm so relieved about, as I've heard that a lot of boys have trouble with not waking up and having accidents. Gavin must have a bladder of steel, he can hold it all day! or maybe he's not drinking enough? but he can go in the morning, and then not go again until like 4 pm? crazy. I'll ask him all day, do you need to go? and he says, no Mommy, I'm holding it! and he calls it "I did my water Mommy!" he's so proud of himself. Poops are another story, seems like all kids have trouble pooping on the potty! But I don't want him to start holding them in, we did that with Maci and it was a horrible painful three months till we could convince her it wasn't so scary after all. Anyway, we're working on #2, so to speak, and hopefully in a month or so be diaper free!!

I'm also struggling with naptime with Gavin. He'll still take naps pretty willingly, but ever since we got home from our trip, if he takes a nap, he's up till like 10pm. We'll put him to bed at 8, and he'll mess around, talk, sing, play, whatever until he finally falls asleep. This keeps Maci up though, and gets us frustrated with his constant coming out of bed to say he's not tired and can't sleep. So do I give up my 2 hrs of quiet during the day for an easier bedtime??!?!?!? I really can't decide. Have any of you tackled this problem? if I only let him sleep an hour will he go to bed better? Most days he gets really grumpy by the end of the night if he doesn't have a nap, which is why I've still been giving him one, but maybe he just needs to go to bed at like 7? I don't think that will happen either. I'm at a loss, but don't want to give up my hour of quiet!! Any advice from you seasoned moms out there?

I haven't gotten a pic of Gavin on the potty, but this bath one was cute I took the other day. The kids each got bath soaps and toys for Christmas, and Gavin's came with shaving cream soap. I walked out of the bathroom for a minute, and came back to both of them with huge handfulls of cream. I told them to put it to good use and at least let me take a picture of them! Cute kids.

10 favorite things from UT

So we had a fantastic trip to UT. We arrived safely on the 16th, even if it was a couple hours late due to a sensor on the plane malfunctioning. We headed off on a 3 week whirlwind of friends, family, parties, Christmas, snow, and FUN!! Here were a few of our favorite things on our trip.

10. Decorated trees at Grandma Reesa's and Great Grandma Cleo's.



9. Played ShuffleBoard, Horseshoes, and swimming (even if it was a little cold!) at the Condo in St. George with Grandma and Todd

8. Let Missy pull the kids on the sleds.

7. Went caroling with the Boren clan.

6. Saw friends and caught up on the last 4 months.


5. Played with cousins!

4. Got to know Uncle Todd again, he was a good sport in the wrestling department!

3. Seeing Comet and Blitzen, thanks to Todd, at Thanksgiving Point.

2. Going sledding in Cedar Hills w/Katie and Brett!



1. Having the Best Christmas Ever with ALL! our family and friends.


Thank you all for making our Christmas Vacation such a great time. I'm sorry we didn't get to see all of you, we hope in the summer when there isn't a big holiday to schedule in, we'll have more time to spread around. We had such a great time though and it was great to be back in UT for a while. We did miss home though, and find it nice to be back in a routine and actually accomplishing a task during the day instead of just eating and having fun!

Since we've been back we've just been cleaning the house, cutting out lots of orders!, getting back to school for Maci, Chris is working full time for a couple weeks before school starts, and basically just getting back into the swing of things.

One more brag, Chris got 4 A's and 1 B his first semester of grad school, and got on the Dean's List! I'm so proud of him and how hard he's working. He's really enjoying it too, and that's the best part!

So TTFN, until something exciting happens?!