Blogging again...

...because a few months ago, my inlaws sent an email requesting pictures of our family that they could take with them on their mission to Bucharest, Romania.  I never sent them and they entered the MTC today.  Since they have started a blog for their mission, I assume they will have internet access and will be able to check our blog (though I wouldn't be surprised if they have quit doing that!)  So to calm my somewhat guilty conscience, I will be a better blogger.  Here are the happenings of today...

Mary had swimming lessons.  She loves the water, but often opts to do her own thing rather than what the teacher asks.

I gambled and won....look at all these gift cards I scored for a mere $10 in raffle tickets!  I really was just trying to support the school!

We played stickers after lunch.  Mary has been instructed that we only put stickers on ourselves or paper, not on furniture or walls.  She has decided she prefers herself.  

We also pretended to be chickens and when that got boring, switched to lions.  I was a hungry lion and wanted some meat.  Sarah who was the baby lion said she knew where we could find some.  She went to the toy box and got a BABY doll!!! and started carrying it around in her mouth!   I admit it made me laugh!

Thanksgiving in Denver

Marc's parents are preparing to leave on a mission so we thought we should go spend a holiday in Denver.  We figured we would have better luck in November with the weather than we would in December so we let the kids skip a couple of days of school and headed west the weekend before Thanksgiving. 

We drove through some pea soup fog and saw this as we drove!

We spent a day at the Denver Aquarium.  

The kids had a blast petting the stingrays.  There was one that kept swimming really close to them and splashing!

We made some decorations for the Thanksgiving table.

We decorated some turkey cookies with Jonas.

We ate WAY too much.

 Tanner got hooked on the ipad that Uncle Todd brought.

We spent lots of time playing games and having fun with the cousins.

We also ran a 5K with Jason (Marc's sister's husband) and saw a couple of movies.

One of the big surprises of the week was Mary and this dog.  Marc's brother Kent and his wife Stacy, rescued this 'vicious' pitbull.  I will admit to having some reservations when I heard of his size.  I was sure one of my children would be eaten.  Mary who trembles in fear around my parent's (really my brother's) hound dog, could not get enough of this 90 some pound bruiser named Moose.  I was shocked at how gentle he is.  He was great around the kids and supremely patient and tolerant.

 We had a great time!  Can't wait to do it again!

This morning we had a nice sheet of ice on the ground and the kids are enjoying their fifth snow day this year.  Too bad Governor Strickland only allowed Ohio school districts to have three snow days this year.  We now have two to make up.

But that is not the point of this post... the point is to document something cute that Mary said this morning.  Since I am definately motivated by a deadline and now we didn't have to be anywhere, I was kind of lazy about helping Mary get dressed.  Finally she wanders up to me and the following conversation took place....

Mary:  Mom, can you get me some ballet clo?

Me: What? (I do speak Mary but wasn't really sure what she meant by clo)

Mary:  Can you get me some ballet clo?

Me:  (by now, having figured it out)  Sure Mary,  I'll help you get some ballet clothes.

Mary:  running away toward the ballet clothes...No Mom, just one ballet clo!

I just love toddler speak!

Beware the SNEEZANATOR!!

Last night was pinewood derby night and it was a big night for Tanner. Last year's car may not have been the fastest but it did get a lot of "wow!" and "cool" reactions from the other boys because he had a star wars lego guy and R2D2 on it. So, this year when I asked him what kind of car he wanted to make without hesitation he said a sneeze powered car. He came up with the concept and design of the car all on his own. So, we borrowed a nose from one of Ella's toys and the top of a pepper shaker, and viola! a sneeze powered car. He said it was the most environmentally friendly car out there. He pretty much made the whole thing himself (I just kind of held his hand when he was using the drill press, chisel, and dremel tool. He even painted it himself. I did put on the wheels right before race time but not much more than that. Looking at it, I thought "oh well, it may not be the fastest but at least he'll get some good reactions." At the weigh in he came in right at 5 ounces. Well, he ended up winning 3 or 4 races and he won first place among the Bears. He was so excited, he couldn't stop grinning. It was very fun to watch him beat some of the other boy's dads. I wonder what he'll come up with next year.

On a side note: Since Tanner's middle name is James, and I don't like Jim or Jimmy, please refer to him as Tanner Jimmer from now on. Thank you.

Make a plate day at Sarah's school (in November, of course!)

Each year at Sarah's preschool, the parent network hosts a make-a-plate event.  The kids each get a paper circle then they send them off the the Makit company and it comes back as a plate with their drawing on it.  They had so much fun using last year's plate that we couldn't miss going again.  

Sarah (doesn't she have a great smile?) did a really colorful abstract piece.

 We traced Mary's hands a few times.

 Ella decided to draw a scene from the ABC show 'Wipeout" complete with the two Johns providing the commentary. (That is a fake cast.  See previous post)

 And Tanner did a battle scene complete with zeppelin.

More of what I would have blogged about....

After seeing that this sweet little baby, her cousin Addy had gotten her ears pierced, Ella asked if she could get hers done.  Since noone had ever asked, Marc and I hadn't really talked about it, but he thought if she was willing to take care of them, that was fine.  So off we went to Claire's...

Here she is before, all smiles...

Here she is right before.  Notice the smile is gone and she could not look more petrified!

 And here she is after...so relieved to have survived!

What I would have blogged about had I blogged in November...

...the Mason Heights Carnival.  Someone from the carnival committee at Tanner and Ella's school approached Marc about putting fake casts on kids during the carnival.  Marc agreed and I was worried that it would be too much at $5 each cast.  The carnival was supposed to run from 11-3.  The volunteers working in that room stopped adding names to the waiting list around 1:30 and Marc didn't put on his last cast until 4:45.  Parents and kids actually waited almost 2 hours after the carnival ended to get a fake cast!  Marc thinks they put on around 275 casts that day.  It was such a roaring success they have asked him to do it at the other elementary school in Mason in February.

 Our kids were the guinea pigs as Marc tried to figure out how to put a cast on so that the kids could slip them off!