learning about the phone

For preschool this week Noah learned our phone number and how to dial.

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Here he is calling daddy's phone which Evie has on speakerphone. He thought it was so funny.

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Evie thought it was fun. But she would have enjoyed it whether or not there was someone on the other line. She likes to play with the phone...especially cell phones.
And actually, I used to let her play with my cell phone periodically. But no more. A couple weeks ago I received a call on my cell that I didn't recognize so I let it go to voicemail. It was the Emergency Service telling me that they'd received several calls from my number. They wanted to make sure everything was okay... Yikes.
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Okay, no more cell phones (nail polish or mascara) for Evie!

halloween 2009

As a fundraiser, Terry organized this Kids Karnival for Halloween at the church. The high school students helped with the kid games which were mostly the same as from the Harvest Festival. I borrowed a couple costumes from my friend Karla and took our kids.

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Noah was not happy about being a monkey. This boy just doesn't care for dressing up. It was the same last year even though then he wore normal clothes. I just re-read last year's post to make sure I remembered it right. Yes, Noah was even worse this year than he was last year as far as attitude goes. He just cried and cried about wearing the costume. Mommy wasn't feeling very patient and made him wear it and bustled out the door with him. Something about a long day...

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Here's the two Halloween grumps.

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Here our little pumpkin is pumpkin bowling.
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Daddy always brightens things up though - exactly what we needed.

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I guess he got into a killer tackle... One of the high school girls painted his face. Like Evie's Tootsie Roll dribble?

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Whine.

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Family pic! Evie's always smiling =) Cute little pumpkin!

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Noah loves mini-golf. Guess we should teach him how to do it right...

much snow?

I've already posted these on facebook but I have to keep archiving our lives.

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The day before Halloween we got this huge snow. Something like 16 inches here in town. So much for the downtown trick or treating. Last year it was 80 degrees!

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Noah was so excited. When daddy got home from pulling 3 or 4 people out of the snow, the kids went out.

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Noah went right for the swing set. Love this shot of him amongst the snow.

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The bush to the west of our back porch was completely bowed to the ground under the weight.
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Frolicking Snap dog.

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The end of the picnic table!

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Noah was cleaning off the grill and dropped some snow on Evie...

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Snap dog needs a little coat...

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Cutie.

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I love the neighbors tree. And it looked gorgeous that morning.

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The bird feeder...

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Snow boy.

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This is Terry's lift partner Kevin. A large tree limb fell onto their roof in the night and woke them up (there are fallen branches everywhere). You can see the hole it left to the left of Kevin's shoulder.

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This is Pastor Rick's neighbor's trees. I liked them.

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We went for a ride in the trusty Blazer. He does love that thing - it's how he was able to help so many people that morning.

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Our house.

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Daddy and squishy.

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Here is another bush to the east in our front yard. It was some heavy snow.

messy day

Evie had a particularly interesting day a while back.

First she spilled nail polish all over the big room carpet. I was making a blue ribbon apple pie (seriously, it was good) and when I turned around, she was painting the linoleum, which wasn't that big of a deal, relatively speaking. But then I saw that the bottle was completely empty. Uh oh... I went into the big room and there it was. The entire bottle on the carpet.

Just a reminder: We don't own this house. It's a parsonage that we get to live in. Yeah. Of course, it was actually MY fault b/c I left it there on the end table. I am not used to having a child that gets into stuff. Noah just doesn't.

So, mascara and nail polish - OFF limits. Check.

I rearranged. I switched the chairs and futon. Much more cozy. Glad I found something that works best now that we move after the new year...

The spill is right in front of the end table. Can't see it probably. That's one good thing.

Here you can definitely see it. I used nail polish remover but that only spread out the pink. I have since bought a new bottle of that color b/c I liked it so much =) Looks even better in the carpet than on my nails...

That very same day Evie fell into the bathtub - water, toys and brother included.

Terry had just taken her out and I had lotioned and dressed her. Once I was done she ran right back to the bathroom. I asked Terry if the water was high enough for her to touch and he said yes. I promptly jumped up and ran after her. Too late. Just as I got in she launched herself into the water.

It's blurry but you get the idea.

eating donuts...

Sunday afternoon there was a church hay rack ride and picnic. Though we didn't make it for the hay ride, we did brave the freezing temperatures for grilled hot dogs and games. It was so cold. I was glad we didn't do the hay ride.

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Here's Noah's attempt to eat that donut. I also made a video of it b/c it was hilarious. His coat was a sugary mess.

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Daddy did it too.

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Evie had fun licking the donut before she figured out she could take a bite =)

Here is the video:

that one night we did that one thing

Shari and Jesse visited us the second weekend of October. It was so much fun having them here, even though they had to go to Lincoln for a wedding. Some priorities they have...

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Anyway, that Saturday night we hired a sitter, got all dressed up and went out for a second attempt at a local italian resturant. We all went there for Valentines Day and had a horrible time. We had an 8pm reservation (on V Day) and weren't served until at least 10pm when I was too tired out to be very hungry any more. The sock soup (chocolate soup that we joked tasted like it was made in a sock) wasn't so great either. Shari was quite irate and wrote Bella Italia telling them so. They sent her a gift card =)

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Take two: So we all went again . It was very pleasant and we had a great time. I knew Valentines Day was a fluke b/c Terry and I had been there and had always had a great time.

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Pretty good lookin group eh?

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Too cute newlyweds.
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Um, yeah, that's us.
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The light of heaven approves of these two...

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Terry was practicing for the video we made later...
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The restaurant with pretty pink walls...
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Terry jammed his head against mine and I was laughing at him. We were attempting to be cute like the newlyweds.

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After our date we made this video. If you haven't seen it on facebook, then you're behind the times. It's like the #1 rated video EVER. Okay, maybe not, but it's good enough to be. It just goes to show you don't have to be drunk to have fun.

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Snap dog is wearing Noah's Thomas underwear...

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The next day we were hangin out after church. Shari watches Terry play Ring-a-round-the-rosie.

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Nose booger bubble anyone?

snowman killer 1

And she kills him with his own arm.

1st snow man

Terry was very kind to give me a mommy break yesterday. I needed it after our trip to the doctor. He took the kids out to play while I stayed in and read some of the parent Sunday school book: Parenting by the Book. It's very thought provoking, though we can't go to the class since Terry teaches the high school punks. Anyway, what a nice husband.

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See that nice smile Evie has? She's saying "Cheese" the whole time! I took several pics in my attempt to get Noah to look. He never did look and Evie never did look away. She looked the same in all of them. So cute.

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And what a great snow man! Sprinkler for a hat, lawn golf balls for eyes and a nose, bucket handle for mouth and lawn golf poles for arms! All he needs are hands...

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Time to warm up the cheesy frog girl. Oh, and she needs a coat. This is Noah's old one!
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Nice hand snow man. High five!

preschool

So we've officially started our preschool stuff with Noah. It took some time to get him used to the idea that we could do school at home. At first he was adamant that we couldn't do that. We had to do school at, well, school. But now he's calling it school and everything.

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We do a little bribing here and there. All he really wants to do is play Pac Man with Daddy on the Wii 24/7. But really, we just can't, shouldn't, and DON'T want to do that. So we say that we can play after school work is done. Then all the of sudden it's, Can we do school?
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Here Noah is circling What comes first (I think). He's working on those fine motor skills.

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Evie wants all the crayons. I still don't know what happened to the other end of the red one. She might have given it to Snap for a snack...

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She also likes the camera. Does a really great "CHEESE"

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How cute right? Using two hands so he can make a good circle =)