little squish

I like this little girl. She's my little squish =)

2 little bodybuilders

A while back Terry made these shirts for his two lifting buddies and himself:

So when Shari expressed some interest in having one, we decided to make all of Terry's family shirts for Christmas. These shirts. We even made some for me, Noah and Evie! How cute, yeah?

Ha! It only takes up the entire back =)

out with the old

I know this is way lame, but there's not too much happening in our household at the moment. Just the ordinary. And I happen to blog about ordinary things.

So I did something kind of depressing yesterday. I put away Evie's old clothes that are too small for her. I know, exciting right?

In her dresser were clothes from 9-18 months and since tubs were on sale I decided to git-r-dun. It made me sad though b/c it reinforces how much she's grown. These first two years of her life have gone so much faster than with Noah for some reason. She'll be two the last day of March already! And I keep getting the last two years mixed up, thinking that she'll only be one. Oh sad.

So this is a picture that I took last year at this same time when I put away all her newborn clothes. Look at how little she was!

Here's the boy, little changed except in height =)

Now these pictures are from yesterday. Here is Evie's overflowing dresser (which by the way used to belong to my Gramma Helen so I like it a lot)

The tubs

Cleaned out drawers

This is new. I hadn't been hanging her clothes until now since she had so many sets of stuff

And then it was time to play in the closet

I like this though - the organization of it all. Here are all of her clothes 0-18 months! I have all of Noah's still as well. You never know if we might have another one. And that is my hope so...yeah.

indoor entertainment

I am so tired of winter. You know how the novelty wears off after Christmas and you're just so done with it? Yeah, that's us. We actually considered going for a bike ride with the kids yesterday b/c our temperature gage said 45 degrees! Boy were we glad we didn't after we went outside. Brrrrr. We decided on a walk instead and it sure was chilly.

So the rest of the time we're stuck inside.

One thing that's become a favorite of Noah's is the Wii. Terry got me a Wii Fit for Christmas. Here are all of our Wii Me's! Terry is sleeping b/c he hasn't done any work-outs for a while =) Isn't Evie just SO cute?! Oh, and little Snap and Noah. I love it.

So here is the boy. He is running in place after a cat on the screen that leads him through a course on the island. Lately he's been doing the advanced version so it takes a good 7-10 minutes!

He also likes the bike riding one. For that he has to run in place on the balance board thing and I use the Wii remote to guide him to the different flags he has to get. Sometimes we might jump into the water, or off a bridge, or off a mountain. =)

We brought in these bubbles from outside the other night. Of course, we had to thaw them out in the microwave and that might have done something to their molecular structure b/c they didn't form as well as they should have. Evie had fun at any rate. She was like, "b...u...b...b...l...e." Look at that concentration!

Oops! Bubble is gone! Oh, do you think I should get bangs cut out for her? This was Thursday, when I work, so I wasn't there to fix her hair =)

What kind of toys does Evie like?

Anything that Noah plays with.

Here she is attempting to make a track just like big brother. Though, she's running out of table...

And she's got this track upside down =)

But they had fun.

january heat wave

I'm probably a whiner (on facebook I was like "boo hoo. my kitchen is 61 degrees"). I know that compared to some places in the world, the weather we had last week wasn't that bad. Like Canada for example...or Watertown SD where my brother and Ana were last week.

But dude, it was frigid here (-15 below wind chills) and we felt it even in the house, which we were bound to all week. So we were all pretty ready to get out. Today we ventured into the balmy 43 degree sunshine.

There was still snow everywhere but it was getting all squishy feeling. You know, as opposed to squeaky. When it's squeaky, you know it's cold out.

Here is Noah at the green slide spinning the brains around in his head. I think this is why he is so silly - 5 minutes straight of spinning =)

When we were done at the green slide we didn't quite feel like going home. So we walked around the school and south again to the softball yellow slide. Here Terry had to maneuver around a large drift on the sidewalk by going up the hill to the swimming pool (Noah has been frequently asking if it's summer yet and going by this place didn't help).

Good thing I put their boots on, eh?

Evie needed a little help getting back up to the landing. After this her cute little footprint path was sufficient in aiding her though.

I was surprised Noah made it up the climbing walls w/his boots. Way to go buddy!

Poor Snap. He came along for the walk and was probably having a good time until Noah wrestled him down the slide. Don't worry, I stopped him after this.

Climbing up the rope ladder.

I don't know what this thing is called. You hang on to it and then push yourself to the end. Terry had to push Noah but he held on pretty good.

Oh, and all these pictures were taken on my cell phone. I think they're pretty good!

nap time

Sunday afternoons are a relaxing time for all...b/c we "make it so," as Captain Jean-Luc Picard would say to his first officer William Riker.

Here is Noah trying his hardest to nap on the couch w/daddy. Okay, perhaps he's not really trying at all. He's just squeezing his eyes shut tight. Daddy however would love to just go to sleep as you can see.

All Noah actually wants to do is watch his new show.

Don't worry, we were nice. He got to watch it.

After a nap.

Lovely Sunday afternoons =)

after the storm

For the Christmas blizzard of 09, we really didn't get all that much snow accumulations. What snow we did get was drifted around the snow-belt-trees on the ranch. They were no where near as large as last years, but they were sufficient for daddy to dig out a sweet tunnel for Noah!

Noah has just climbed the first drift. There must have been two before you came to the really big one.

Noah is at the base of his tunnel.

Here he is coming out the top.

See, there is the bare grass as soon as the drift ends.

And here is a video of Noah playing around his tunnel:

two Christmases - 09

So we went home for Christmas 09, like we have been doing the last three years. But since the weather was looking ferocious, we left earlier than we had planned. Two days earlier.

This is Christmas morning at the ranch. This year Jesse was a little more comfortable since he and Shari were married and it was his second time around the block. Fun stuff.

I made photo albums for both sets of grandparents and then they all got a KTB workout shirt.

Shari got Evie this sweet twin baby stroller. And Noah got a crane to go with his trains.

After lunch we headed into town for Christmas at my parents house. Good thing we left when we did b/c they closed the interstate shortly after we got there - blowing snow blizzard stuff. It wasn't bad except for the drifts, which would have just kept getting bigger and bigger.

This is the view from my parent's front window. Behind the tree on the right is a car stuck, one of many in fact. The snow drifts bad there. But we were all cozy inside.

My mom and I made a homemade apple pie. She did the cut-out leaves. Good stuff.

Stephanie supervising Evie and her Keto cat.

Daddy is putting together one of Noah's hot wheels car toys.

I guess I was really excited about my new toaster. We needed it.

My sister, dad and his new shirt.

My mom loved her photo book. And so did Evie.

The kids were quite tired and craaaanky. Gramma didn't mind though =)

Watching the kids new favorite show - Aladdin.

Terry preached at his parent's church so here he is working on it the day before.

Evie was playing in the covers while Terry worked.

The next day we let Evie open up her big gift since she had been so tired. It's a dollhouse we got half price at Toys R Us! We absolutely should have waited until we got home since it was so big. But we made it fine.

This is at home - the house all put together.

And my parents got them this sweet kitchen: