Cabin Fever!

This has been our view for the last 60 days! We are working on one of the top snowiest winters in central Kentucky EVER! Needless to say, the kids were more than excited in December when the beautiful white flakes descended upon our lawn, but the fun is wearing off quickly. With the hubby gone and the roads slick, our outings are few and far between of late. We have had to compensate by making our own fun within our four walls.

Lucky for us both girls have late fall and early winter birthdays.  We have a multitude of new toys around between birthdays and Christmas to occupy the brood.  This particular toy was Leah's favorite birthday present.  A zebra that changes from a walker to a ride on.  Sarah and Leah have spent hours rolling each other around the house.  Yes, Leah does push Sarah, but Sarah has to steer.  It is so funny to see my infant turning into a toddler before my very eyes.

Leah has a gift of making anything a toy.  Yes, even decorations from my bookshelves.  This photo box became a seat for a couple of days.  Hey, whatever gets us through the day, right?

Sarah has taken to watching cooking shows and trying to come up with her own ahem..."recipes". This day she made a "smash cake" that had no cake in it! She took milk, whipped cream, grapes and strawberries and mixed them up. "Yummy?" She was so proud, she took it to uncle Jason's to let everyone sample. Jason was not such a fan.

Alena, on the other hand, loved it and at almost every bite!   Maybe she should create a for kids only cookbook.

One day she decided to transform herself into an "Indian princess".  She used her stick on earrings to complete the look.  She is hilarious!

When we can take being inside no more, we spend the compulsory 30 minutes to dress everyone and head outside.  It has been so cold this month that our outings are usually shorter than the preparation time.

Katie was happy to see us join them out back.  We have kept a heater running in their building for much of the month.  It is hard on the wallet, but a necessary expense.

Shelly just wants inside.  She can't understand why anyone would come out to play in this weather. 

Leah loves snow and is as happy as a clam!

Sarah tries her skill at igloo building (for about five minutes).   It has been so cold that the snow is too powdery to pack.

Leah loves to sit, lie, and roll in the snow.  She even sticks her face right in!  No complaints from this one.  She is up for any adventure. 

Sarah posing, even in the snow.  Once a model, always a model.   We are more than ready for old man winter to move on.  We are ready to plant flowers and vegetables and hit the parks.  Come on spring!

Thanks Dana, I needed this!

Today was what I would like to call a rather challenging day.  I sliced open my finger on a dog food can, my daughter woke up this morning to find two dead goldfish in her aquarium, and my husband just left for yet another week in Kansas City.  After cooking, cleaning, bathing children and putting said children safely into bed alone, I truly needed a good laugh.  Thanks Dana for providing this for me.  I just had to share with all of my "peeps".

Get with the Program!


I found this on a friends blog and I am still laughing. Enjoy!

11 Step Program for those thinking of having kids by Amy Lawrence on Tuesday, January 4, 2011 at 10:24am


Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.


Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...


1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.


Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.
Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel...


1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.


Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? T o find out...
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?
Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this - all morning.


Lesson 6
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don't think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.


1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.


Lesson 7
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.


Lesson 9
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you're thinking What's 'Noggin'?) Exactly the point.


Lesson 10
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying 'mommy' repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each 'mommy'; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.


Lesson 11
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the 'mommy' tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.


This is all very tongue in cheek; anyone who is parent will say 'it's all worth it!' Share it with your friends, both those who do and don't have kids. I guarantee they'll get a chuckle out of it. Remember, a sense of humor is one of the most important things you'll need when you become a parent!

A White Christmas!

I knew it was possible, but it is a dream rarely realized for Kentucky kids...a WHITE Christmas! Other than the arrival of the big guy in the red suit, what could be more exciting then sharing a special day with family and getting to sled, feast, and drink hot chocolate. The girls got up EARLY Christmas morning and Sarah dragged us downstairs to find out if she was on the "nice" list this year. She turned the corner and spied a Rapunzel tower and a Rapunzel dress and got her answer. YES! Leah received a VTech remote control doggie and a Thomas the train small train set. We let the girls play for a while and I made a great eggs and bacon breakfast complete with honey butter biscuits (yum). Then we opened the remainder of our presents. What a wonderful morning we spent, looking at the beautiful snowy scene. Sounds like Norman Rockwell, right? Well not exactly, but it was a pretty great Christmas. After naps, we went to Jason and Ashley's new home for some of the best sledding around! Their property backs up to a pond and the dam section features a pretty steep drop that makes for some exciting adventures. Sarah is now spoiled and won't sled in our backyard anymore because "it's to easy for a big girl like me". Ha! Ha!  Here is a sampling of our sledding adventures

From this vantage point, it looks like a normal hill in central Kentucky.  Lots of fun, right?

Up we go...

.

And holy cow!  Down they come!  Sarah loved it!

Being from the mountains myself, I am used to this type of sledding experience.  Frankly I am easily bored with sledding around here.  Not anymore!  Thanks Jason for buying this property.  I hope he doesn't mind us hanging around on snowy days.

Now the real fun begins.  Leah's first sledding experience begins.  We have no idea how she will react to the snow.  She has not spent to many moments outside due to the fact that she was pretty much crawling everywhere and had only started walking mere days before this outing.  Needless to say, we looked like the kid in A Christmas story who fell down and could not get back up in this outfit.  This made for a tired mommy. 

Back to Leah.  She had an absolute blast!  What a relief!  Sarah hated the snow at this age.  Leah crawled around trying to eat snow.  She loved sledding and had an overall fantastic time.  Yeah!

David took Alena and Cohen down the hill as well. Where is the sled? LOL!

Chris decided to break out the bright orange ski mask for the event.  We will never lose him!

Sarah is getting much braver these days.  She is going head first down this hill.  Go Sarah!

Do you think she impressed Caden?  I know she is proud.

Here I am on Leah duty.

What a cutie! 

Okay, its getting dark, time for the little one to go back inside.

The big ones don't want to quit.  That is Jason sailing down the hill!  We all went inside, warmed up and had a nice Christmas dinner.  This is definitely a Christmas we will never forget. 

Christmas 2010 family photos

I know this blog has been chocked full of many adventures of late.  If you are looking for more, you will have to wait for the next post.  This Christmas entry will not feature food, presents, wrapping paper and the like. This year, I put down the camera and simply enjoyed the company of family. I did, however, ask everyone to take some family photos. This blog entry is mostly for posterity for my kids who will undoubtedly cherish these photos in years to come. 
Christmas this year was a bit out of the norm.  Chris had been travelling a zillion miles (actually 200,000 but who's counting?) and Ashley and Jason bought a new house and began moving in the week before Christmas!  And don't forget that temperatures hovered between 0 and 20 degrees for approximately the whole month of December.  As a result, we were unable/unwilling to do any travelling into the mountains this year.  Mom and Dad came up for Sarah's birthday party and we decided to make an early Christmas of it.  This way they could celebrate with all the kids and grand kids and get back home before the next snowstorm which was to hit Christmas morning (how exciting!). We used this time to catch up with one another, grab a bite to eat (thank you Cracker Barell for keeping me from cooking and cleaning), and open some presents.  One of my gifts to Ashley this year was a collage picture frame with family photos.  While compiling photos, I realized that I had zero good photos of Ashley and Jason to display.  I decided to fix this problem with a mini family photo shoot!

Here is the exhausted couple.  Two kids under 18 months, and a move in subfreezing temperatures the week before Christmas.  They are putting on a pretty face, don't you think?   I think I would be crying in this photo!

Leah and Alena took the opportunity to bounce away on our "jumpolene".  This was Sarah's three year old "Santa gift".  It has been one of the best purchases to date.  Aren't the girls so cute together?  They light up when they see one another.

Our three bigger girls.  Aubrey is too little to climb up just yet.

Sarah decides to hop off to make sure Aubrey doesn't feel left out.

The impossible photo.  Four girls under the age of 5 (3/4 under the age of 2).  Will we ever get that magic photo?

Maybe when they are 18, 13, and 12!

So they tell me to hop on Chris's lap for a photo.  Of course I am going to hate this one.  Does anyone ever look good sitting in some one's lap who is older than about 7?

If you are wondering what Sarah has chosen for her Christmas attire, we are fresh off a visit to see the Nutcracker.  She HAD to dress up and put on a Christmas show for the family.  Good memories.

Our big girl.  I can't believe we held her in this very chair on the boppy just 5 short years ago.

Silly shot time!

Bring on the baby.  Now the family is complete.

Isn't it true that when you take multiple photos, each person looks good in the photo where someone else isn't looking?  Photography is difficult indeed!

Mom and Dad posed for a photo as well.  I think it turned out great!

Jason, Ashley, Alena and Aubrey.  All that brown hair.  Where is the red in our family?  I bet it will show up with the arrival of our grandchildren some day.

Now for the fireplace shot.

Jason and "Aubee" as Alena calls her.  She looks just like Ashley.

Sarah getting lovin from uncle Jason.

Now, on to Chris's house.  We had our Christmas with them on Christmas Eve.  Chris went down a little early while I cooked and cleaned.  We had a great dinner thanks to Joann.  Then we decided to take a few family photos there as well.  This level of cooperation happens so rarely, I just couldn't resist.

As you can see, Leah is giving her tired pose.  Whenever she is sleepy, she plays with the hair.  She has had so much hair since the very beginning, it is like an old friend!

The Coleman clan.  A very rare photo indeed.

Joann, Charles, and their oldest.  I can't believe our kids will be this big someday!

Joann, Charles, and their oldest grandchild. 

We had a wonderful Christmas season filled with food, fun, laughs, wonderful gifts, and awesome memories.  I call Christmas 2010 a success by all accounts!