A spa day with Daddy

This morning Daddy had some fun with the girls, since they had been running around on the cold title all morning in bare feet he got out the foot bath and gave them a spa treatment. Hannah didn't want the bubbles, so she just got a bucket of warm water for her feet. Evie on the other hand loved the bubbles and would have left her feet in the bath all day! The girls enjoyed the foot bath, foot lotion and pedicure from Daddy!

a cold day

The low last night was in the mid thirties. This prompted the first use of heat for the season, but I don't think we'll need it again for a few days. The girls were a little chilly, as we are working on making them northerners by keeping the heat at 62 during the day and 60 at night. Don't worry, the high today is in the mid 60s. Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 72 and on Monday 79! The girls won't freeze, we'll see how long we last with the heat at 62, I'm thinking none of our friends will want to visit, but maybe other people like the cold too? Of course we can turn it up if needed, we do have central heat ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Today started out a bit crazy:

This is what my kitchen looked like at 9:30 am. Yes, there are two ranges in my kitchen, neither of which were hooked up (more on that in this post), my husband was in bed still, as he had been up to the wee hours of the morning trying to mount the anti tip bracket for the new range and five minutes after I took this picture James, Sarah and Andrew showed up! The only plus was all the dishes were clean, as I had managed to do them after breakfast.

Within two hours the kitchen looked like this, turkey in the oven, rolls made, counters in much better shape.

However the old range wasn't quiet where it should be yet. Although that got moved to the garage before lunch. After lunch there was a little more food prep and nap time for all! Ok, not quiet all, James and Nathan went to Wal-Mart, but the rest of us enjoyed a much needed nap!

Niki, Tom and Ally showed up around 4 pm and my girls were still sleeping, Sarah was feeding Andrew and Ally decided to join her with a couple other friends :-)

The girls woke up and then it was dinner time!

Way, way, way more food than we needed, but it was all good and everyone got lots of leftovers!

Everyone enjoying their meal :-)

Hannah decided she wanted to try the "chicken on a stick" like Uncle James had, so he gave it to her, she took a bite and wasn't very impressed so she gave it right back.

After dinner while clean up was going on Nathan helped entertain the girls

But apparently Andrew was not impressed with his entertainment.

Then we ate some pie, which I forgot to take a picture of, we had chocolate (which yes, I gave Evie at 7 pm!), key-lime and pecan.
And well Sarah entertained all four kids the adults had some great conversation!

We just wanted to give her practice for a few years down the road :-)

Then the girls helped entertain Andrew when he was done eat.

And this is the current state of my kitchen, the dishes in the dishwasher are clean and only the dessert dishes are left to clean, not too bad for the end of the day.

a weekend project

This past weekend Nathan took on the adventurous project of adding a gas line for our range. Our oven was it pretty bad shape, one of the four burners was broken and the element on the bottom of the oven had lost a support so it hadn't been cooking evenly for several months. We new it was time to get a new range, so after Nathan was done with his research paper we went to Lowes to see what we could find. We saw some gas ones, and Nathan knowing that I have always preferred gas over electric decided to take on the project of dropping the gas line into our kitchen, after getting an estimate of $550-$1000 for a professional to do it. It took two days, but he got the line installed and tested. He did a great job with it!

The above picture is near the beginning of the project. We ended up with a hole in above the cabinets, and as you can see below behind the hood and oven, there is also a large hole in our closet. The good thing is only the one above the cabinets is really visible :-)

Here he is installing the last length of pipe.

Since the pipe was installed before Thanksgiving I started looking for a new range. We had concluded a convection oven would be a requirement and of course gas, since we now had the option. After looking and not finding much in our price range, I discovered we have a Sears Outlet store near by, which is Sears scratch and dent appliances. I went there yesterday, found a great range which is dual fuel (gas stove top, electric oven), convection with lots of options and an amazing set of features. Way nicer than I ever thought I'd be able to get and it was marked as 60% off the original retail price! I negotiated down another $40 and bought it. The process took way to long (I think we were at the store over two hours), but I was able to borrow a friends SUV and pick it up that night and have it for Thanksgiving! It was so much fun to use today and start discovering the features, like the convect roasting option which did a great job with the turkey and cooked it super fast! And the bread option which switches back and forth between top and bottom elements to cook the rolls evenly.

Oh yeah, and it has an oven light and a window so you can see the food without opening the door!!!! :-)

Evie and chocolate

Last night for dinner we had scones, chocolate chip scones with this recipe, that my brother-in-law uses and makes way better ones than what I attempted last night, but it was my first time, so I'm sure I'll improve. All of that however is really not the point of this post. The point of this post is that I'm not learning my lesson. The scones didn't end up coming out of the oven until after 7 last night. Evie's normal bed time? 8 pm....it takes Evie awhile to eat...so she was eating until almost 8. I put her down around 8:15, even though she was bouncing off the walls. She was up until 10, half waiting for Hannah to come into the room, half playing, half being kept up by the chocolate, or so I think. I did a "note to self: don't give Evie chocolate right before bed." Today I made chocolate pie for tomorrow.....this was around 5 pm. I let Evie and Hannah sample it....Evie is still wide awake. You think I could remember one day to the next!

did you know....

Evie got a shirt on by herself this week, I walked in on her when she wasn't napping during nap time and found her putting her shirt back on! This was a big surprised as she normally is taking clothes off. She was about to take it back off, but I got so excited that she left it on.

Yes, it is inside out, but it wasn't backwards, so I thought it was still pretty good for a first attempt.

Stickers!

My grandparents were very thoughtful this year and sent us Thanksgiving cards. Ours (to Nathan and I) was one about wishing we were closers, the girls was similar, but didn't get nearly as much attention as what was included with the card. Stickers!!! Grandma had made one envelope for Hannah and one for Evie, so they both opened them and were very excited to find dog sticks and smiley face stickers. Since we were heading out the door to the park they both took two stickers and put them on their hands, a good use for stickers. After dinner (where they weren't allowed to touch the stickers because they were eating) they were very excited to play with them again. Hannah decided the best thing to do with 84 smiley face stickers was to make a "sleeve" with them all over her arm. Here's a video of her applying them.

And for those of you who don't have time for a video here are some pictures.

My parents happened to be on skype, so they got to see the artwork live....shortly after Hannah removed all her stickers my I skyped with my grandparents, who were thoroughly amused by what had been done with the stickers and pleased they didn't live close enough to help clean up the hundred plus stickers my two girls had gotten around the house. :-) I believe my grandmothers words were something to the effect of ha ha I'm a great grandmother and I can do what I want, which happens to include sending my children 168 smiley face stickers each! The good thing is they do enjoy them and Hannah actually did pick up most of the ones she took off her arm, but if you're coming to my house in the next week don't be surprised if you find one stuck in a random location. She also really enjoyed the black outline for the stickers, which she wrapped around various parts of her body while we were skyping with my grandparents, everywhere from her tummy to her foot.

Driving to Ethiopia

Yesterday we went to the park. The girls wanted to go to the "train" park, which we had only been to once before (after our most recent fire station visit), so that's where we headed. After we had been there awhile another family showed up with a girl Hannah's age and they started playing. During the course of there play I hear "do you want to go with me to Ethiopia? We can visit Aunt Becca and Uncle Lucas" and she proceeds to the steering wheel and says they're going to drive to Ethiopia. I explained that it really doesn't work to drive to Ethiopia, but this didn't seem to phase her. In fact, after a bit of driving, she went over to a map they had of the US and pointed to somewhere on the East Coast and said "this is Ethiopia" I guess we need to get her a globe :-) I have to say it's been fun to watch her imagination grow and after having the answer be "Rochester" anytime you asked Hannah where she was going at a park it was funny to here the change to Ethiopia.

H day

Yesterday was H day at school and I had a blasts, I think the girls did too. We read some H books, such as the Honey Hunt and Old Hat, New Hat, we sang so songs (the hokey poky and if you're happy and you know it) and hopped! We microwaved a marshmallow to see what heat would do to it, made biscuits and talked about halves while making them and that two halves make a whole. Then we had hot biscuits with honey! We also talked about harvesting and made a hand print turkey. Here are the ones Hannah and Evie made.

As you can see Evie was very into blue yesterday, with blue paper, blue feathers and blue hand prints. Also no, the choice of location for the feathers was all Evie, I just helped a little with getting the glue out.

Hannah did a great job gluing all the feathers on by herself, she also added extra green at the head for food for the turkey.

And can someone explain the definition of washable to me? I can never seem to get "washable" things completely off of my kids hands (this picture was taken after I had washed her hands a few times, and the color is a bit faded because of the flash, but it was the best I could get, as Evie was not being very cooperative)

bumps in the night

Yesterday Evie decided she didn't want her bed rail anymore, so we took it off. Not such a smart idea, apparently. As around 10 pm we hear a loud bump and then screaming. We go up and Hannah is screaming/crying because Evie fell out of bed, Evie however was fine and just got up and climbed right back into bed. Needless to say we have put the bed rail back on the bed. However, Hannah did wake up in the middle of the night saying she wanted to come in Mommy and Daddy's bed because she didn't want to sleep with Evie anymore, poor girl. That's the second time this week she hasn't wanted to sleep with Evie, the first earlier this week was when she had a dream about Evie tickling her. I made her stay in her bed and she seemed to sleep fine the rest of the night.

They won!!!!!!!!!!!

No more papers, no more books...

Ok, not quiet that far, but Nathan did finish and hand in his paper Thursday. He presents it in class tomorrow. The only thing he has left to do for the rest of the semester is normal class reading, which isn't much. Yesterday Nathan took the day off from school work and we got to have some family time. He even got up with the girls and let me sleep!
Wednesday however, Nathan took the day off to work on his paper, as well as having the day off Thursday because of the holiday he was able to complete it. Being at home working on the paper Wednesday meant we had to be out of the house. The girls have a cold (which is getting much better) and it was pretty bad earlier in the week, so I didn't want to get together with anyone, so we tried other things to keep ourselves occupied. We went to the space center in the morning, which the girls are totally loving and asking to go all the time now. I'm making sure to get my monies worth out of the membership :-) We actually sat and watched a science presentation, which both the girls enjoyed and sat quietly during the whole thing. In the afternoon, since it was raining all day, we went to the pet store. A great free activity to do with small children :-) PetSmart has a doggy day care which had about a dozen dogs at it. The girls stood watching for a good long time. They also enjoyed the small rodents, fish and live crickets :-)

Car washing fun

We did school on Friday this week because my girls were sick earlier in the week. This week it was at Niki's house, so I got Evie to myself, which is always fun. I decided to get out the hose and wash the car since it was a nice day and the car hadn't been washed in years (yes years). Evie had a blast and was very good at cleaning then rinsing with the hose.

I even washed the inside of the windows, which was badly needed.

playing with hair

I've been doing Hannah's hair on Monday nights while Nathan's at school and after Evie goes to bed. It's been working out great, I bath the girls together, put Evie down and have about an hour to have fun and experiment on Hannah's hair. A couple weeks ago I had kind of done a part from the middle, but it wasn't totally purposeful. This week I did it on purpose and here are the results.

This is just in poofs before I braided it, I'm thinking I should have left it like that....

The braids last night from the back...

From the front....she was so excited about her new hair style that when she heard Daddy come home she called for him to come up and see it.

This morning (why the poofs may have been better), the front four braids are sticking straight up and she wouldn't let me do anything to change it! She liked it and thought it looked like a crown.

Family Relations

Yesterday Hannah was showing a picture of Joey to Evie and telling Evie about him and explaining that he was her (Hannah's) cousin. Hannah then turns to me and asks "Are Joey and Jameson Evie's cousin too?" my answer? Of course, you have the same family. Her response? "Why doesn't Evie have brothers?" hmmm.....good question, I wasn't ready for that. Hannah has two half brothers, who we get to see and visit with and count as her brothers......so are they Evie's brothers too? No. I totally fumbled the question, but I know it will come up again. I told Nathan about it last night and he said to remind her how special she is because she gets two families, her birth family and her forever family. We'll see if I can remember that next time.

What Hannah found at church

For those of you who don't know, our church is out in the middle of a big field, which means lots of bugs get into it. Sunday, after service had let out I was standing around talking and Hannah comes up to me and says "look Mommy" holding out her hand and then proceeds to give me the object in it which she had found.

Wait, you didn't catch what it is from that first photo, let me get you a close up

It's a giant spider! It was actually up-side-down when she handed it to me, and I should have taken a picture of that too, as all it's legs are folded up because it's dead, but I didn't. Anyway, as you can see from these pictures, the spider came home with us, because we had to show Daddy who was at home working on his research paper that's due Thursday that he finally just started writing Saturday....but we won't go into that.

Saturday at the park

Saturday afternoon we went to Bay Area Park, which is about a 15 minute drive, it's one of the bigger parks we go to. Saturday was a gorgeous day and the park was packed! When we got there and got out the girls just stood for a minute taking in all the people. The good thing about this park is there is more to do than just play, after playing for a few minutes....

So Evie could do things like practice her balance by standing on a car with a large spring on the bottom (I missed the picture of her stand straight up without holding on to anything, sorry, but here she is still standing, just has lowered her center of gravity). We went for a walk, they have a newly replaced board walk (it had been destroyed when Ike came through 2+ years ago and they just fixed it) with a sign that warns about alligators. I read that out loud to the girls (sorry, didn't think to take a picture of it) and totally freaked Hannah out...oops. They have a small garden area, that didn't have much because of the time of year, after exploring those two things we went back and played a little longer and then went to see the ducks (or are they geese?)!
Which apparently it was nap time for.

They let us get really close and Hannah was thrilled and intrigued! She enjoyed finding out that they could close their eyes just like her when she sleeps. And she was surprised they could poop while sleeping and standing up! We stood watching them sleep for awhile.

Most of them slept on their left leg, which I found interesting because only one was standing on the right leg. I also was surprised by the curve and angle of their neck to tuck it into their feather...you can see it here a little bit.

Here's Evie with what we like to call the ugly ducks :-)

After the ducks we went down to the dock where some people came and fished while we were there and the girls were very excited about that, especially Hannah. She wanted to fish too. We also learned about crabbing, because someone had left crab lines off the dock and one of the people fishing told us what they were and how they worked. All in all I good fun time!

Don't touch the cake!

I made a cake Friday for some friends from church who just had a baby, I was bring them dinner and his birthday was the next day. I had the cake on the counter, and of course Evie wanted to watch as I frosted it. I told her not to touch the cake, the phone rang, I turned for less than a minute to answer and turned back around to this:

I guess I need to be more specific next time if I don't want her eating all my frosting! To her credit she didn't touch the cake :-)