Holiday Concert :)

Maria had her winter concert last night. She played in the band and sang in the choir. Of course the high school band did about 5 songs, then the high school choir sang like 10 really lame and slow christmas songs... so by the time the 5th and 6th graders got to play their songs and sing their songs the two little ones were already done in. Pretty much every parent with small children was out in the hall by that time. Amazingly it was Duncan who was acting up. That happened at Maria's veteran's day recital too - Beatrice was fine the whole time, Mike had to take Duncan out because he was crying. Well this time Duncan kept talking very loudly. Which is crazy because every other time we're in public he clams up. He saw Maria and started yelling "Mia."
Anyway, sadly the 5th and 6th grade choir got 2 songs cut from the 7 they were supposed to sing :( they should have cut some of the high school choir's songs! We caught some video of Maria's band performance. We need to get a better video camera for events like this - in normal mode everything is too far away so you can't see anything, but when we zoom in to where you can actually make people out it's blurry :( Maria is the one in the center. She did a really great job. She had been practicing a lot over the past few weeks and I don't think she played a bad note at all :)

Snow pics - finally!

So I finally looked through the tons of pics of the kids in the snow from a few weeks ago! :) We got about 6" that day, then 2 more a couple of days later, then another 2 or so a couple more days later :)

Here is Duncan getting bundled up to go out

Peeking from the railing

He absolutely loved playing in the snow this year! He just ran around and ran around. He didn't want to come in!

Poor Maria was trying to make a fort, but Jo-Jo wouldn't leave her alone -

she kept wanting to sit in Maria's lap!

Maria showing Duncan how to make a snowball
Maria tredging out throught the yard on her knees :)
Playing :)
Making snow angels
Maria getting ready to help Dad shovel

Dad running around with Duncan
Maria running around with Duncan

And of course, Beatrice hung out inside where it was warm :)
Here she snatched up some of Mike's hair and started chewing on it! She's fast!

Videos :)

We had an extra cold morning! The overnight low was too cold to register on our weather station - the lowest it goes is -21. It was -15 when we woke up in the morning! We got the big 7" snowfall over the weekend, then we got a couple inches on Tuesday and got a couple more inches this afternoon! I guess we're having a more traditional Wisconsin winter this year! I will post pictures of the kids playing in the snow in my next post... have to narrow down the pictures :) there was just too many good ones!

Haven't quite gotten to editing any videos to post, but actually caught a few that didn't really need editing :) didn't catch her laughing, but she's been doing this growling, groveling throaty noise that's really hilarious! We got that and her sucking her upper lip :) Anyway, enjoy!

'Tis the Season to Humiliate our babies :)

Who doesn't love to dress their kids up for the holidays? :) I went revisiting pictures from the last couple of years and dug out some good ones :) But I'll start off with some of Beatrice from this year.Of course, most photo shoots end in tragedy ;)
A little reindeer
What pretty antlers you have


Now here are some I dug up of Duncan from 2005!

The Elf Outfit
We've got lots of pictures of him crying in this outfit!
And the Reindeer getup appears again ;)
The Santa shirt and hat

The Christmas Sleeper
What a happy guy :)

And here are some pictures from last year
Everyone loved the antlers!
Though Duncan was a little hesitant at first

And here's last year's Christmas card outtake :) (one of the many anyway)

Freezing Cold!!

I guess we're in the thick of it now! Right now it's .5 degrees out there. Luckily there isn't much wind, but we're still under a wind chill advisory that's been under effect since 10pm last night. With the wind chill they were talking -35! Our weather center logged a windchill of -14.5 at 9am! Of course it only collects data every hour, so we could have had lower windchills... We went out to Wal-Mart yesterday after Mike got home from work to get our outside dog some cedar bedding. Last year we were more prepared, it was more of a gradual thing. This year it just snuck up really quick and caught us a little underprepared. We bought a shovel today over lunch. There's a winter storm warning for this weekend - Sat through Sun morning. We could get up to 8" of snow! With high winds, drifting and blizzard conditions! Yuck!!! Yuck Yuck!

It's that time of year already!

Christmas is just around the corner! Who came up with 3 major holidays all within a couple months of each other?? Crazy. Just thought I would post some pictures of us getting our Christmas tree put up.

It's already been damn cold here! We have snow on the ground from the day after Thanksgiving - just a half an inch or so. We were supposed to get 3 inches between last night and this morning, but it looks like it's running a little late... It got down to 5 degrees Thanksgiving night - and wouldn't you know it, the power went out at 2:30am! We got up and woke Maria up to come sleep downstairs as the temperature was dropping fast in her room. Luckily the power came back on at about 4:30am so we didn't all freeze :) Yesterday was probably the coldest day so far. It got down to 3 degrees and -5 with wind chill around 10am. Our weather center keeps track of the temp and wind chill and such and logs it every hour, it's pretty handy :) I put a link to our weather page on the sidebar.

Beatrice rolled over for the first time the other day! :) It's amazing how fast they grow! Every little thing they accomplish is so exciting :)

More Thanksgiving Pictures :)

I didn't get the chance yesterday to get all the pictures I wanted to post uploaded - it's so time consuming ;) There's a few pictures of family, one of Duncan

and his pumpkin pie ;) last year he said pie for weeks after thanksgiving, this year of course he did not eat the pie - but said "pumpkin pie" ;)

Sally's new lounging spot is right in front of the electric stove. Of course on thursday you couldn't keep her away from the oven. She gravitates to the warmest spot in the house and if it happens to smell like food = all the better!!
And I had to include a picture of the clean kitchen - taken just the night before last. And amazingly it is still clean!