Turkey Day Complete :)

Ah - big sigh of relief for one holiday down. It turned out really good! Everything was done on time, and everyone arrived on time! :) Renee brought Cheesecake, Pumpkin Bread, Deer Meat, Stuffing and Olives! Pat brought a duck wrapped in bacon in a bed of wild rice! Everything tasted sooo good!! :)

And the house even got cleaned! We rearranged the kitchen and it's amazing how it looks so much better and roomier! And here it is 4 days after and it is still clean! That's the most amazing part of it all. I can still see my counter!

We are all pretty much turkeyed out after eating turkey for 4 days!

We got right to work on Saturday rearranging the living rooms, bringing out the Christmas decorations and putting up the Christmas tree! We all had such a wonderful Holiday weekend! We even broke out the Christmas movies and cuddled up watching them all weekend.

T Day

;) Who's not ready for the big T-Day yet? Did my grocery shopping Monday - what a nightmare! I figured Monday wouldn't be so bad. Figured that everyone would be out over the weekend or on Wed. I figured wrong :) Anyway, we survived the trip and that's all that matters ;)
This blog will sadly be sans pictures as I really need to get to work on cleaning for company! I didn't really take a whole lot this week anyway - more of Beatrice sucking her thumb (it's so darn cute!). But of course there will be pictures of Thanksgiving as soon as I can get to the computer afterwards.
I finally caught some videos of Beatrice laughing! Now I just need to figure out how to edit them so you don't hear me being retarded for 10 minutes beforehand! ;)
Anyway, short blog :)
Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!

Yes, it has been an entire week since I blogged!!

Maria had her veteran's day concert on Monday. That was nice because Mike had the day off, so he got to come. Good thing because he ended up having to take Duncan out due to a nice little sobbing fit. Amazingly Beatrice was good for the whole thing... go figure. All the choir kids were supposed to wear red, white and blue. Not many of them did. Maria is the one second to the left. If you click on the picture you should be able to see her better. Maria wore a red shirt, black skirt and white leggings. Well, the white leggings somehow disappeared before the recital.
Me: Looks like she took off her white leggings.

Mike: No, she's still got them on.

Me: uh, no, those are her legs.

Luckily the pictures are dark so they are not as apparent :) She had a great time anyway. She loves chorus - wants to be a singer. She wants to sing a song for the talent show in Feb. She wants to sing "Cool Rider" from Grease 2! I just don't know about that.

Maria has been teaching Duncan some new things. How fun it is to roll around on the floor :) and how to run around like Superman! :) It's really cute. And they've been having a great time at it. He also loves piggyback rides.

So, you probably thought I wasn't going to mention that I had a birthday last weekend... the older you get, the less you want to celebrate turning another year closer to 40! ;) (or whatever the next big number is for you). Well, it was a good birthday anyway. I just spent it hanging out with my family :) I got a beautiful bouquet of lillies that are just making the kitchen smell terriffic!! A really cool Betty Crocker recipe card box (with some really awesome recipes inside!). A Stephen King book, and some really great cards! My favorite is from the kids. It says "Somebody be a dear and get me one of those pills that makes the Mommy happy" :)

Anyway, it snowed again on Friday and Saturday and then again yesterday and last night... it actually stuck last night. grumble grumble. And just thought I would throw in some more pictures as if I don't already have too many in this blog ;)

First Flurries of the Season!

Yes, it flurried like mad out there Monday afternoon! In the morning it was sleeting! Mike ran into flurries on his way to work, it was just raining here until about 11am... and after that it was sleet and flurries. BRRRR. Around 2pm it was a blizzard out there! Fortunately none of it stuck.


Just thought I would post some interesting weather facts... while we were trick or treating at the first house (sweet old couple) they said that not too long ago there was a blizzard on Halloween... I found it on this website: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mkx/wiwx.php
"Halloween Snow Storm - October 31- November 2, 1991. Northwest and west central Wisconsin. 15 to 30 inches of snow. 6 to 10 foot drifts" As well as some interesting weather info on Couderay: "State's record coldest temperature -55 F set in Couderay on February 2nd and 4th 1996"
Mike finally got his weather center up and running - and it automatically updates hourly at http://www.redwing.net/~kdemarr/mikespage.htm it is the accurate weather from our house ;) Of course the temp gauge only goes to -21, so if it gets colder than that it will read an error... we did have a few days last year that were -32! I will eventually get a website up and running on our free space from our internet provider... but for now you will all just have to settle for the weather page ;)



****Several people have told me that they've had problems trying to post comments on the blog... I am going to have to guess that the problem is that I usually leave a blog I'm working on active and up on the computer for days at a time... so maybe if I start logging out of blogger (it saves drafts anyway, so I don't have to worry about losing them) people will be able to leave comments... so go ahead and try commenting again.****




What else has been going on this week?? Beatrice has not had any screaming fits - so now I'm convinced that it was my eating the spicy chipotle sauce from McDonald's like 3 days in a row that caused her such discomfort. So, no more spicy chipotle :(





Beatrice has slept through the night for the past week and a half!! Of course last night she woke up around 3am, but I think it was only because the dog was whining... that stupid dog! Jo-Jo is afraid of the dark... she jumps at the door to get in once it starts getting dark out... now with the time change it's pitch black by 5 or so - and it's nearly impossible to make her go out after dark. The other night she started whining at midnight, so last night I made sure she went out around 9... well she must have eaten some food when she went out because last night she was whining at midnight so I got up and let her out... then she was whining at 3am, 5am, 6am... ugh! I refused to let her out again, thinking I didn't want her to make a habit of having to go out in the middle of the night... and I won't even finish this story because it ends in tragedy with me dragging the kennel out the back door and scrubbing the floor at 6am...





Both little ones are congested and have runny noses :( I think it's because Duncan pretended to eat (and put his mouth on) some fake food at playgroup...


We got a really awesome electric stove heater :) it's so pretty :) and nice and warm :) Of course after a couple of days we realized that the kitchen was freezing because the house heater wasn't kicking on... so we have to move the electric heater from beneath the thermostat... it was the perfect place to put it if it weren't for the thermostat... so now we have to do a little rearranging...




Duncan has taken it upon himself to start yelling at himself when he's doing something naughty... He'll stand up on the couch and jump and yell at himself "sit downs!" he'll climb on top of his toy box and yell at himself "no kimbins dit downs!" He's become such a parrot! He repeats just about everything he hears, including random phrases from the television. He still loves playing inside his toy box... and I'm teaching him the colors green, yellow and brown in an interesting way ;) (just threw that in to see if anyone actually reads this).









Maria is doing good. Madly in love with the high school musical hat and gloves I picked up for her yesterday at Wal-Mart - she wore the hat all night. Oddly she was way too exited about the Wisconsin tests this week. Couldn't wait all weekend... the night before the tests started the truth came out - they were giving away FREE BREAKFAST at school on the testing days! If it's got to do with food, Maria is excited about it. "Mom, can I join the D.A.R.E. program at school? It's got something to do with drugs, I can't remember what it stands for, but at the end of it there's an ice cream party!"


Beatrice found her thumb! and keeps finding it ;) it's damn cute! And she is holding on to toys :)

Nap Strike Diaries...

OK, so I worked on the "Halloween" blog for 4 days! (just published it today with yesterdays date on it) :) I was just going to blog about taking the little ones to play group on Monday, and then do another one with all 3 kids dressed up... Let's just say it's been a rough week... Beatrice has been colicky all week :( starting Monday just after playgroup with screaming fits... and on top of that it's been major nap strikes with Duncan all week. Monday afternoon was just crazy - Every time I would get Beatrice asleep and try to lay her down she would wake up and start crying again... and Duncan's new form of nap strike is not just laying there crying or jabbering, he started getting up and running out of the room! Monday afternoon I put the gate up at his door (after he came running out about 20 times) - then he threw everything he could get his hands on over the gate... I spent the entire afternoon (3 hours) trying to get him to stay in bed and take a nap while trying to keep Beatrice from screaming... It was not a fun afternoon. Tuesday was much the same except for after putting Duncan back in bed about 10 times I gave up and just put him to bed at 7pm. But of course he just does not function well without a nap and he was cranky and naughty quite a bit more than usual... So Wednesday I was determined to make him take his nap. I tried everything - put him back in bed, stood at the door and laid him back down every time he got up, sat in there with him and kept laying him back down... until finally I just held him down with my legs across him (while nursing the baby) until he fell asleep... He cried, he laughed, cried again then gave up. It took 1 1/2 hours to get him to sleep, but then he slept for 2 hours and I was able to get a few things done. And he was much better behaved last night. Today it only took 45 mins (and a chorus of crying)!



We have started using the time out chair from Emma for Duncan... here he is taking a time out

And here he is turning away from the camera - humiliating to have your picture taken in the naughty chair :)
Here's Beatrice working the mic with Dad :)
She's a fast learner ;)
Duncan on his sit and spin....
which is on top of his chair and a few blankets... yes, danger is his middle name...

Dad reading Duncan his bedtime storyMom actually getting to finish a meal :)