Winter Fun

We took the kids up to my parent's place last weekend.  It has taken me a while to post the pictures, it has been a very busy week.  The kids wanted to go to the cabin and ice skate and ice fish.  Grandpa Mike bought each of them a pair of double-bladed skates and he and Brian shoveled off an area of ice on the lake.  The kids had a blast ice skating.  As you can see from the not so great picture above, Mackenzie was pretty much off and running on her own from the get-go.  Lexie and Grandma and Grandpa helped Isaac.  He had some difficulties at first keeping his feet together, but he eventually figured it out.

They both liked the ice fishing as well and they got to see Uncle Mike and his friend Corey catch a pike.  Unfortunately it was not big enough to keep (24 inches), but it was still quite big to them.

Finally at the end of the day we took Lexie to a Japanese steakhouse called Genji's in Midland with us and everyone had a great time watching our chef cook dinner and almost everyone ate their food enthusiastically.

Unfortunately we only had one night with Grandma and Grandpa, but I am loving the fact that we are close enough to visit for only one night!



Bean Bags

After watching Charlie Brown's Halloween, Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving, and Charlie Brown's Christmas numerous times and seeing the kids in the shows sitting on bean bag chairs, I thought we might want to give bean bag chairs a chance in our den.  The room isn't small, however with a fireplace on one wall, huge windows/doors on another wall, and the entrance to the kitchen on the third wall, there is really only one wall available.  I don't like the look of a huge line-up of furniture on one wall.  We had tried having a chair in addition to our couch and having it in the room sideways to the wall with the fireplace, but I hadn't loved that either.  With just our sofa, the four of us can fit on the couch (for now) but no one else, if we have visitors. 

So I thought maybe bean bag chairs could be the answer.  Of course I am on a do-it-myself kick, so I decided to look for instructions to make my own.  I found a tutorial from Michael Miller Fabrics here: http://www.michaelmillerfabrics.com/Blog/bean_bag_chair.pdf.  The picture made it look kind of small, but I thought it would work for the kids so I gave it a shot.  Fortunately I have a lot of fabric right now (much to Brian's chagrin) so I didn't have to go to the fabric store for the project.  All I needed was some velcro and bean bag filler (I found beans made from recycled material, which was great).  Here are the results:

Brian helped me fill the inside lining with the beans and I think we may have over-filled them.  I was hoping they would squish down some after they were sat on for a while.  I may be deluding myself, but I think they are, even though currently if you sit on them hard enough the velcro blows open.  Here is a picture of the kids on them watching Cars this morning:

They fit very nicely in the corner next to the couch when they aren't being used, so the room looks nice and spacious, the colord match the couch and woodwork nicely, and the kids love them.  I think they are going to do quite nicely!

Happy Belated New Years

It has been quite a week here and it is only Wednesday.  Luckily Brian has been off the last two weeks because we have had quite a cold go through our house.  Currently I cannot breathe and my nose looks a lot like Rudolph.  Mackenzie and Brian seem to be pretty much over it.  Mackenzie was sick mostly last week with a fever on Wednesday and Thursday.  Isaac got a fever Sunday and he still had a fever today.  Brian took him to the doctor today and the doctor thinks it is viral, but if the fever is still there on Friday they are going to do a lung x-ray to make sure it isn't pneumonia.  Like I said, I am super congested but no fever so far. So hopefully Isaac's fever will break and I will be able to breathe tomorrow and we will be on the road to recovery.

We had our annual New Year's pasta dinner on New Year's Eve.  Friends and co-workers of mine, Sunil, Luis and Gopal came over with their families and we had dinner and did an early countdown with the kids.  If I do say so myself, my pasta was pretty good, the wine was quite excellent, and the kids seemed to have an awesome time.

Tonight Isaac was totally wound up because the doctor's visit was at three o'clock so he took a nap on either side of the visit.  Anyway, I was upstairs with him after his bath and getting him dressed and he was running around.  I went into the bathroom to get a tissue and Isaac runs in and I thought he said "Screw you" and then he ran back out.  I went out to the hallway and asked him what he had just said and he repeated "Screw you".  So I asked him what that meant and he says, "You burped, excuse you."  Evidently he thought the sound of me blowing my nose quite loudly was a burp.  I am glad that I asked what he thought he was saying instead of telling him that saying "Screw you" isn't very nice.  I can just see him running around and telling Mackenzie, "Screw you!"

Also in the way of interesting things my kids say, we have taught both kids to say "Go Irish", of course.  It really caught on this fall with Isaac.  Lately when they are home in the evenings Isaac will say "Go Irish" and Mackenzie will say "Go Buckeyes" and Isaac will say "NO Mackenzie, Go Irish".  This will go back and forth a bit and eventually one of them will switch to "Go Michigan".  Evidently the kids were saying "Go Irish" at school and their teachers have been helping them with some new phrases. It is hard for both Brian and I not to teach them some sarcastic phrases about the Buckeyes and their recent problems, but so far we have told the kids that they are allowed to root for whatever school they want, however I am secretly praying that neither of them wants to attend Ohio State.

A happy 2012 to all, hopefully it has been less snotty at your house.

Merry Christmas!

We are getting ready to drive up to Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Mike's, but I wanted to quickly post a Merry Christmas.

Here is a picture of the kids last night in their Christmas pajamas in our bed getting ready to watch Prep and Landing before going retiring for the night.  They were incredibly tired kids as they had not napped and had had a very busy day with our Perrysburg family celebrating Christmas.

I am Such a Proud Mom

I think that I am about the proudest mom in the world tonight.  Despite the fact that Isaac is fighting going to bed right now by telling Daddy that he has to go potty and then not leaving the bathroom.

This morning while I was driving the kids to daycare Mackenzie told me that she wanted to get her cousins Christmas presents.  I told her that I had already gotten her cousins presents from her and Isaac.  She then told me that she wanted to go to the store and use her credit card to buy presents for her cousins.  My Grandma Conklin sent both kids a $5 Target giftcard, which they call their credit cards.  My Grandma Krotzer also sent a $10 check.  Isaac opened that card and was very excited about the check and would not give it up.  So I told him that I would cash the check and that he and Mackenzie could spend the money with their credit cards.  So by the time we got to daycare the two of them had decided that they were going to buy gifts for all 7 of their cousins with their money and credit cards and I told them that I would take them to the store after school.

I figured that I would take them to Target where they could shop at the dollar section right inside the door.  Honestly, I expected that once we got there they would want to buy something for themselves.  But I was pleasantly surprised when we got there that they went right to work picking out presents for their cousins.  They even picked out something for all of their grandparents as well.  I was extremely proud that they stuck to their original intention and that they chose to use their presents to buy presents for their cousins.

 Merry Christmas to everyone!

Oh Bother

So, it was evidently a good idea for us not to go to Grandma and Grandpa's last weekend.  Not because of the kids' germs, but because of mine.  I was pretty sick last night.  I am not sure if it was the flu or food poisoning yet, but I am guessing within a couple of days I will know.  If no one else gets sick poisoning, yay!

Currently the kids are watching our annual Christmas showing of "The Easter Bunny is Coming to Town".  I need to separate the holiday movies out of our movie case and pack them up with the holiday decorations.  For anyone who doesn't remember "The Eater Bunny is Coming to Town" good for you.  The song "What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg" is terrible and it gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day.  I asked Mackenzie if this meant we could put our Christmas decorations away and she said, "No, I like Christmas and Easter."  I asked her if she knew what Christmas was about and she said, "Yes, baby Jesus."  I then asked her if she knew what Easter was about and she said, "Yes, eggs."  I guess we have a few months to work on that one.

I think Brian and I may watch "Christmas in Connecticut" if the kids go to bed on time tonight.  Much more seasonal.

Christmas is Almost Here

Our three months of Christmas is speeding by lately.  We went to see Santa last Monday.   The kids had a blast.  We went to Bass Pro Shop and they had a pretty nice setup so that the kids were occupied while we waited in line.  The baby in line in front of us had a classic "Get me off this stranger's lap!" pose, but Mackenzie and Isaac loved it.  Mackenzie asked Santa for Xia Xia Crabs and Isaac asked Santa for Lightning and Mater.  I have a feeling that Santa will deliver.

The kids and I were not feeling well all week as we had a really terrible cold.  Then on Friday Mackenzie's teacher warned me that the flu that had been going through the preschool class had hit Mackenzie's class pretty hard and that two children were out Friday.  I won't mention the gory details here, but it sounded terrible.  So Brian and I decided we shouldn't share our definite and possible nasty germs with my parents.  The kids were super depressed that they didn't get to go see Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Mike, so I decided to try and have lots of fun things for them to do this weekend.

Yesterday we made a gingerbread house.  I made the dough in the morning as it had to chill for at least 2 hours.  I cut out the house pieces while the kids were doing their quiet time and then Mackenzie came down and made cookies while Isaac slept.  She rolled the dough out and cut out all of the small stars and gingerbread boys on her own, and then used the spatula to move them to the side so that I could put them on the cookie sheets after the house pieces finished cooking.  I was extremely impressed with how well she did.

Finally, once Isaac woke up we decorated the house.  The kids decided that each of them would have a side and Mackenzie decided that she would use the red candies and Isaac would use the green.  They each got a "boy", Isaac is under the double peppermints and Mackenzie is under the wreath.

Again, I was extremely impressed with my children's talents.

We were going to go to the mall today and I was going to let the kids pick out some Christmas gifts for their grandparents and godparents.  Isaac has never been to a mall.  However, we checked when we got up and most of the malls here don't open until 11 or noon.  We do most of our activities in the morning since Isaac still naps and since we get up at six am.  So that made a trip to the mall pretty unlikely.  Instead we did some online shopping, decorated the star cookies and played outside, which the kids loved.  Meanwhile I got some presents wrapped and Mackenzie put them under the tree for me while Isaac napped.  Bring on Christmas!