Goodbye Grandpa

My last living grandfather past away on the 27th. He was a good man. He was a good husband and good father. And he was an outstanding pinochle player and a great fisherman :). You will be missed Grandpa!

Getting Outside

If you do not go outside because of the weather, this very well may happen in your house too....

Picture Tag?

Well, I've been tagged by Jen at Life is Chaos, Give Me More and I thought this would be fun. We are hyper-organizers so I had to go a few more folders into folders but this is what I got following these rules:

1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer
2) Select the 4th picture in the folder
3) Explain the picture
4) Tag 4 people to do the same

This is a picture of Mike when he was a super-little tyke. We had our mothers send us pictures of us when we were babies when we had Luke. We were trying to figure out if our kids looked anything like us. Not so much, eh? Our kids are way cuter than both of us!

I'm tagging:

Horn Herd Mom at The Horn Herd
Wanda at Sharing With Friends and Family
Sara at The Ski's
Alycia at Tyson, Alycia & Brenna

We made it through...

We made it through a really bad week of the stomach bug here at house. Everyone had it. Ick! I will not dwell on it but I am so thankful that God makes our bodies to fight off infections (even if the methods are some what disgusting).

But I have to share. I just have to! Spring will be coming (I'm ignoring the projected high of 4 degrees above zero for Saturday). So I am getting my garden plan and seeds together. Here are some of the things I'm planning on growing.

Broccoli - for the first time!
Little Gem Lettuce - first time!
Roma Tomatoes
Lemon Boy Tomatoes
California Wonder Peppers
Anaheim Peppers
Jalapeno Peppers
Serrano Peppers
Cilantro
Onions
Stevia - first time - hope it germinates!
Dill
Cucumbers
Long Island Cheese Pumpkins
Butternut Squash
Zucchini (I'm going to try a row cover to keep that darn bug away!)

And a whole bunch of flowers - cosmos, zinnias, petunias, four o'clocks and all the perennials that are already out there.

Oh, I can't wait to get started! I know I need to wait another month before I can start the broccoli and lettuce seeds but I am pretty pumped about this year. Can you tell? Oh, and I hope to maybe sell some of the plants I start. I don't need all those peppers! I'm going to have to figure out where all these plants are going to go.....but then, that's half the fun. :)

My Thought For The Day

"The only banks that are doing well right now are snow banks."

~Tanna 2009

Shoes & Little Girls

Yesterday, I decided to take Abby & Libby shoe shopping at Payless at the mall. After that, I thought they could play in the little play area that is located very close to the store (it has a broccoli tree that doubles as a slide - it really doesn't get much more fun than that). Abby has been in desperate need of new tennis shoes for about a month but with everything else going on it just has not happened. So off we went. I got a sweet parking spot and decided that it was not worth getting the stroller out of the van because Libby can walk and she is pretty well behaved and likes to stay close to me. And we were going to just get some shoes and then go play.....

So we go to Payless and I carry Libby into the store. I put her down and we start looking at tennis shoes for Abby. Then I realize I should probably measure her foot - she'd grown even more than I thought! Time to look at a larger size. Libby is doing great. She's saying "shoes, shoes." Ah, I think, she really does play with shoes a lot at home (I believe I've posted about this fact before).

So we start trying shoes on Abby. I'm continually directing her away from the Disney princess shoes (the last two pair have been Disney princess and I'm tired of it!). We try on a pair of white tennies that have pink sparkles and those fit. I look and see Libby has now taken off her shoes and is also trying on shoes that are way to big for her. Oh well, I think, I'll put them back.

"Let's try another pair, Abby." And I pick out a pair that I would wear and she trys them on and they fit too. Slyly, I try to convince Abby that this is the better pair cause they won't look as dirty, they have blue on them so they'll go with jeans, etc, etc....Libby now has her socks off and is randomly pulling out shoes and trying them on. Okay, at this point it needs to stop, so I put Libby's socks on and decide to measure her foot too. Wow! Her foot has grown too! So we look down at the shoes for Libby because she is obsessed with trying on shoes and I figure - let's see what they got (even though I have a 18 gallon rubbermaid container filled with shoes for all that Luke & Abby have out grown).

I see a pair that I would like and try to convince Libby to try them on. She'll have nothing of the sort, she wants the glitter, princess, mary jane shoes and starts screaming because she won't try on the ones that I want but is contorting her body in impossible ways to she grab the glitter princess shoes......Aghhhh! Now we need to go. Abby picked out the white shoes with the pink glitter spots on them and I'm fighting a tantrum throwing almost 2 year old over trying to get the shoes on that she was wearing when we came into the store! Aghhhh! Why am I shopping without a stroller? Strollers are God's gift to the modern mother. They are miniature prisons that keep children in check as they are buckled in. I must remember this fact!

We make it to the cashier. And I say, in my complete embarrassment at the LOUD tantrum that was just given:

"I should have known, she likes to play with shoes more than anything else at home."

The cashier replys, "Who needs toys when you've got shoes?"

So true, so true. Lesson learned.

It's not my resolution...

to post more. Or perhaps, I should say more regularly. So I haven't broken that one. Gotta make yourself glad by something!

Here are a few funny things that I thought to myself this past week (not to be outdone by my stand-up comic children).

1. Imagine how cold I'd be if I hadn't gained that five pounds.
2. We should really have a coffee dispenser in the shower. (said New Year's Day).

We had a wonderful holiday season. We are so truly blessed by knowing God and celebrating Him come in flesh. We are also so blessed to live in society that is prosperous enough to be able to celebrate the ringing in of a new year. Family is also a blessing and it was wonderful for the kids to see both sets of grandparents within a few days of each other.

Libby really got attached to them. She transposed? the word Grandma, so instead she says: MaGa! MaGa! MaGa! Ah, she is so sweet! We'd say "You mean Grandma?" And she'd say, "Yeah, MaGa."

Here are just a few pictures:

At the Melting Pot in Chicagoland

Mike and his parents:

Ummmm, that's a little too much Abby:


Libby when I went to get her up from her nap, must have been hot lol:

Explaining how the Princess Leapster game works:


Grandma sitting by the princess - Abby LOVES those pj's!