Today we are supposed to be hit with an ice storm and I have been told we could get up to an inch of ice. Now either this didn't happen last winter or I simply blocked it out because of the ugliness it sounds like it will be. There is talk of losing power..right now it's only 23 degress (quite warm since it only got up to 9 earlier this week) I am thankful my heat runs on gas, even more thankful that a week or so ago when some part of my furnace failed and wouldn't stay lit it was quickly fixed that same day and so I have no worries of us all freezing here. I am starting to get a bit cabin feverish though, the weather/road conditions have not been good for a full week now and there fore has kept us from going on any walks/runs in the past week. The tredmill is definately going to save my mind this winter.

A few weeks ago we had our first snow and I took some pictures of the kids having fun in it...well Kylie was having fun, Owen was having a hard time figuring out how to walk in the stuff and fell over...got cold..started crying...and wanted to go back inside within about 5 minutes.

Kylie also had her Chritmas pre-school program last week. She did great, definately nothing wrong with that child's vocal chords....I felt bad for the little boy sitting next to her though, at one point he turned his head and just glared at her with a look that clearly said "must you sing SOOO loudly?" She just kept singing and smiling and waving. I just kept video taping and tried not to laugh to hard.

Here she is in her Christmas Dress before we left for the program.

Fall Catch Up

I realize it has been way to long since I have blogged, I've been quite busy though with taking pictures (which you can see on my website) and then editing them all and then turning them into lovely little photo books :) And with all of that my motivation to write has been pretty low every day and therefore I have just not done it. So here's what we have been up to this fall!

We have been raking leaves, jumping in leaves, and then my favorite part...burning them!

Kylie has been in her first adorable pre-school fall program in which she was dressed like a farmer :) She helped me pick out what she would wear the night before and was so excited that she almost slept in her overalls and red handkerchief. She also went and found my cowboy hat and said she needed to where it because farmers where hats, I just giggled and said, oh OK. As you can see in the pictures, she looked adorable :) I was mostly impressed that she stood in one place for half an hour singing and doing all the motions of the songs with a big smile on her face the whole time!

We also got to go to a farm and watch one of their last days of harvesting. Kylie and I rode in the big semi which hauls the corn and also the swather (no idea how to spell this) which was really cool, I could fallen asleep with the whole rhythmic movement of that amazing piece of machinery. Owen also rode in the semi but was just flat out terrified of the swather when it got close to us, even though whenever we drove by one this fall he would start pointing and in his own language try to tell me how excited he was to see this large wheeled thing rolling through a big field. It is pretty loud though up close though, so maybe next year.

CORN!!
Kylie inside the swather

We somewhat carved a pumpkin for Halloween, Kylie dressed up as a ballerina and Owen was a giraffe, I think. I got his costume at a garage sale thinking is was a horse, but once he had the costume on and I took a good look at him thought to myself, horses don't have antler things on their heads, so we took a vote and decided he was a short necked giraffe. We had an unbelievably warm night for trick or treating, which meant loads of candy. Which Owen held in his little paws so tight that if you even tried to help him put the candy in his bag he would scream bloody murder at you. He would wait till we got to the next house, got as close as possible to the candy bowl and then put his candy from the previous house on the ground and grab TWO more fistfuls of candy. I would every time tell him, "no Owen just one piece" (after I had snatched up the candy he put on the ground and put it into his bag) but because he's just so stinking cute the people giving out the candy would stop me and say "oh, no it's OK, let him take two" and I would oblige because it was one more battle I didn't have to fight.

I also managed to find a working treadmill at a garage sale this fall and has been quite wonderful for nearly the whole family since it has started turning nasty winter cold out already. I have managed to train Jake to walk on the treadmill, but Sienna won't have anything to do with it, she act's like she going to catch fire if she goes anywhere near it. Both Kylie and Owen love to walk on it and I think it's a great way to burn off some energy on days it's to cold to go outside!

Finding in the grass

Today my dad and stepmom came up for a visit and we were all out back playing when I looked over at Jake in a corner of the yard and saw him batting his paw at something on the ground. I immediately thought "oh Noooo, it's probablly some poor little helpless baby rabbit and it's going to be all bloody and half dead when I get over there,,," so I ran over to see what helpless creature made a wrong turn into our yard and there was a little toad. Jake had no idea what to do with it and I honestly thought it was a frog, but called my friend Rachael who has three boys and tons of amphibian creatures lurking in and out of her house and she informed me that since it had bumps it was a toad. Anyways, I yelled for Kylie to come get it because I knew she would be thrilled. I went and got a bucket and she immediately went over to put water in it. Then we got some rocks for it to sit on. I asked her what it's name was and she said Kale. Owen LOVES to look at it and point and has lots to say about it, although I haven't a clue as to what he is saying. But he won't hold it. Anyways, here's some pictures. (scroll down)