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)

Apple Picking

This morning me and Owen went apple picking with our friends Katie and Trey while Kylie was at pre-school. We went to a local farm called Ackerman's Farm in Morton, I absolutely LOVE this place! Not only is if free but they have nearly all your typical farm animals which toddlers seem to be able to enjoy for hours. Although it seemed their favorite part was chasing the kittens around. Eventually we wandered over to to orchid area and picked the best apples on the planet, HONEY CRISP! They are like candy! And then we went through the cutest gift shop around, I just love it and even picked up a few candle decorations. They had pumpkings, ghords, and indian corn gallor strewn about as well so I was in full fall mode when I got home and even though I didn't have plans to pull out the dusty cobweb boxes of fall decor I did and spent the afternoon putting them out. I am loving fall right now, the weather is amazingly perfect, definately my favorite season. Here are some pictures of our fun morning!

Two Years

I have no idea how to title today or what to even call this day, sure there are probablly lot's of nice politically correct or spiritual ways to name this day but nothing is resonating with me just right, and quite frankly the main thing going through my mind is that it has been 2 years today since my little world spun off it's axis. So for me it's a day to take time and remember Luke and to remember us. I had the best day today doing just that too. I spent most of the day with out my kids and went to a place out in the country where I could just sit and read and pray. I was a bit bummed that it is raining today but once I got out there and stood under a huge oak tree and looked up and saw all these rain drops falling down on me, it was just awesome, truely like tears falling down from heaven hitting my face. I found a nice tree house to spend the a few hours in, which had an open view of the forest and a tin roof.....ahhhhh....I have a thing about listening to raindrops falling on a tin roof. And then after sitting for awhile the rain let up a bit and I was able to walk for a bit through all the trees and along the creek....another favorite sound. I won't go into details because I want them to myself, but I will say that I felt I had an amazing day with God and Luke showed up for awhile too :)
I want to be able to write about where I'm at and answer the "how I am doing" question that I know so many people have.....so here goes.
This past year since I have moved has been exciting, scary, lonely, exhausting, and an incredible time of growth for me. I have felt like God is moving me in a direction that is healthy for both me and my kids. This isn't always an easy move, lots of growing pains are involved. Lots of self reflection. As strange as this sounds, I have had to get to know myself again. I'm not Angie and Luke anymore and even though he will always always be a part of my heart and our life, he's not here in the physical sense anymore and therefore I have had to accept that and start to see who I am ....(deep breath) with out him. I have also been able to have a more positive change of heart and outlook with Life in general here on earth, I now mostly look forward to each new day with my kids, where for awhile it was just another day to "get through". We still have a future here together and that finally is exciting to me to see how it all is going to play out, day by day.
I am thrilled to be doing photography again, getting out and taking pictures has been a great strength of developing something good in me...I have no idea what to call it, it just feels really good and really right. Kylie and Owen are amazing, they make me smile and laugh every day, I am so crazy blessed to have them in my life. Now don't get me wrong, I have hard days and I assume I always will, but they are good and part of healing. God promises to make good from bad, even though it's not always a easy road to the good, He has made good on that promise with me. He has never left me, and He is always ready to meet me wherever I am at in this journey of Life and His grace is full of unspeakable peace and healing to my soul.

Shower for the whole family

OK so tonight as I went to fill up the tub to give the kids a bath. I was noticing it was taking awhile to fill, and then I realized it was just draining, so I check the switch/nob thing and yep it's up just like it should be but nope there is no water staying.....hmmmm. So I of course being a girl fiddle with it, jiggle it, stick my finger down the scary icky drain hole and thinking the whole time, I have NO freaking idea of what I am doing and I seriously doubt I am suddenly going to fix this..... Next I think maybe they don't need a bath tonight, but no we skipped last night and Kylie has pre-school in the morning and I don't want her showing up smelly just yet since it is only the 2nd week of school.... I realize my only choice is for us all to shower. I was planning on doing this AFTER the kids were in bed but I guess we'll all just get clean together. O yea. Now had we been in our old house is Scottsdale this would not be a problem because the shower could hold half a baseball team. But this is a standard shower, meaning small in my spoiled rotten for 10 years standards. But I feel I have no choice so we all get in and we kind of fit and then I look down and see Owen just standing there peeing happily all over the bath toys, at this point I shake my head and pretend I didn't see it. Now I need to go start calling "my people" as I think of them to help me solve this problem because I really don't want to do this every night. Oh, my people meaning all of my girlfriends husbands, who thankfully are all quite handy and always seem to be able to fix my house issues. Well except for the septic one....but that's a whole other story.

1st Day of Pre-School

OH my gosh, my baby girl started pre-school today. And she looked pretty cute doing it too. And of course she did it with out a second of hesitation or fear, she just ran right in and started being a little cute student. Of course today was only for an hour and from what I gathered she sang some songs, got a balloon and met some new friends, although she could only remember the name of one, a boy, whose name is now escaping me even though she told me in the car. Thursday she will go for her first full..half...day...or whatever. It's about 2 1/2 hours long. SO me and handsome Owen will have to find something to occupy our time with....ha ha ha.

A week in review

It has been an interesting week for me since returning back from a 10 day visit to Phoenix. I have a feeling this is going to be a long entry because it's been awhile....

To begin with I started off doing a 6 day cleanse so I could get rid of toxins, impurities and other ucky stuff that our bodies just need some help getting rid of. I had been wanting to do one and got all the stuff I needed to accomplish this while I was in Phoenix and because I'm crazy just started it right away when I got home. Now in some ways this was easier since planning meals wasn't so much of a concern since I was doing very minimal eating and just feeding two toddlers is pretty simple and actually easier when I can sit down and constantly encourage Kylie (not Owen) to eat her food :) Although it did make my tummy rumble a bit over the week, I was surprised at normal I did feel most of the time. So I'm sold on the stuff, it works. But I'm glad to be done and eating again!

After being home for a few days I realized that I was upon the due date of having to have a sample taken from my septic, ewe ewe ewe. So I went and got the little bottle, quickly read through the directions, guessed on which large round container was the septic and took a sample, gross, but not as bad as I imagined. Turned in the sample, and thought oh good I'm done with that! Well not quite, a few days later I found out that my sample results turned out to be super crazy high contaminated. This doesn't make since since I've only lived here for a year and every month I put in a natural septic thing to help keep it all good, and don't flush anything I'm not supposed to ( a hard lesson learned when living in Montana on the ranch). So today I dug out the map of the whole septic system (should have done this a week ago) in my front yard and called the nice lady back at the health department and asked her if it was possible I took it from the wrong place and yep sure enough I did. SO this time I wrote down the specific directions from her about what to do about the whole situation and can take another sample instead of have the septic man come out and do maintenance on the whole nasty thing. Well that is if this next sample comes back OK :)
This week has also been a week of a thousand emotions. For two reasons, I started reading a book call "The Shack" and it has brought me to a place of deep hard feelings, healing and has brought be back to feeling like I can stand firmly again in who I am. I don't even think I realized I wasn't there until recently. I can't quite explain it all, it's still processing in my own mind and I'm not even done with the book yet. The second reason is for some horrible news I received. One of the lady's who cleaned at the ranch, Tina, son was killed in a motorcycle accident in Las Vegas about a week or so ago. Tina was at the time living in Las Vegas with her 19 year old daughter Danyell, separated from her husband still living in Montana. Her son Cody was in the Air Force ( i think...) I didn't know him, but knew Tina and Danyell. About a week after Cody was killed Tina took her own life....it is just so unbearably sad to find this out. There are no words, like a said before, just emotions. I hadn't really been in contact with Tina since Luke died so it feels very disconnected for me in a way but yet my heart is just aching...knowing the kind of pain and desperation you feel when losing someone that is a part of you. I can not even begin to understand though what this sweet girl is going through having lost a brother and mother in one week, it just seems unbearable, uncopeable. So I have put my heart and prayers into the hands of God, knowing only he in his perfect timing can hold, heal, restore, protect, give peace and comfort in this time and that he will bring the right people around Danyell that she needs.
I know He did this for me and continues to do so even as I approach two years with out Luke. His faithfulness in seeking out to have a relationship of love with Him is amazing to me. And on the days that I am able to turn to him and humbly receive it, I see my life as truly blessed even through the pain.

Tornados

For the next week I am watching my friends two golden retrievers (Summer & Savanah) while they are out of town, they are getting along with Jake and Sienna great, and they are really easy. They don't sleep inside at there home so even though I would be happy to spoil them I decided that would just make things hard for my friends when they get home, so they sleep outside in their kennel. My friends did say they were afraid of Thunderstorms, mine arn't so I was just hoping maybe we wouldn't have any this week.......
At 5:30 this morning I was awakened by a thunderstorm and so I groggily got out of bed went outside and let Summer & Savannah into the mudroom, they were very happy to see me. While doing this I was slowly becoming aware that I was also hearing the Tornado Siren going off, at least I think I was, it wasn't super loud and with all the rain and thunder I wasn't sure, or more likely I was hoping I wasn't so I could go back to bed. So I turned on the tv, at first there was no signal so I thought that was a bad sign, but within a few minutes it came on and sure enough a Tornado warning in effect for this area. So I went and got my kids out of bed, grabbed the mattress from Kylie's toddler bed and headed for the bathtub. Thankfully nothing ever happened and we just hung out for about 45 minutes in the tub until the warning passed. Needless to say I hate tornados, they just make me nervous and I hate just sitting and waiting to see if we are about to become Dorothy and Todo at any moment. There is still a severe thunderstorm warning in effect with 75 mile per hour winds possible. Which means I will have a lot of sticks and tree branches to pick up tomorrow. I just hope my garden survives this, my carrots are almost ready! I would like to go for our morning walk but instead I am stuck in my house so I will sit and watch the weather and drink my coffee.

Park Bliss

Today I had a "day off", my friend Joanna watched the kiddos for me. And so after I ran some errands I drove to a park in peoria called Forrest Park that was much bigger than I had imagined it to be. It has all these wonderful trails through the preserved natural forrest so there were all kinds of fun critters running about. The deer let you get so close you can almost pet them, but the wild turkeys didn't want you to close, although there was quite a large flock of babies with them. And either a badger or beaver ran right past me as I was crossing over a bridge, he was pretty quick and since I only got a glimpse I couldn't tell. It's not quite as exciting as the ranch in Montana, but for Illinois I was pretty happy with the idea of being in a forrest surrounded by wooded creatures for the afternoon while going for a walk and just sitting quietly and listening. O, and it was nice to be taking some nature photos again.

Swimming Fun

Over the past week it has officially become summer to me because now it seems it that every day must involve some type of water activity...It started down at the Lake of The Ozarks in a very dirty and cold lake. The intention of the weekend was to go water skiing....unfortunately it was the first trip down with the boat and apparently the boat decided it didn't want to work, so that left the paddle boat and some floaty things. It was still fun and I was able to spend some time trying to get my kids back into the swimming thing...Last year at this time I couldn't keep Kylie out of the water and this year I had to do a lot of work to get her in for even a little while. And Owen was more than happy to just hang out on the dock playing with a noodle. But thankfully I have been to two more lakes and a wonderfully clean swimming pool since getting home from the Ozarks on monday and Kylie is now back into jumping in quite frequently, and Owen is getting used to me dunking him under and having him swim to the side :) We are also getting nicely tanned and maybe a little burned along with Ky & Owen's hair starting to look more white than blonde...really cute.
And in the past couple of weeks with all the warm weather and thunderstorms my garden has now exploded! The squash is beginning to take over, my peas have climbed as high as the fence and my cilantro is begging me to make salsa....soon very soon.

The Parade

So this evening the Turkey Festival came to an end with the parade. I was expecting something similar to the parade's in Ennis (Montana) since the towns are nearly the same size, and they were similar, except in Tremont there are endless tractors and in Ennis there are horses and more antique cars. And there were the truck or car fulls of people just driving along in the parade for no reason that any of us could figure out. We were situated on a candy gold mine corner for the kids, you can see Kylie's purse is filled to the brim in the pictures, and there were two more grocery sacks full by the end of the hour long antique fire engine and tractor parade.
I did find out the results of my run and it was better than I had thought, 26:30. Next year I'll train a little longer than a week and see if I can improve that a bit..
I just realized that I never actually had any turkey at the Turkey festival, that just doesn't seem right somehow...

Trukey Festival

Last thursday was the kick off day for the annual Turkey Festival in Tremont and so the kids and I have been going to all kinds of fun festivities. It's all of our first experience even though I have heard about this for years...
So far we have done the merchant's day downtown and even had uncle Doug in town for a few hours for the fun. It mainly consisted of free popcorn, lemonaide, and snow cones...well at least until they were shut down by the health department...oops. And then a magic show at the library, which I felt was very loud for a library experience but nevertheless the kids actually made it through the whole hour...kind of. Then later we hit the carnival and did some fun rides and games which won Kylie some really cheap toys, one which made THE most annoying noise on the planet, so I conviently left that at a friends house :) After that I attended my first Miss Tremont Pagent in an un-airconditioned high school gymnasium..did I mention it was hot and humid that day??? Not exactly Miss America...but I definately think the girl that won was a pretty good representation of the small town all american farm girl...perfect for this community.
So today I started off running in the 5k race and did alright, I'm not posting my time, we'll just say I have room for improvement and I wasn't last....:) Although the times will be posted on the internet at some point.... But in my defense I haven't been running much, more walking and only signed up a week ago to do this. I did have a really fun time and it has now motivated me to do more races, but with more training than a week...:)
After the 3 mile run there was an all you can eat pancake and sausage breakfast, so yummy and since I only have little ones, I could feed my whole family breakfast for $5, love this town. Although if they would have seen Owen eat they may have wanted to charge me for him...
After that it was face painting, the petting zoo put on by the 4-H club, shopping in the country store, and antique corner. Now I am home, exhausted and should go take a nap, unfortuneately my weedy garden is calling me.....which I am eating fresh lettuce every day from!!! I will post pictures soon. I had no idea how much I would love playing in dirt at my age, so now I have dreams of even bigger and better gardens in the future...ya know when Kylie and Owen get old enough to pull weeds :)
Tomorrow is the parade, I am told it consists of a couple of Tractors and a couple of horses and lots of candy....sounds perfect.

Good Day for Potty Training

I think I wrote about this subject many months ago just sooo sure Kylie was about to be potty trained, but it was a 2 steps forward 4 back situation instead although for some reason today gave me new hope. My sister Debbie sent me a newspaper article about the Farmer's Almanac days that are good for potty training....I had no idea the Farmer's Almanac even had such a thing. But another mom with my similar frustrations of feeling like she tried everyting found success with this. So I looked up the days on the internet and sure enough it there it was, along with a list of other random and odd things, like what day is a good day to get a haircut...interesting. SO, to my excitement the good days for potty training were for the next 5 days! I at the time actually had no belief there was anything to this but after 4 days Kylie asked to watch her "Potty Power" video, twice. And immediately started doing EVERYTHING they were doing in the video, including asking me to go and get her some books and toys to play with while she sat on the potty and waited for poop to come. Now, I have done this with her before, but for some reason this time it seemed different, and low and behold the girl kept her disney princess panties DRY AND CLEAN ALL DAY LONG!! Wahoo is what I say to that! And so after dinner to celebrate I took her and Owen to get ice cream. And as she was eating her ice cream she said "mommy, your the best mommy ever!"....ahhhh, this is what good days are made of :)

Strawberry Jam

I meant to post this yesterday but ran out of time and since my kids got me up at 6:00 this morning I have nothing else my brain is willing to function on at the moment! Yesterday I made lots and lots of strawberry jam with my friend Rachael! It was my very first jam making so I'm kind of excited about it! Kylie really wanted to help, she even brought her apron and little hot pad, but since it's kind of an exact science method and she likes to transfer things from one bowl to another we had to send her off to play with blocks and legos instead. Maybe next year. So now I will have a freezer full of strawberry jam to last me till next year!
I am also very excited to report that I have beautiful red and purple tulips sitting in a vase by my computer that were freshly cut yesterday out of Rachael's flower bed! I need to remember to plant some tulip bulbs for next year...
Today I am off to Lowe's to gear up on my gardening supplies and seeds and such...saturday is tilling day!

Spring Time

I just planted my very first lilac bushes, one purple and one white! It feels so great to be outside in the sunshine with my hands in dirt. Owen also thought this was a VERY fun activity, he was thrilled to see me digging up dirt for him to play in....:) Kylie was trying to be helpful by raking...anything..but it was really just giving me more work so I eventually told them we were all done planting and put them down for a nap. I then went on to plant some other flowers that my mom had brought me, right now all there names escape me, sorry mom. I'll learn them someday, I am just excited to have lots of green sprouts all around my house right now.
Next up I am planning my garden to plant in May! The idea of being able to walk out in my back yard and get vegetables absolutely thrills me!

Hair Cut Day

Today was Owen's very first haircut! He did awesome, just sat there totally happy with his sucker! Kylie also did great, and now thankfully her bangs arn't in her eyes anymore!

Tomorrow is Kylie's birthday party so she helped me make cupcakes after lunch, she did a great job putting all the paper cups in there place, and pouring in the water and oil and then helped me hold the beater. She was most excited to lick the beaters of course :) After her nap we'll frost them and put on sprinkles, her most favorite part!

Playing OUTSIDE!

It has finally started to warm up here enough for the kids to go out side to play! Owen has been trying to sneak outside for months through the doggy door to play but has only found himself to be very cold, very fast. But for the past few days he thinks this is his new doorway to wonderland....there is dirt, tennis balls, sandboxes, and cars to ride around in. (sometimes a little to fast when Kylie pushes) Kylie on the other hand has to be talked into going outside and then I won't stay out unless I'm out there too. But tonight after dinner she actually asked to go outside to play and since it was still light out I quickly opened the door and told her to have fun. (Owen was already outside of course through his door he shares with the doggy's) I stayed in to clean up the kitchen and just kept checking on them and noticing how cute and big they are both getting! At one point when I looked out on them I noticed an amazing pink sunset and I ran for the camera and took a few photos. I also took one of Owen with his sand, he looks mad, but it's only because his hands got really cold playing in the wet sand, he was happy right up to when I started taking his picture...stinker. The dogs are also in heaven because now that we are all outside every day playing that means they get me to throw the ball for them every day too. :)

An all nighter

Last night I was up with Owen WAY to many times and couldn't figure out what was wrong with him so I just kept letting him cry himself back to sleep while I put a pillow over my head. And then at 4 am Kylie wandered into my room crying about not being able to find her pacifier. I got out of bed to find tinkerbell standing before me wings and all. (even tights) But no diaper, so she reaked of pee and so did her bed. Apparently after I put her to bed last night she got up and put on her tinkerbell costume, took off her diaper and went back to bed and made sure she was covered up well with the blankets because I did not notice she had changed clothing when i went in to check on her at 10pm last night. I got her and her bed cleaned up and went back to bed, but am pretty sure I was up again with Owen at least two more times before 6 am. Thank the Lord for Coffee. I now know that Owen has an ear infection in both ears with a 101 degree fever, no wonder he kept waking up. But since Kylie has never had an ear infection and this is Owen's first I didn't even think about it being a possibility at 1, 2, 3, 5 am.... So now he has been to the Chiropractor, got some good herbs, homeopathic ear ache tablets and good ol tylenol in him. Hopefully he will take a good nap for me so I can nap too.

Head Bands & Kylie Scissor Hands

Owen loves to put things on his head, towels, bandana's, headbands...so this morning he found a headband and put it on, it usually slips down around his neck. But today he managed to get it on so he looked like he was participating in an 80's workout video and kept it on all through eating his breakfast. It cracked me so I took pictures and then Kylie wanted her picture taken to so she went and got a headband and put it own the same way. They crack me up some days. And then later they can do something that won't be funny for a long time....
I was looking online for Kylie's birthday present and she asked if she could comb my hair, I said sure because this is pretty much a normal every day activity. So she climbed on the chair behind me and next thing I know I am hearing the distinct sound of hair being cut and as yelled out and reached my hand to the back of my head, sure enough I got a clump of hair in my hand!! I have no mirror capability to know exactly how bad it is just yet but I am hoping that since my hair is layered it won't be toooo noticible......

Banana Bread

I have found that if I keep feeding Owen he stays very happy, with Kylie she seems happier to not have to eat unless it's yummy sweet things, so today I made some banana bread during their nap and when Owen got up I gave him some and I've never seen such a little thing shove food into his mouth so fast! What is it with bread and kids, and adults too I guess, I can't deny that I love it as well! Of course it's even better on a cold winter's day here too I guess. I am hoping we are in the last days of snow til next winter, I've had enough and have decided I like winter's here about as much as I like summer's in Arizona. It's just sad to me that when the sun finally comes out I am standing with my face as close to the sliding glass door as possible in hope of absorbing some vitamin D for maybe 5 minutes before the sun yet again goes behind the never ending winter wall of gray clouds here!

jake the rabbit hunter

About 20 minutes I looked out my window and saw Jake tossing a rabbit around....oh no not again I thought. I immediately put the doggie door blocker in so he would not retrieve it to me again in the kitchen. (this happened about a month after I first moved here...not a fun thing to have dropped at your feet first thing in the morning.) I looked for Sienna and noticed she was just wandering around the yard not caring at all about what Jake was playing with. The problem I was having is that it was obvious this rabbit was still alive and Jake was now being very gentile with it, in fact he was just staring at on the ground mostly and then picking it up and dropping it when it twitched. So I called him inside and called my friend for advice on how to put the poor thing out of it's misery. Her 9 year son wanted to come over and shoot it, which I thought was a great idea, she didn't like it. Her husband thought I should go out and snap it's little neck with my bare hands or whack it in the head with a shovel. I don't have a shovel, nor do I do bare hand neck snappin. So I let Jake back outside and hoped he would finish the poor thing off. He picked it up for a few minutes and then put it back down and wanted to come back in so I went out to check on it. It was finally dead! So I tossed it over the fence into my side yard with the snow shovel, it's only about 18 degree's so it should freeze soon. Unfortuneately my trash just got picked up today so I might try to find somewhere else to discard it, maybe I'll just leave it for the hawks.

Owen's Birthday!!

Since today is Owen's birthday I wanted to go and do something fun with him and Ky, so we went to the River plex where they have an indoor toddler play swim area. Owen was cold but Kylie had a blast. This I don't completely understand since Owen's body fat is at least twice of what Kylie has so it should have been the other way around. He started to have a little more fun towards the end though. On the way home was feeding them snacks to try and stay awake so I could get some lunch in them before their nap...Owen didn't make it, he fell asleep with a grahm cracker stuck to his lips. It cracked me up. Kylie has been singing Happy Birthday to Owen and herself all day. I keep reminding her that it's only Owen's birthday, but she doesn't seem to care :)

Belated Bogging

In the past week there have been a couple of events that deserved blogging but it never happened. The first was last sunday...I was at Rachael's for Superbowl and we were getting food ready, I was making a stovetop spinich artichoke dip, it was snowing outside and lightning and thundering. So weird. About 5 minutes before kickoff, the electricity goes out....lightning hit something. Luckily they had a generator and we were able to get the tv working and oven working, but not to many lights. So for the first time ever I watched the superbowl by candelight! Rachael also explained the game of football to me so that for the first time in my life I understood it, and was actually really starting to like football and even found it fuN! I was sad that the season was over!
I don't remember what day it was, but sometime in the past week Kylie for the first time got GUM stuck in her hair....not at the bottom, at the top by her scalp. My first thought was 'o, no I am going to have to cut that out and she is going to look really weird for awhile. But then I thought there must be a better way so I called Sonya because she has 5 kids and I thought "surely, she's had this happen", but no she hadn't...so I checked on the internet and found the suggestions to be: ICE and Olive Oil. Thankfully they both did the trick and I didn't have to give her a haircut!

Chocolate Chip Cookies make everything better

I decided to make chocolate chip cookies to make up for the snow...they seem very happy with them! There is just something about chocolate being smeared all over your almost one year olds face that is just priceless. Of course I think he's cute enough to eat anyways. :)

Snow Day

Last night it started snowing and by this morning we had at least 5 inches! So I thought it would be so much fun to take the kids out and play, make snow angels and get some fun pictures of them playing. But apparently my Arizona children do not like snow...yet..I am holding out hope. They cried and whined until we went back inside, the only ones that had fun were the dogs. So we went inside, I put Owen down for a nap, let Kylie watch Shreck and then I went and shoveled my driveway. I really like have a nice long driveway when there is no snow on it...o well, it was a good little workout.

Pottery Training, Pacifiers, and weaning

After almost a year of encouraging Kylie to "use the Potty" she has decied sometime in the past week that she is now ready to do this on an almost regular basis!! I am excited, humured, and tired all at the same time. I also would like the dumb pacifier to be gone forever but for now she get's it for naps and bedtime. Today she woke up from her nap and went potty, actually "poopy", which is REALLY great, and I had told her at one time that she could wear her big girl underwear if she went poopy on the potty. And of course she remembered this today, she still had the dumb passy in her mouth and I told her "yes you can wear big girl panties, but big girls don't use passy's so you have to give me the passy." She handed it over! About 2 hours later she told me her panties were wet and she needed to put on a diaper. I thought this was strange because she had JUST used the potty again and I checked her panties, totally dry....but let her put the diaper on anyways...then she asked for the pacifier back!! AHA! Now I get it! She is a smart little thing! I told her nice try, but you don't get your passy back till bedtime! I think she was a little bummed, but didn't put up a fight about it at least. It figures she's going to potty train herself this week, I just bought her a big box of diapers...o well, Owen will probablly fit into them before summer.
I also decided to wean Owen off his before bed nursing tonight, I gave him a bottle of Rice milk instead which he was totally happy about. When I laid him down he didn't cry at all, so I am really happy thinking "this was easier than I thought it would be". Then about 3 minutes later he started crying, it must have dawned on him what had happened... but the crying didn't last long thankfully and went to sleep!

new years resolutions

I don't like new's years resolutions because after a month of making them it's as if they don't exist anymore....but this year I decided to make some (5 minutes after saying I wasn't going to). One of them was to learn to play the guitar. This will be my fith or sixth run at it over the past 15 years! Three nights ago I realized that unless I actually pick up the guitar this is NOT going to happen, again. So I went and got it out of the closet, tuned it, and looked up some guitar lessons online. Before I was just winging it, but now I have actual lessons which seem to be helping. But I am not happy with the fact that it every night before I go to bed it feels like my left hand has been run over by a car and my fingertips are numb. Everything I am playing sounds awful right now, but I still have high hopes it will get better. I thought that if I blogged this experience it will in some way keep me accountable to the 15 minutes of daily practice I am trying to commit to.

Tredmill anyone?

It is finally thawing out here!! It got up to 39 degrees!!! And the sun is OUT!! The past week has been ridiculously cold, only single digits, making me have a bit of cabin fever....I didn't realize I had it until today when I remembered that only a week ago I was crazy enough to convince my friend Rachael to help me load a treadmill into her mini van at 9 o'clock at night that we saw one sitting on someones corner. It was 9 degrees outside and I loaned my gloves to Rachael because she somehow forgot hers and was driving.....treadmills are metal....wow were my hands cold. I had very high hopes at the time that the treadmill would surely work and I could train the dogs to walk on it so they could get daily exercise even when it's to cold outside and of course I could also run.....but when we got it into my newly cleaned out garage (meaning no more useless junk) it did not work....now I have a large useless piece of junk. I can only imagine the joy the previous owners must have felt when they looked out their window in the morning and saw it gone...
BUT I got to go running today and the rest of the week is looking pretty promising..I just need to make it through February. :)

House of Cheese

It's after lunch and today is no different than any other day, meaning Kylie barely ate any food and Owen ate just fine. Kylie LOVES cheese, but today instead of eating her cheese cubes she decided to make a house out them. The cheese was her bricks and she used her blueberry yogart as the mortar.... after sitting and watching this process I decided I need to write this down so I decided to start this blog! It's obviously cold outside and there is nothing else to do but watch a two year make a house of cheese...
if you were to walk be her plate you would have thought I served her moldy cheese by the looks of it!