Weekend Rockets

We have been blessed (so far) with a very VERY mild winter... usually, the first week of January, we are in the single or negative digits with snow on the ground! Today, it was in the mid-high 40's.. no wind and a perfect day to launch ROCKETS!! Luckily for the kids, we had plenty of motors, so all the rockets got to go up 3 or 4 times. The kids love to do the countdown, and then go and fetch the rest of the rocket wherever it may land!

Phebe, our brave and fearless Lab (haha) does NOT appreciate the joy of the rockets! She is the first to hide under a car! The horses, cows and birds are not big fans either!!

Winter.... Already?????

Hard to believe that old man Winter is here!

Crazy Spring Weather

We have had some wacky weather so far this spring... but the aftermaths are really quite pretty!

April Snow Showers bring May Flowers???

Yep - woke up to snow on the ground and snow falling... You have got to be kidding me!!
Oh well - I guess the plants I set in the garden are toast - nothing like the weather to help stimulate the economy by making people buy more plants! Arghhhhh!!!!

Wow - where has the time gone???

This last week has been really trying! So many things have been going on and we've been trying to keep some sort of "normalcy". (That IS funny - is there such a thing??)
With the hubby working in Seattle four days a week, that means 3+ of those days I am pretty much a single parent.... and the boys are starting to really figure out that my tolerance level is getting really low!! It makes me really thankful when the clock reads 7:45pm - because that means that it is brush your teeth and get ready for bed! Gotta love that! Unfortunately, #1 boy is still finding ways to make bed time a real challenge... though we are working on it... it makes things stressful! Boy #2 has real challenges the next day if he does not get his full amount of "beauty" sleep... which easily translates to my day becoming a real - not-so-beauty-ful day!

Here are some of our weekend activities!
Sunday afternoon - we had this really weird snow system move through... the flakes were truly the size of a CD... you can't see if very well in the picture... it was insane! Big Al was running around catching them - since he tends to get wrapped up in his activities - he only ran into one of the trees once! Little J and Miss O both enjoyed running around with this crazy snow! I have never seen such huge flakes!

Sunday morning, we went to the park and the kids rode their bikes on the access road... it was cold, but good for them to get out and burn more energy! Here is all three.

This was Miss O's very first biking outing! We thought that she would get tired after about 15 minutes - but no - she went the full hour with no complaining! She can really get going on her bike! She is very competitive when it comes to keeping up/beating her brothers!

Have a great Monday!

Spring - for now!

The last two days have been NICE... if you like waking up to 20's in the morning and highs of about 40-45 during the day! But, the sun has been shining - NO WIND.. and it is really nice to hang out outside and enjoy the fresh air!

The doggies have been frolicking more than usual in the sun!

Miss O has been enjoying playing some basketball with her brothers

Little J likes to show off some of his b-ball form! He can play b-ball for HOURS if you let him!

Big Al has been busy breaking the last of the Christmas toys he received!

Someone on a cute bright pink Barbie bike has been tearing up and down the asphalt on a regular basis!

Our bird feeder has remained really full of birdseed... I wonder WHY that would be??????

I hope that we have a few more days of this... it is a nice change!

The Groundhog

First of all... let me say how disappointed I am that when I checked on the computer this morning that there was not ONE thing said about the stupid furry critter that supposedly can predict weather! Since we are 3 hours behind when the ground hog does his thing.. you would think that we would have the news pronto - not at noon!
Honestly - the poor thing is probably poked and prodded until he does SOMETHING!


Oh well... regardless - spring won't be here until March - so I'm not worried about it anyhoo!

Stuck at home!

I am running out of things to get done since the kids and I are stuck at home today!!!
Last night - the weather warmed up drastically and we had 50 mph winds most the night WITH tons of rain... all night long! About 90% of our snow has melted, since we had over a foot still on the ground yesterday, it created a real mess!
At 6:30am this morning, the bus garage called to tell me that the highway was closed and they would not be able to pick up my kids... arghhh #1!
So, about 7:45am, I loaded everyone up and we attempted to head towards school.... First we saw this absolutely beautiful rainbow, which was funny as it was pouring down rain!

Since we knew that the freeway was closed - we went the "back" way - or at least tried to! This picture does not show enough detail, but - there was more than a foot of water over the road here - and the freaky part was that you could see asphalt breaking off in the lovely little waterfall to the right.... I made a couple calls to people that I knew traveled the route I was wanting to take... one made it in their jacked up truck - the other said a majority of that road was under water! ARGH #2

So - decision pretty much made... we were homebound! We headed back home, one kid was PSYCHED that he was missing school... and one boy was in TEARS... the cute little girl was angry that she could not go to school... This was becoming a recipe for disaster! ARGH #3

Picture below is the neighbor two houses down the road... He is a hay farmer and his fields were completely full of water!

This picture below is our neighbor directly across the road from us... his driveway was gone! It was like a river!

We are really fortunate that our house is up on a hill, and that our driveway is on the high side of the road! Hopefully, the rain will stop and the sun will come out - at least so I can make it to town tomorrow! The kids are driving me nuts!!!! :)

The Aftermath of the big day! Part 1

Here are a few pictures from Christmas! I was trying to download more - but for some reason it kept kicking me out! Here is the first set!! Enjoy!

A traditional Holiday Staple.... PEZ!
Christmas

Prior to wake up of the kiddos... the cats check out all the goodies under the tree!

Christmas eve we exchanged family gifts and those from the Grandparents

Big Al was concerned about getting more clothes!

A certain Little J is ADDICTED to the Dangerous Books for Boys!

Even PJ, our beloved dog gives presents! Every year he wraps up the traditional pajamas for each kiddo!

Miss O is always VERY thankful for gifts she receives!

Little J got her a Tinkerbell puzzle - boy was she psyched!

We made gingerbreak cookies, and the left over dough made a big O - so Miss O got the "O" cookie, and she was pretty happy about that!

Outside our house on Christmas eve Day!

brrrrr...... and fun in the snow!

Oh my gosh has it been cold!!!!! The highs during the day have been in the teens! While we have about a foot or so of snow on the ground - it keeps snowing a little more each day! So, it is guaranteed to be a white Christmas! The really cold weather has limited the kiddos time outside - as frostbite is a huge concern! Last thing I need is another ER visit to do something un-necessary - like amputate a finger or something!!
The kids were able to play in the snow a bit and the boys worked on their sledding hill. With the weather so cold, all the snow is really light and fluffy - which is great for driving - but not as great for sledding! They don't care - they are having fun anyways! Here are a few weekend pictures!

Big Al helps Miss O walk up the hill... she only went down a couple of times - she was pretty scared going down!

Alex pulls Papa and Miss O back down the hill when they got stuck!

"Owa coood - need hod coco!" She told Papa that she was done and ready to go inside!

Little J takes a break long enough to let Phebe give him a slimy, stinky dog kiss!

Someone really likes to be outside - regardless how cold it can be!!

Little J patiently holds a filled to the brim bird feeder - as the poor little birds have nothing!

Papa finishes installing a new (safer and higher) bracket to hang the bird feeder off of - so that a certain black Lab will leave it alone!!

I hope that everyone is enjoying THEIR winter weekend!

Is summer here?

Well... today was the last day of school... I still don't understand WHY the school district sends kids to school for TWO (yes that would be TWO) whole hours. IF I would have let the kids ride the bus today, they would have spent MORE time on buses than at school. Just plain DUMB!
So, we got report cards, that was exciting. Big Al's was as expected. Little J made dramatic improvement in music... he went from a 1 (pretty bad - you just have to be breathing to get a 1!) up to a THREE... so that was good!
The weather has NOT been cooperating what so ever! It has been cold and rainy and windy! Windy - meaning over 30mph.... So, the 60 degrees it is outside feels like 45! Gotta love that in June! Yesterday, there was SNOW in the hills around us! Geez! It is almost middle of June!

Since school is out (haha) the boys are already annoyed with each other! I can't wait until summer school starts in two weeks... actually I CAN'T wait until Sunday, when I fly down to VEGAS! Whooo hoooo!
Amy