Damage

Since Dad was out-of-town for all the icy excitement, when he got home yesterday we headed out to see what the ice had done to our little town.

Here is a tree that broke from the weight of the ice and landed on a power line. Situations like this picture are why many of our friends have lost their power.

We headed up to the college next. Here's what used to be a pretty, big, old tree. Now it's firewood.

Looking around town made us feel so thankful we were safe. We are also happy our friends are safe in spite of trees falling on their houses and their lack of power. Here's to hoping there's no more ice this winter!

Wii

Yesterday evening some friends called to see if we could come for a last minute dinner. We headed over for some yummy soup and brownies. Dinner conversation was great, but after dinner the real fun began! Alice and Maggie introduced me to their Wii Fit, and boy was it fun!

Here I am getting all set up.

I tried hula-hooping first and moved on to skiing.

Dad also gave skiing a try but moved on to soccer.

Thanks for sharing your "big kid" toy with me! I hope we can play again soon.

Oh my...

So far today, I have...

• Dumped my milk and cereal all over me and the floor.
• Pooped in the bathtub (yes, I know I'm three and completely potty trained).
• Poured water all over Jack (who was not in the bathtub) while I was in the other bathtub so Mom could clean up the messy bathtub in the other bathroom.
  

And now I'm playing quietly in my own room because Mom said I have to for my own safety and the safety of others.

If only I had a grandma who lived close by. I'm SURE she would come over right away and save the day!

Sharing Our Electricity

Since we feel blessed to still have our power, we wanted to share it with friends who were without.
Charlotte brought her family and a neighbor over for a pizza dinner followed by popcorn, coffee, and hot chocolate while we watched a movie.

As you can tell from the picture, the movie was quite mesmerizing! Who knew Horton could hear Whos? Thanks for making a snow day into a fun evening, friends! And we're so thankful you have a gas fireplace!

This Morning

Here's what we woke up to this morning.
More snow over our ice. Isn't it pretty? Too bad it's dangerous!

Jack and I were more than ready to go outside, so we got bundled up and headed out. Mom thought as long as we stayed away from the rocks surrounding the flower beds and out from under the roof, we'd be fine slipping and sliding on our lawn.

Here's an icicle that fell from our roof. I called it a popsicle.

The snow (Mom isn't really all that sure it was snow) was really slick and solid making a perfect track for my "race car". These days I'm all about driving fast before crashing and pretending I'm "broken". You can see live crashing over on the movie blog.

After about 20 minutes-it was, after all, only 17 degrees-Mom said we had to come back inside to warm up. Jack was MAD! He screamed and shook his fists.

I thought something warm for lunch would be especially yummy, so we had sharp-cheddar-butternut-squash quesadilla. We dipped the triangle pieces in sour cream. They were quite good! Our cousin Muriel taught us about putting squash in our quesadilla. So yummy!

Last Night

We've never lost power for more than five seconds at a time, but we did lose our Internet for about 24 hours. Definitely the better service to be without!

Anyway, here are two pictures from yesterday afternoon...

...and here are two from yesterday evening.

As you can see, sleet was falling on top of the ice.

We went to bed curious about what things would look like when we woke up!

Icy Day Update

Here's how we've been keeping ourselves busy...
Jack has been eating. And eating. And eating. Mom wonders if he's growing or something.

While Jack was eating, Mom whipped up some bread dough and then made me a HUGE train track while we waited for the dough to rise.

We took these pictures about an hour ago. We thought it might be fun to compare with our previously taken photos.

Can you see the icicles hanging from our roof? There pretty and apparently dangerous.

We still have electricity, but we've talked with two friends who have lost there's!

A Little Bit of Ice

We're covered in a thin sheet of ice around here.
Here's the tree in the corner of our yard...

...and the tree in the other corner...

...and Dad's bird feeder.

The sky is pretty dark and cloudy, so the pictures aren't very bright. Sorry about that. The weather man says it's going to keep raining ice for most of the morning. I think we'll be staying home! :-)

Watching and Waiting

The weather people are forecasting lots of freezing rain, so Jack and I are keeping watch.

"Can we do something special 'cause of the freezing rain, Mama," I asked?

We decided to make cookies. Mom has been messing around with her recipes lately. We took the popular chocolate chip recipe and substituted evaporated cane juice, molasses, whole wheat flour, and dark chocolate chips for the typical ingredients. Our "healthed-up" cookies tasted yummy!

Toasty warm bubble baths came next. After all, we had to scrub the chocolate off our faces!

And my picture is crooked. Oh well, you get the idea!

It seems we'll be home all day tomorrow for sure, and maybe we'll be home the day after that, too. We're not sure just yet. Every once in a while it's fun to have an ice day!

Out

This evening Mom and Dad left Jack and me with one of The Emilys (we have two babysitters--both named Emily), and headed out for a night on the town.

They went out to dinner with Auntie Joy and Uncle Seth, and then went to see Brian Regan with a bunch of friends. If you don't know who Brian Regan is, well, that's okay. Mom didn't know either. However, if you do happen to know who he is, then you know he's super funny!

Running into Dad...

Today when we went for our walk, and we ran into Dad! He was all by himself at a table in the cafe trying to have a little bit of peace and quiet while he finished up a work project.

Let's just say, we went right into the cafe and interrupted his self-imposed peace and quiet!

He didn't seem too upset.

Granola

A friend came to play with me today, and Jack was bothering us. Mom saved the day by saying she needed Jack to help her make granola.

It went much better. Often Jack does play with us, but today he just wanted to mess up our cars. Jack didn't seem to understand the specifics of parking garages. Perhaps when he's three he'll get it.

Until then, it's a good thing Mom needs helpers! (Doesn't this helper look all scruffy? Never fear, he had a bath after the granola making.)

Happy Birthday Grandma Lou!

Happy Birthday to our Grandma Lou!
For your birthday we practiced writing our numbers in Spanish. It turns out Spanish is a very hard language to read! :-)

We're glad you had a good day! We love you!

Lightning McQueen

Ever since Christmas time, I've wanted a Lightning McQueen car just like my cousin Oliver's. But since my parents have this weird hang-up about not buying me stuff just so I have more stuff, I had to wait...and wait...and wait. Finally we came up with a plan! I had to think of a goal. Once the goal was achieved, I could go to the store and pick out my very own Lightning McQueen! This morning I met my goal, and this evening I purchased my car.

And now, if my parents would get their act together and preview the movie, maybe I could finally watch the whole thing!
Knowing my parents, that's not going to happen anytime soon.
But, hey, a guy can wish...

Happy Birthday Uncle John!

Happy Birthday to our Uncle John! We have a few "Uncle Johns", but today we're celebrating the Uncle John who is married to Aunt Elizabeth. We hope you have a great day! And we hope Aunt Elizabeth has something really fun planned for your special day! Come see us sometime soon!

Inauguration Day

Mom says a Presidential Inauguration is always an historic event. She thinks it's important, even though we are three and one, for us to know what's going on in our country. And so this morning, we camped out on the sofa watching the festivities on television. Our Mom loves pomp and circumstance; she is so silly!

Just between you and me, the so-called festivities were really quite boring and not festive at all. Until the cannons started shooting after the swearing in of our new president! That's when Jack and I got really excited! We're boys and we like that kind of stuff. I had lots of questions about the "things shooting fire with wheels".

Please allow us a shameless hometown plug: Our town's high school band was chosen as THE band to represent our state at the Inauguration Parade. Isn't that exciting? We sure think so!

SuperFort

This morning we built a tunnel with my SuperFort.

Jack and I...

...had lots...

...of fun...

...crawling through...

...the tunnel!

Playing Soccer

We had a surprise visit from Uncle Tim on Friday night. He came to spend some time working on computer stuff and to play with us. While he was working hard this morning, Mom, Dad, Jack, and I headed out for a walk and a soccer game.

We had fun running and kicking!

Jack is really quite coordinated. We were impressed at his abilities. (See him kick over on the movie blog.)

Mom kept encouraging us to keep running. Something about wanting an extra long naptime...

Whew! All that running did make us tired!

Mostly we were just happy the weather finally warmed up to 40 degrees so we could get outside to play!

Three Little Monkeys

Spike's auntie is getting married tomorrow. YIPPEE!!! All of Spike's grown-up relatives had festivities to attend this evening, so Spike came to our house to be festive.

We had played trains, had pizza for dinner, took splashy baths, and watched a movie in our jammies!

It sure was a fun evening! Thanks for picking our house as your festive place! Maybe Jack and I will see you at the wedding!

Snow, Pink Eye, and Shopping...

Well, it's official. I've got gunk in my eye! We're getting it taken care of, and thanks to our friends for the tips!

We woke up to a little bit of snow this morning. What fun! Then we learned the high for today was going to be 16 degrees. You'd think that between the "gunk", snow, and 16 degrees, a guy could stay home in his jammies watching tv all day! Let's just say, Mom had other ideas.

She hauled us all over the county--coats on and off again and again--to do our big once-a-month shopping. We're once again stocked up on toilet paper and other random items.

What a day! We're tired and freezing after our day on the town, so we're hitting the covers early. Good night! Sleep tight!

Our Day

Today was a busy day.
We started off with Bible study this morning. It was Jack's first day in one of the big kid classes. Jack's not a baby anymore!
After a fun time playing and learning with our friends, we headed home for lunch, nap, and a walk. It was FREEZING, so Mom bundled us up really cozy. We wore sweatshirts, jackets, hats, and blankets!

We were so glad to get home and warm up. Plus we were hungry and wanted a snack. We made hummus to dip our carrot sticks in.

You probably don't know--Mom sure didn't know--but today is Thomas' birthday. He invited all his train friends to his birthday party at the end of the hall. We sang Happy Birthday and had pretend cake.

Jack helped with the singing and pretend candle blowing, too.

Next came dinner and baths. Jack and I had to take separate baths tonight because...

...Mom thinks I may have caught pink eye this morning at Bible Study. My eye is getting more red by the hour and is quite "gunky".

So...who knows what tomorrow will bring! Maybe a visit to the doctors'?
We'll keep you posted.