I have neglected the blog

and I realize it. It seems like there is too much going on for me to blog, but here is a very quick update.

Today I am driving Jason to the Vegas airport, where he will be flying (eventually) to Cairo, Egypt. For ten weeks. Again. But this time, the kids and I will be staying home. It's just too expensive for us to buy tickets, and we didn't suffer through a Wisconsin winter to miss out on enjoying the beautiful summer! I am not looking forward to being the sole adult/parent in the house for that long, but military spouses do it all the time, and for much longer periods, right? I think that we will survive without Daddy for the summer, but can I survive without Jason, my husband? Luckily technology today is awesome and emails and webcams can keep us all in contact.

And now a couple of pictures:

Jason, his sister (the beautiful bride), his brother (the ring-bearer), and Ellie (the flower girl)

Ellie spent the entire wedding ceremony dancing with the big girls

Rowan had more fun exploring and climbing

And the promised picture of Ellie's birthday "cake." It was cake pops, roses, and candles arranged in a box. The cake balls are soooo good!!

Birthday Fun

Whew, Ellie's 4th birthday is over, and I am exhausted! If our camera had a memory card (ours is MIA), I would have done the day in pictures like Tara did for Easter.

The celebration started Thursday night,when we ate dinner at Red Robin for Jason and Ellie's birthdays. Jason and Ellie both had free meals, and then the staff came out with balloon-decorated ice cream sundaes to sing a LOUD, enthusiastic birthday song. Just what Jason was hoping for :) But Ellie grinned as she hid in her daddy's arm. I think we could have just done that for Ellie's birthday and she would have been perfectly happy, because she really loved it. Funny, not eating out for 4 months made it like a brand new experience for the kids.

Last night I stayed up past 1am cleaning and preparing food for Ellie's birthday party today. Instead of a birthday cake, I made cake balls and pops (cake balls on a stick). Those were fairly easy to make, but took a long time since each one had to be coated in chocolate. The other food we had was fruit salad, sandwiches, veggie tray with dip, hummus and pita bread, chips and salsa, cheese slices, kettle corn, and lemonade. Quite a spread!

Ellie woke up this morning to find the huge dollhouse that Jason put together for her. I bought it for her before Christmas (at an amazing price), so I've been impatiently waiting to give it to her. So far she loves it, we just have to find somewhere to put it in her room. At 10am we went downstairs for her party. We played a few games, ate some food, sang happy birthday, opened presents, and then just let the kids play. The weather was pretty good (upper 50s) until we tried to light the candles and then it started to be really windy. Isn't that how it always goes? :)

After the party we came in for a short rest time. No one slept, but the kids played in their beds for 1/2 hour while the parents refueled. Then, after Ellie tried out her new stamp set, I took the kids back outside to play for a while before Ellie's friend came over for a "play date." No, Ellie didn't hide her in the closet to stay forever :) Next we had a yummy meatloaf for dinner and finally, I took Ellie on the bus to get her free birthday Coldstone ice cream cone. Cotton candy with M&Ms, yum. We ate it outside on a bench and everyone who saw her smiled at her sticky blue mouth as she devoured her cone.

As soon as I can figure out how to get the few pictures and video off our camera, I will post them. In the meantime, there are some pictures on my facebook page.

Tidbits

- Rowan likes to say "Room" to Ellie when she's being naughty; he's telling her to go to her room for a time-out

- Ellie snuck out of the house one morning before anyone was awake to go to her friend's house. She climbed on a chair to unchain the door.

- Jason and I went to dinner last night at a new Asian restaurant and I had sweet sticky rice. I used to get it all the time when I was pregnant with Ellie, and this was the first time I've found it since then. It was soooo good!

- We have a huge garden plot all to ourselves this year. I hope we can keep up with it this summer!

- Ellie just asked me if China's sky was made of sand, since the kids at school always say that underneath the sandbox is China.

- Rowan burned his toes on our steam mop a week ago, and it was very painful for him. I think they are healing, but look horrible!

- Jason is probably going to Egypt for the summer to study Arabic and do research for his Ph.D. All summer. And the kids and I will stay in Madison.

- Tomorrow is Jason's birthday and Saturday is Ellie's! One night this week we will go to Red Robin for their free birthday burgers and Coldstone for free ice cream.

- I just started a new workout dvd called 30 Day Shred and my legs are killing me!

- Last night, while Jason and I were at dinner, Ellie found some medicine in our neighbor's bedroom, chewed it up, spit it out because it was yucky, then freaked out our neighbor by coming to her with a dyed-blue mouth asking for a drink of water. Poison control said she would be fine. We had a little talk with Ellie.

- We are coming to AZ in 3 weeks and we are so excited to see Jason's sister get married to a wonderful guy!

Neighborhood Easter egg hunt

We did an Easter egg hunt today with some of our neighbors, and had a great time! Our neighborhood didn't have anything planned for the kids, and since we don't have a car to take us anywhere else, we had to plan our own egg hunt! So, I used emails, facebook, and door-to-door invitations to put together an egg hunt in our play area. Another dad and I hid the 180 plastic eggs around the yard, and then 12 kids had a blast finding them all. The 3 toddlers searched in the sandbox, and everyone else had a huge area to hunt through. The older kids found their 15 eggs quickly, so they helped the preschoolers find the rest of the scattered eggs. It was way more fun than having our own egg hunt in our house.


Here's a bonus picture of Rowan, sleeping with one of his best buddies, a sock monkey he received from Aunt Nikki for Christmas. He calls it "Mono" which means monkey in Spanish. He always takes at least two animals with him to bed, and they rotate depending on who he wants, but Mono is always one of them. One of his "friends" closes the door and turns off the light at bedtime. Rowan and Ellie are different in so many ways, but it's neat to see Rowan going through the same stage of loving stuffed animals.

Building towers

Rowan received these blocks for Christmas, and the kids are just now really enjoying playing with them. Ellie builds the towers up, Rowan builds sprawling landscapes with them. And of course, like all good brothers and sisters, they fight over blocks.





Rowan's genius building style


The final product

Videos of the kids

Ellie dancing


Kids splashing around


Playing in Rowan's room

Time for change - and not just the seasons!

I feel it is now safe to say that winter 2008/2009 is behind us. Sure, we may see an occasional snow or two, but for the most part the highs are above 40 degrees. We are still having to wear jackets, especially since it's been raining a lot, but we don't have to bundle up completely with gloves, hats, extra layers, etc. And we have also been blessed with a few warm days - no jackets required! It is unbelievably freeing to be able to run outside without stopping to bundle up. Now we have to start thinking about what to plant in our garden!

Another change coming soon - a sad one - is that 3 out of the 6 families in our building are moving this summer :( I don't know if anyone else truly knows how close the families in this building are, for I've never seen such true community anywhere else. But as always, the student life is very nomadic, and people are constantly coming and going. One of the moving families we are very close with, and we will dearly miss them. Ellie is losing 3 of her closest friends (how to break it to her?!?) and I will be missing my closest Madison friend. We can only hope that the 3 families who move in will have young children for Rowan and Ellie to play with, and kindred spirits for Jason and I to build friendships with (and swap date nights!).

It has been over 2 months that we've been using the public bus to travel around town, but the end is in sight. We are flying to AZ on May 19th for Jason's sister's wedding, and then driving home in my mom's car, which she so graciously offered us. It will be soooo good to have a car again. There are just some times when it is very difficult to get somewhere with the bus. I do expect that I will continue to use the bus often after we have a car again, because it is nice to not pay for gas!

About the family: We've all been sick lately, but things are starting to get better. The kids are pretty much well, with Jason and I lagging behind :) Rowan is starting to put 2 words together into sentences, like "more juice" or "mommy up." He is so funny, because he has a definite opinion about things and will do all he can to get his point across. Like if I am slow in getting up to play with him, he will come over to me, put both hands on my cheeks, and say emphatically "Mommy, choo choo." Then he'll grab my finger to pull me to his room. It's hard to deny such cuteness!

Ellie is just getting smarter and smarter. Every night after dinner, Jason hides an index card in the kitchen for Ellie to find. Ellie finds it, then reads the sentence on it to get her dessert. I think it's the highlight of her day, because Jason makes it so fun for her. An example of a sentence she reads would be "I want to go outside." She does pretty well reading it outloud herself, sounding out the words. Yesterday Rowan received a magazine in the mail (thanks Gram!) and Ellie volunteered to read it to him. So, they hopped up on the couch side by side. Ellie read the first page, "Cleo the clownfish." The word "cleo" she had to have some help with, but Jason and I were amazed when she read the rest no problem. I'm certain she's never even heard the word "clownfish" before! Today, Ellie was spinning in a circle pattern and I said "Come here, you dancing princess." She quickly corrected me and said, "I'm not a dancing princess, I'm the Earth orbiting the sun!"

We thought spring was coming

But then it snowed today. Actually, it started off pouring this morning and switched to snowing in the afternoon. So now, once again, the sandbox is now a skating rink with toys frozen in it. It's like the movie The Day After Tomorrow, everything is frozen in the ground and covered with snow. At least we enjoyed the few days of warmth by playing outside with the neighbors.

Rowan's talking more and more every day, and it's fun to hear new things he says. Yesterday he dumped his applesauce all over his tray (his favorite thing to do) and I said to him "That is not nice" in a firm voice while wagging my finger at him. So he sticks up his chubby little finger and says "Not nice." Of course I couldn't hold back the laughter, which probably wasn't the best move. But he really is the sweetest boy. Although he enjoys swiping Ellie's toys sometimes, if I can get her to calm down long enough to ask him nicely to give it back, he'll hand it right over. Tonight he got into some Christmas candy and ran away laughing with it, but he gave it up willingly when I asked for it.

Ellie is loving school as usual and has been having more friends over to the house. She loves to ask if she can have a play date with a friend. She's so funny, because she loves the phrase "play date" and uses it all the time in different variations. Like "lunch date" if they stay for lunch or "outside date" if they play outside. She has grown quite close to one of the girls who lives in our building. In fact, I often hear them plotting something they want to keep secret from the adults. The little girl told me they were planning a "stay date," but Ellie shushed her and swore her to secrecy. I'm pretty sure their "stay date" entails one of them hiding in the closet of the other's room and staying there forever.

I'm not looking forward to this summer, when that little girl's family and the other family we are close to in this building both move on to different universities in other states. But, that means new families in the building for us to meet. I'm rooting for more families with preschoolers!

Pictures and Videos!

Okay, okay, I brought out the camera tonight to take some videos of the kids playing. Here they are:





And then Rowan wanted to hide. So, he pulled out his clean diapers from the dryer, and hopped right in. First time he's ever done that!

I haven't blogged about this in a while...

I borrowed a neighbor's car tonight and went to the grocery store to do some deals. Want to see how I did?

This store that I went to doubles coupons up to and including $1. But, only 5 at a time and you have to have a minimum purchase of $25 (after sale prices, but before coupons). So, I did 3 separate transactions to maximize my coupon doubling power.

Transaction #1:
- 2 gallons of skim milk
- 2 bags of sharp cheddar cheese (8oz)
- 18 count large eggs
- Oreo cakesters 100 calorie packs (free with coupon)
- Cascade dishwasher rinse agent (free with coupon)
- 5 bags of chocolate peanut butter chex mix (YUM!) (5 doubled $1 coupons)

Total before all sale discounts: $28.47
Total after discounts but before coupons: $20.49
Total after all discounts and coupons: $3.90

Transaction #2:

- 8 cups of yoplait yogurt ($2 after doubled $1 coupon)
- motts applesauce 6-pack
- 2 chubs ground turkey (free after coupon)
- one sharp shredded cheese (8oz)
- Boost kids multivitamin drink (free after coupon)
- 2 huge canisters of old-fashioned oatmeal (we eat this almost every day for breakfast) (doubled $1 coupon)
- 2 more bags of chex mix, 3 bags of honey nut cheerios snack mix (doubled $1 coupon, 2 doubled $.60 coupons, one $.60 coupon)

Total before discounts: $45.98
Total after sale discounts but before coupons: $35.22
Total after all discounts and coupons: $12.33

Transaction #3:

- 4 cans tomato paste
- one can kidney beans
- 2 chubs ground turkey (free after coupon)
- 2 bags spinach
- 3 lbs bananas
- Frozen shrimp scampi (this alone was $8) (doubled $1 coupon)
- 5 more bags of chocolate peanut butter chex mix (I'm telling you, this stuff is good!) (3 doubled $1 coupons, one doubled $.60 coupon)

Total before discounts: $32.89
Total after discounts but before coupons: $20.55
Total after all discounts and coupons: $9.37

Picture of everything:

Grand total before discounts: $107.34

Total after discounts and coupons: $25.60 Savings of 76%!

(And yes, I bought 12 bags of chex mix. Did I mention how good they are? That should last me a month or two)

Happy Birthday Swagbucks!

I hope this is the last post I write about swagbucks, because I don't want to be a pest (and I know most of you read this to hear about the kids). But I just have to say that today is Swagbucks birthday, and they are giving out a bunch of points today. If anyone wants to join, now is the time!

Swagbucks is a search engine that you can earn points (called swagbucks) while you search. As you collect points, you can redeem them for prizes. In the 2 months that I've been using it, I've earned $20 at amazon.com! You just use it as a normal search engine (like google). Here is the link to sign up: click here

Have fun, it's totally worth it!

Just call me "Nurse Kirsten"

Yesterday, Rowan started coughing, enough to have the humidifier going whenever he slept. He seemed to cough a lot last night, so I was a little worried to be bringing him with me today for my all-day childcare job. Little did I know, he would be the least of my problems...

Ellie started complaining that her stomach hurt after we arrived at the house of the boy I watch. I suggested she might be hungry or might need to use the bathroom. We remedied both of those situations, and she seemed fine. Until about 2 hours after eating her oatmeal, when it all came up on their rug. For those wondering, it looks pretty much the same coming out as going in :) (Are any of you ever going to eat oatmeal again?)

I thought that maybe this was a fluke and it was from all her running around, but it was not. When she threw up a couple hours after lunch, I called the mom and asked if she could plan on driving us home today instead of us taking the bus. She is wonderful, and came home an hour early and drove us home. Thank goodness, or Ellie would have been puking on the bus. As soon as she got out of the van, she knelt down on the sidewalk and threw up again. Luckily by now I have figured out it is about 2 hours after eating, so I was able to run into her room with a bowl just now and save a big mess.

The odd thing is, Ellie does not have a fever, but Rowan does (and is still miserably coughing). Wish us luck tomorrow!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hmm, what did we do to celebrate Valentine's Day? Not too much! We were supposed to watch our neighbors' children for the afternoon, but unfortunately one of them was sick. So, we had pink heart-shaped pancakes for lunch (I didn't take pictures of them like Tara did). They were pretty good; I used a new recipe that calls for whipping the egg whites separately and folding them in to make them extra-fluffy. I'd say they were the fluffiest I've been able to get them using all whole-wheat flour.

In the afternoon, I braved using our car to drive to the grocery store, walked from there to Ace Hardware, and then picked up Pizza Hut on the way home. It was a major bargain day (what day isn't?). I had a $5 rewards card to use at Ace, so the bolt for Ellie's new bike, some shelving brackets, 2 halogen light bulbs, and ziploc bags totalled $2. At the grocery store, I spent $36.90 and saved $35.20 with coupons. 50% is pretty good! Then, I picked up our pizza at Pizza Hut (the first time in about 3 weeks we have had a meal I haven't cooked), used a $15 giftcard I received at Christmas, and spent $1.20.

After the kids went to bed, I made a chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, and angel food cake as dippers. Let's just say I ate too much. After we stuffed ourselves, Jason and I played U-dance. I convinced him to let me post this video I took of the screen (and a few seconds of his feet so you can kind of see the correlation between the screen and the steps). The green footprints on the screen is the left foot, the red is the right foot. Now you can see how easy it is to get lost on what steps come first, especially when it's super fast!

U-Dance fun

Okay, Jason won't let me put up videos of him dancing (even though he is much better than I am), so here are my humiliating examples of how to use U-Dance. It's fun and exercise at the same time!

Cotton Eye Joe:



And a much harder song:



And the kids having a giggle-fest:

Swagbucks - a way to earn giftcards (or other prizes)

Less than a month ago, I registered for Swagbucks. It is a site where you can earn points by using their search engine. I use it instead of google whenever I want to look something up. The points can be redeemed for different giftcards or prizes. After less than a month, I've earned enough points to redeem a $5 amazon.com giftcard! After you register, you can either keep going to swagbucks.com to search, or you can download their swagbucks toolbar, which puts a little search space on your internet browser. I downloaded the toolbar, and have not had any problems with it, in fact it makes earning points a lot easier.

If you are interested, you can use this link to sign up: click here

There are a lot of different websites that I try out to earn money or giftcards, and this one was easy enough that I wanted to share it with everyone. If anyone has any questions about it, you can comment and I'll comment back :)

R.I.P. 1992 Buick Century

We have some sad news. Our car bit the dust this weekend. We took it into the mechanic because it had been making a really loud clanging noise, and the transmission was acting up. After looking it over and test-driving it, the mechanic called back with the bad news. It would cost more to fix our car than it is worth (over $3000). Okay, so we were planning on just driving it until it quit completely, because that is what we pretty much did with our past cars. Nope, not possible, because apparently something unrelated to the transmission, the part that was making the loud clanging noise, is breaking off and when it breaks off completely, the car will come to an instant stop. No warning, no coasting, just a dead stop. Obviously, this would be dangerous in traffic, so we will not be driving our car.

In the meantime (not sure when/if we will buy another car), we are taking the bus. Every Monday and Wednesday I work all day watching a 3-year-old boy at his house. I take both kids with me on Mondays, and Jason watches Rowan on Wednesdays, so it's just Ellie and I then. On Tuesdays I bring the kids with me to work in a church nursery. We take the bus, which is not too difficult, it's just a bit of walking and a lot of waiting. The downside? This morning it was -4, feels like -15, when Ellie and I were waiting for the bus. That is cold! At least we can bundle up and not worry about car seats and bulky coats. Luckily the kids are great ON the bus, it's just the walking and waiting that they don't like. I've dragged two screaming kids down the street to catch the next bus, and it is not fun at all. In fact, it hurts my heart to think about Ellie remembering the days that she was dragged from bus stop to bus stop as a kid, always running. Thankfully we are figuring out the best routes now so we don't have to run; we can go at Ellie's pace. This morning, even though it was freezing, there were no tears and it was actually a good, fun experience.

We also just made an exciting purchase, an electric bike! Here is a link to it: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8467095&findingMethod=rr We paid for it with a couple of walmart giftcards we had, so we only had to spend about $130 out of our bank account for it. We received it last night, put it together, and now I can't wait to try it out! It is a regular bike, and can be used as a regular bike. The difference is that when I am going uphill, or need an extra boost, I can turn the throttle and the battery-powered motor kicks in to help spin the tires. This means I can go much further than my weak legs can take me. Actually, I have ridden a bike once to the grocery store (about 1.5 miles away) and it was extremely difficult coming back for me because it's mainly up hill. Big hills. So, now I can hook up our burley trailer to the back of the bike, ride down to the grocery store, pile the groceries into the trailer, and ride back, hopefully easily. :)

Now our transformation to hippies is complete, wouldn't you say? Natural foods, check! Cloth diapers, check! Reusable grocery bags, check! Growing our own vegetables in an organic garden, check! Homeschooling (possibly) and co-op preschool, check! Bussing and biking instead of driving, check! Anything else we need to add to our list?

Fancy Nancy and teeth brushing

The kids came back from AZ with new obsessions. For Ellie, it is Fancy Nancy. Fancy Nancy is to 3-5 year olds what Hannah Montana is to older kids. She is all the rage right now. She is a girl who likes to be fancy and use fancy words. There are no Fancy Nancy movies (that I know of) but there are now plenty of books. Of course there are also dolls, accessories, and dress-up clothes. So, with all the dress-up clothes that Ellie received for Christmas, she is able to get really fancy.

Yesterday we went to a Fancy Nancy tea party at Barnes and Noble. It was INSANE how many little fancy girls there were. Attenders were supposed to RSVP, but it was obvious by observing the flustered bookstore staff that they were not ready for such a crowd! There were probably 75 little girls, plus all their moms and some dads. Ellie didn't care that she and her friend had to sit on the floor because there weren't enough spots at the tables. She still had a blast! See how fancy she's holding her cookie? :)

Rowan's new obsession is with brushing his teeth. Every time he passes the bathroom he wants to brush them. I max out at 3 times a day, or I'm afraid his teeth will just be brushed down to nubs. The funniest part is when he is brushing alongside someone else, because he copies everything they do. I love brushing my teeth with him in the morning!

Rowan is not too happy when we take away his toothbrush. Seriously, I snapped this after telling him he couldn't brush anymore, right after that video.

Who needs a blog when you've got Facebook?

Sorry to those who have been waiting for a blog post (all 2 of you). I have recently discovered Facebook, and I spend most of my free computer time there. Also, my computer time has dwindled, since I am working about 30 hours a week now in addition to the usual household tasks.

We had a good time in AZ, although we do wish our trip was longer. We calculated every hour to ensure that every grandparent received equal face time with the kids (seriously), but it didn't amount to as much as we wanted! However, we will be going back in both May and December of this year to attend Nikki and Nichole's weddings.

Later tonight I hope to put up some pictures and perhaps a video. Right now naptime is almost over and I have someone from Craigslist coming over to buy something!

Hip hip hooray

Our car was fixed today!

It turns out it was an easy, cheap fix, just not one that Jason and I knew enough about to fix it ourselves. So after a week, we now have a car again. I spent this afternoon driving to Walgreens, Target, the bank, and the grocery store. It sure felt good. And now we can plan for our week-long trip to AZ in January. AZ here we come!

Just FYI, all the Christmas items at Walgreens and Target are 75% off. I bought a new 6 ft. prelit tree for $10 and a bunch of Christmas decorations for next year, plus Christmas cds and some clothes for Ellie. I spent about $30 and came home with a TON of stuff. So check out your local stores!

**Merry Christmas**

Well, for those of you who don't know, we missed our flight to AZ on Monday. Boohoo! Seriously, I cried. And so did the kids. To make a long (LONG) story short, our car wouldn't start, we thought it was an easy fix, Jason worked on it for hours, and by the time we realized it wasn't the battery, it was too late to get to a rental car place and drive to the airport (3 1/2 hours away). Looking back of course there are a couple things we would have done differently, but nothing we can do about it now, right?

So, we made the most of it. All of the neighbors in the building took some part in helping us on Monday, trying to get us to the airport. One lent tools, one tried to jump-start our car, one drove Jason to get a new battery, and one offered to drive us halfway to the airport. All of that really showed us the true Christmas spirit and how generous our neighbors are. We truly love living here! Luckily we have one family in the building that didn't travel anywhere for Christmas, and they were able to take me to the grocery store on Tuesday to get food. We had eaten most of it trying to empty our fridge! A woman from my Bible study offered to pick us up, take us to Christmas Eve service, and to their house for dinner (and back home again). We had so much fun with her family. They have 2 kids, a 4-year-old boy and a 7-month-old boy. Ellie had sooo much fun with her son, their personalities are very similar so they chattered and played pretend games the entire time. Here is Ellie all dressed up for the Christmas Eve service:

Today we didn't do too much, because we actually celebrated Christmas here on Saturday, in anticipation of being in AZ on Christmas day. The kids loved all the toys, but of course they loved the cheapest ones that were afterthoughts. Ellie is attached at the hip to a new baby doll we bought her, and Rowan loves his magnetic set of balls and sticks. Pretend that we opened presents today, and here are a couple of pictures:

Our tree

Opening presents

Ellie's very own computer

Since we didn't actually have any presents to open today (and I even packed away the tree and lights on Monday morning), it was pretty much just a normal day for us. The only special things we did were make a cake (gingerbread) to celebrate Jesus's birth and read the Christmas story. Here are my little helpers:

Ellie the elf

Rowan will NOT be left out of anything!

"I gotcha buddy"

All the bakers (and my new haircut)

The finished product

So, our car will not be seen until Monday, as everywhere is closed until then. A whole week without a car! Yesterday and today there was no bus service, so we were stuck at home, but tomorrow we plan on taking the bus downtown to the library so the kids can GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! Unfortunately it's been too cold to play outside (below zero a lot of times), but I think the weather is looking up. Tomorrow it's above freezing!

Oh, and a side note, my sister Nichole is now engaged to her long-time boyfriend Warren. Yippee!

Ellie sledding with Daddy

From Ellie's perspective

From the bottom

A whole lot of snow!

This is what the kids have been doing lately. Jason has taken Ellie sledding a couple of times, and she gets to sled at school too. Rowan enjoys it for a little bit, but he gets cold and cranky after a while. Maybe next year the kids will be perfect ages for family fun in the snow!

Today all the schools are closed, including Ellie's :( I had to unbury our car this morning (at 6am) to get to work. Lots and lots of snow expected today!

"I didn't get to crunch"

Ellie had a bad dream last night, and she wants to tell you about it.

Ellie: A dinasaur was trying to eat me. The dinasaur was saying "I am hungry" and I said "No, no, don't eat a nice kid like me." I closed his mouth and it broke into pieces. Then it said, "I didn't get to crunch."

And then a fox came. It was trying to eat me. I was running away

And there was a powerful teacup with hot tea on my clothes thing. I didn't touch it. It went away because it was just pretend.

We can't wait for Christmas!

After much debating and waiting, we finally have airline tickets to travel to AZ for Christmas! We were hoping they would go on sale for an affordable price for us, and they finally did (of course now they are even cheaper, but I try to not think about that). If prices stay this way, maybe some people could finally come visit us :)

We will be looking forward to the weather in AZ, as the ground is already covered in 5-6 inches of snow here. This year is better than last, even if there is just as much snow, because the kids are older and able to play in it a little. Rowan is still a little young, but at least he can move around and I don't have to worry about him freezing to death. Jason took Ellie sledding the other day, and she LOVED it. When I went to pick her up from preschool yesterday her class was sledding too. Two other things we've enjoyed with the snow were spray-painting the snow (with spray bottles filled with water and food coloring) and making maple ice cream by mixing clean snow with maple syrup. Although I heard tonight that even clean snow really isn't that clean. I guess we won't do that too often. Okay, I just googled eating snow and I don't think I'll let Ellie do it any more. Gross!

We have all of our Christmas shopping done for the kids, and I can't wait to see them open their presents! Ellie is getting: a learning laptop, the Barbie Nutcracker dvd (and a trip to see the Nutcracker ballet live), and a Christmas mug. Rowan is getting: a rescue-themed train set from Target, Thomas the train Ultimate Christmas movie w/Thomas train, and Hot Wheels cars. Plus stockings of course. Somehow Ellie knows that stockings are filled with candy, so she's most excited about those. Because of several deals I've done through Target, all of the gifts total about $95 usually, but we've only paid about $32. Christmas shopping CAN be done on a budget!!

Woohoo, a new blog post! I now have my very own computer, so Jason and I don't have to take turns using one laptop. Yes, I woke up at 3:45am on Black Friday. Yes, I stood in line in 20 degree weather for 2 hours to buy this laptop. Yes, my feet almost fell off from the cold and they hurt so bad that I sat on the ground, took off my shoes, and sat indian style with my feet in the backs of my knees. Hey, Famous Footwear had a Black Friday sale too, so I went there to get some warm boots afterwards. The bright side is that we were in Iowa visiting family and not in Madison, so it could have been even colder. We had a great time with family, eating yummy food and playing games.

Here is Ellie with my Great Grandma Knapp (Ellie and Rowan's great, great Grandma!!!)

And Ellie's new favorite thing to do, drawing and writing.

Picture of Mommy (big yellow circle with lots of orange hair) and Rowan (smaller person at the bottom of the page)

Picture of Daddy (with looooong legs and no arms) and Ellie (with orange hair).

Yikes, this is the one and only picture I have of Rowan recently. I'll have to remedy that!

November already?!?

Another holiday down, and now only one separates us from Christmas. Ellie has the schedule down, and recites the order of the holidays often. Oddly, she is most excited about Valentines Day :)

This year's Halloween was much better than last years, for three reasons. 1, the kids are older. 2, the weather was wonderful. 3, we know the neighborhood more. Ellie was a witch, and Rowan was a lion (redone from Bryson's monkey costume last year!). I made the tutu for Ellie's witch costume, cut off ears and banana and glued on fur for Rowan's costume. The rest was bought! And since the weather was so wonderful, the kids were able to show off their costumes with no jackets.

A spooky picture with a weird setting on my camera:

Roarrr!

Ooh, a spooky witch!

I didn't realize they were in the same pose!

Fall photo shoot

I just realized that if you click on the pictures, you can see them HUGE! That's fun :)

Ellie had a blast on her field trip to the pumpkin patch, even though dropping her off was a little shaky. None of us have ever had any reservations to dropping off Ellie at school on a normal day. Ellie happily runs into her class, and I happily let her :) But on the morning of the field trip, it was a little trickier. For one thing, all of the students were there, not just Ellie's class. It was crazy just with the sheer amount of people in one space. But the kicker was that they were separating the kids into rooms based on if their parents were coming on the trip with them or not. So, one room was filled with kids running around playing and their parents chatting with each other, and the other room had 4-5 kids standing solemnly in the middle of the room. Guess which room Ellie was going in :( Siblings were not allowed to come, and Jason had class, so I couldn't go either. After being shepherded into the somber room, Ellie didn't want me to go. But both of us felt a lot better once one of the teachers told us that Ellie would be paired up with one of her fellow classmates and his mom. This particular mom has helped out in class a couple of times, so Ellie actually knows and enjoys her. So, Ellie was fine with me leaving and I left with just a couple tears in my eyes. She just seemed so grown-up going on a bus-driven school trip at the age of 3!

Rowan of course is not in school, but he is still learning every day :) Here is his new favorite trick:

Stay away winter!!!

The last few days here have been unseasonably warm, so we've been enjoying the nice weather! The trees have changed color and most of the leaves are still up, so it is really beautiful here right now. Jason is well into school and is very busy between his teaching assistant position and the full-time course load he has this semester. Imagine grading 30+ papers while trying to write your own! Here is the typical view we have of him with the computer (ooh, behind him is an owl that Ellie made out of paper plates and decorations):

The kids are both really happy playing and learning together. Ellie can make Rowan laugh like no one else, and she enjoys "taking care" of him. It's so nice that they can play together now! Although, they are beginning to plot trouble together too. Rowan usually is the one to figure out how to get into something, and then Ellie helps him. Here they are putting colored pencils into each hole of a notebook:

I don't know if I have mentioned this before on our blog, but Ellie started going to a nearby preschool 2 afternoons a week. It really stretched our budget, but we thought it was worth it for her to have friends to play with, especially over the winter. Luckily we have found out that we will be receiving some funding available for student families that will make it very affordable for this semester. We have to pay each month, but then we'll receive a lot of it back at the end of the semester. Ellie LOVES going to school, and they do such fun things there. Tomorrow morning they are going on her first field trip, to a pumpkin patch. It's nice for me to have a short break from her (about 4 hours a week) and it wears her out too! Here she is taking a rare nap on the couch:

I'm allowed to brag about my kids here, right??

This is the one and only place that I feel comfortable completely bragging about my kids, since it's my own blog. So, here I go... :)

Last night I took the kids out to dinner after church (Jason was beyond busy grading papers, so he didn't go). We went to Old Chicago and shared a 3 course special; I highly recommend it! Anywho, more than halfway through dinner an older couple finished and was leaving the restaurant when the lady stopped and told me, "Your children are so well-behaved and just a delight to eat next to. You did a great job!" I just told her thank you, and basked in the delight of the complement :) I distinctly remember this exact thing happening to my family at Denny's one night while I was growing up, and I'm pretty sure it happened more than once. As I thought about this last night, I realized that someone has told us how well-behaved our kids are after every single flight I've ever taken with them. I guess Jason and I lucked out with kids who are easily entertained! Oh, and let me make the disclaimer that everyone who knows them more than superficially knows that they are definitely not perfectly behaved children. Far from it! Just ask our family or our neighbors (hi Sarah if you are reading this!).

Here are my well-behaved children standing on their activity table :)

Don't they have the same smile?

Ellie's thoughts on marriage...

This video is long, but watch it if you want to see a little bit into Ellie's head, how she thinks.

What does Rowan want?!?

Quick update

Ellie has her cast off, yippee! She was very excited about going to the children's hospital (where her orthopedic surgeon is) to get it off. The clinic was very busy and we were there for 2 hours, but she finally got it off, and the pin removed. She cried while the cast was removed, as it was loud and scary, but it didn't hurt her. However, she SCREAMED when the doctor removed the pin, because it hurt her. They don't give any pain relief, just a 1, 2, 3, pull! It bled a couple drops, but he wrapped it up basically to keep her from looking at it. It was kind of freaky to look at her finger with the pin in it; it was about 45 minutes between taking off the cast and taking out the pin. And afterwards, well, Jason couldn't look at the hole in her finger for too long without feeling sick :) Here is a picture of it for those who like that kind of stuff...

She can bend it fairly well and is starting to write with her left hand again. We thought that maybe she would switch to being right-handed, but nope. There you go, Aunt Nichole, she's a lefty!

The kids are sick (barfy, crying sick), so I can't write a long post. Maybe sometime this weekend :)

My latest hobby

Buying as much stuff as I can with as little money as possible. Otherwise known as couponing :)

As of now, Walgreens is my favorite store. Does everyone know that they give away products free after rebate (known as FAR in the couponing world) every month? In that alone, I have enough make-up and shampoo to last me for a long while. Even with just these products, if you add in coupons, you can actually make money off of this. How great is that? A store is PAYING me to take their products! Above and beyond FAR items, many items go on sale for equal or less than coupon value. For example, take a look at this picture of stuff I just bought last night:


Exedrin PM, 6 (yummy) candy bars, a bouncy ball, and 2 decorative flowers (for Ellie's room). I "purchased" all of this for a measely $.92. Almost all of that was tax. The excedrin and candy bars were free with coupons, buying the excedrin gave me a coupon for $1 off your next order, and I used that to buy the decorative flowers (which were on clearance for $.50 each). The bouncy ball was also on clearance for $.25, and I threw that into the first purchase so my total wouldn't be negative, because Walgreens doesn't allow negative balances before tax (this is called a "filler item" in the coupon world). Catch all that? Isn't it fun? I'm not even going to share the bundles of stuff I "bought" from Walgreens last weekend when they had a $10 off your purchase of $40 coupon.

Here is last night's grocery run. I had gone "real" grocery shopping earlier in the day and saved over 50% on my bill, but this was a late-night run with some coupons that I didn't bring earlier. My grocery store doubles coupons with up to $1 value (so $2 doubled) on Wednesdays (with some rules and stipulations). This is what I bought last night:


6 boxes of Cleanteam flushable wipes
10 refills of Cleanteam flushable wipes
3 loaves of Sara Lee 100% whole wheat bread
1 gallon of Deans skim milk
3 Reach dental floss
1 Aquafresh toothbrush
1 Pillsbury crescent rolls

My total before coupons? Over $60. After coupons, $6.78. Amazing, right? Do you see why I am so into couponing? (Did I just make a noun into a verb?) Usually I'm not able to acquire mass amounts of something, like the wipes, but someone gave me a bunch of coupons for them.

I have a lot of help from various websites where people gather to share deals. If anyone is interested in me helping them get started, let me know! I won't bore everyone with my methods. As long as no one lives near me and takes all my deals, I will be happy to share ;) It's just a great way for me to productively use my free time after the kids go to bed, and save our family some needed money!