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!