Ice Skating Pictures

We went ice skating this afternoon - Sam's first time on ice skates. He did pretty well, but he was so tired after 4 laps, and Ben and I had tired arms even after taking turns helping him. He built up speed every lap, and relied on us less and less, but still fell several times. He only lasted about 40 minutes and then wanted to play arcade games while we waited for Maria and Ben to skate some more. Maria is quite the skater - I couldn't keep up with her.

We're headed to the Smith's to celebrate New Years soon. We are looking forward to ringing in the New Year with friends, and the kids badly need someone new to play with. We'll post more pictures tomorrow.

Guitar Hero

So we've been in Geneva visiting my parents since yesterday and today my sister Wendy and her family came as well. They are spending tonight in a hotel here since there's not enough room for all eight of us at my parent's house. They invited us to come swim with them at the hotel tonight and Maria and Sam had a blast playing in the pool with their cousins. We were amazed at how confident Sam is in the water since his swim lessons earlier this winter.

But the big hit of the day was the Wii game Guitar Hero III that Brandon got for Christmas and brought to share with us. Its a Wii game that comes with a guitar that you use as the controller and it really feels like you're playing the guitar to the music. Another added bonus - most of the songs are from the 80's and so are familiar to me too. I've never seen Ben enjoy a game like that before, but we all had a lot of fun playing it. So we ordered ourselves one - of course being a "hot toy" this season, its back ordered but we hope to have it in a couple of weeks.

A Really Long Time Ago

Spoken by Sam in the basement bathroom of my parent's house - still too scary for the kids to go by themselves:  "A really long time ago, when I was four years old, I went to the potty down here."

Sam's only been 5 years old for 3 months.  Wouldn't it be nice if time still seemed to move that slowly!

Water

Our new water softener was installed this morning and already we have noticed a big difference. It makes us so surprised that we didn't notice there was a problem in the first place. The hot water tank is still emptying so bath/shower water is a combination of cold soft water and hot hard water, but that should be better in the morning. The install took about three hours but went fine - we still don't have any ice in our ice maker but the book says it may take 24 hours. So we're hoping that fixes itself and we won't have to mess with it.

Being home all day allowed the kids to play with many of their new toys - I think everything is now out of the package. The house looks pretty bad - we've been putting away stuff non-stop (at least it seems that way) since Christmas morning and there is still more to do. Ben put several bags out to the trash tonight, but we did get rid of some old stuff to make room for the new.

The kids have been watching a Harry Potter puppet show on You Tube pretty often - Ben and I are going around the house singing "Snape, Snape, Severus Snape" all the time - I can't get it out of my head! Check it out on Ben's blog fhsbando.blogspot.com.

The Favorites Emerge

Here we are, 36 hours after the crazed opening of Christmas gifts and it always surprises me what the kids end up playing with the most. Even with spending the afternoon traveling to Tiffin to visit my grandparents, we've been home enough for me to notice the gifts they keep going back to. here are my observations:

1. They LOVE the small stuffed Gingerbread girl and boy that Jaynie Lambert gave Ben when he bought some jewelry for me at their store. The kids slept with the Gingerbread girl/boy, taken them everywhere, and are currently in the basement setting up some kind of wagon ride and house for them. They have even named them, but the names are so painfully obvious that I can't even force myself to type them.

2. Piranha Panic game is also a big hit. It was for Maria, but I have played it with Sam more. He loves to make the piranhas attack the poor fish.

3. Their Nintendo DS games they love, but that one I at least expected. Plus with all the time in the car today there weren't a lot of other options.

4. The Wii games they tire of quickly - I think its mainly because they take some getting used to, and we need to buy another nun chuck so that we can all play them together.

5. And lastly, I thought I was making a great purchase by getting Disney Scene It 2nd edition for the whole family to play. Sam loves the Scene it games, but can't take part in much because he is too young to have seen a lot of the movies. This one advertised to include more recent movies, like Cars and Ratatouille. We played tonight, and most questions were from Pinocchio and The Sword and the Stone. Ben and I couldn't even answer the majority of questions. So that was a big disappointment, but there's usually something I get that I am disappointed with later.

We have tomorrow at home. Wendy and Mike were going to visit but now our visits to my parents will overlap this weekend so we can exchange gifts then. The Culligan people are coming to install the new water softener - we can't wait. The water has seemed so disgusting now that we know its hard.

Christmas Morning Pictures

Presents and Games and Legos, Oh My

I'm tired! It's Christmas evening and I know that everyone is looking for Christmas pictures or movies, but you will have to wait a little while longer because Ben is STILL putting together his (I mean Sam's) Star Wars Lego set. I am not familiar enough with the new camera yet to put stuff on here - let's face it, it could be months before that happens!

We had a wonderful Christmas here. The kids were thrilled with their gifts (except Sam getting clothes, but that's to be expected). We've been playing games on and off all day, and the adults even got to play a round of Caddyshack trivia while the kids played their new Nintendo games. I am so thrilled to report that I did not lose Caddyshack trivia, even though I came in third and only beat Rita by one point - I still did not come in last place as expected by everyone. Still on our list to do tonight - getting the new remote control figured out, playing Mario Galaxy with Sam, getting Maria's Mrs. Puff's boating school Lego set finished, and watching the new Harry Potter movie after the kids go to bed. We have to figure out if its too scary for them to watch before they know we even have it. And if I drink a bottle of wine, maybe I'll even be up to Dancing with the Stars for the Wii.

We wanted to thank both sets of Grandparents for all of the gifts, help, and company during the last 24 hours. We are so blessed to be able to have everyone with us for this holiday and lucky that everyone has so much fun together. Wonderful Christmases like today would not be possible without you!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Time is Here

Its Christmas Eve morning which means we're well into our holiday traditions. We returned from Rita and Darrell's house last night, after a visit that was fun, relaxing, and tasty (such great food!). We even had some snowy roads as we got closer to home that has put a dusting on the ground - enough to pass as a white Christmas.

This morning we clean the house, Ben makes his minestrone soup, and we prepare other goodies for our Christmas Eve dinner tonight. We are blessed to have both sets of parents spend the evening and stay over so they can be with the kids on the magical Christmas morning. We even sing Christmas carols around the piano (Maria will do a lot of the playing this year, proving that her two and a half years of piano lessons have been a good investment). Then we let the kids open one present - which is always a pair of new pajamas and a book to read. That was my own tradition I started several years ago that the kids haven't gotten tired of yet. Then we leave cookies out for Santa, sprinkle reindeer food (Sam made at preschool) in the yard, and off to bed. The kids are always so excited and up with (or before) the sun on Christmas morning, when the madness begins.

Water Problems

So after meeting with the Culligan salesperson yesterday, we discovered (after numerous water tests) that its not just our drinking water system that is shot.  Its the entire system.  Our softener hasn't been working at all and we had no idea, other that some weird smells coming from the washer after several days of no use. It was my questioning the salesperson about this problem that led to water testing and the discovery of a completely dysfunctional water softener.  So now we have to buy an entire new system.  The house is 18 years old, so it's probably time for a new one.  The good news - they can come and install it on Thursday and were able to work around all of our holiday traveling.   

Cookies Done!

Well, they're done.  Five kinds of Christmas cookies have been baked here in the last 24 hours.  Six, if you include me totally messing up the Meringue kisses, throwing them away and starting over.  The secret to our success is divide and conquer.  Ben's specialties are Buckeyes and Thumbprints, mine are Almond crescents and the meringue kisses.  Then we both help on the cookie cutter butter cookies.  This not only divides the work, but also when we take turns we each have much more patience when the kids "help."  Sam cracks up every time we say "Wax paper" - for some reason he thinks its a really funny word.

Also today we learned that our drinking water filtration system has died.  It is 9 years old, and was "reconditioned" when we bought it, so I guess we aren't real surprised.  But the timing stinks - not only are we hosting people here over the holidays with no drinking water, but we really don't need the added expense right now either.  But what can you do?

Tomorrow we are heading to Dayton to Ben's parents for a couple of days.  I'm looking forward to the break - I won't be here thinking about all the chores I should be doing.  Then back home for Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  Hard to believe after all this preparation that Christmas is really almost here.

Overheard

I overheard this conversation last night as we were walking from the parking lot into the zoo.

Sam:  "Wow.  There are A LOT of cars here.  Maybe 150."

Maria:  "Probably more than that."

Sam:  "Yeah... maybe even 152!"

I'm In Good Shape

So I had my bi-annual dermatologist screening today and for once all is clear. No "suspicious" moles whatsoever. It's nice going to the doctor and not having to get cut up for once. Whew.

I'm in Webkinz Hell

So Maria received a Webkinz dog for a gift exchange party on Saturday.  If you aren't familiar with these, they are small stuffed animals that you take care of through a website.  You have to feed it, put it to sleep, etc. on the site, and you can also play games to earn points, and when these points build up you can buy additional rooms, backyards, and who knows what else for their pet.  Ben and I knew about these Webkinz but have never bought one mostly because we didn't want to encourage any more screen time for Maria, in addition to the Nintendo DS and other video and computer games.  However, it is a really cute gift and she likes it a lot.  She even named it Snowball, which may not seem very creative, but if you are familiar with the other names of stuffed animals in our house, its pretty darn unique.

Anyway, the problem is that there is one Webkinz, one log-in for the site, and two kids.  On Sunday, when it was brand-new, Maria played on the computer almost all day and Sam was content to watch her almost the entire time.  As time goes on, however, he wants to play more games and she gets more and more restrictive on what he can do.  So as you can imagine, this leads to all kinds of arguments.  I finally asked Maria what it would hurt if she let Sam play more than one game every few hours, if she could lose points and put poor Snowball out on the street or something.  Apparently you can't lose points, she's mostly afraid that he will go in and buy things that she doesn't want for Snowball. (She did try to use the "I'm not supposed to share my log-in with ANYONE," but I think I convinced her that the Webkinz police are not going to find out.) I pointed out to her that if she continues to hover over him when he's playing this probably won't happen.  So they continue to argue, I continue to tell her she must let him play at least one game, and I don't think peace will be completely restored until he gets one himself, which was not on the Christmas list.  I'm hoping we can make it until Christmas when they will be distracted with other stuff.

Keller Kid Christmas Party

The fourth annual Keller Kid Christmas Party kinda sorta went off this Saturday. With anywhere from 5-8 inches of snow between the Keller ranch and places between from where guests were coming, attendance was sparse, but understandably so. The Caseys, the Owsleys, and the Smiths all made it from relatively close distances, and the kids had a fun time making gingerbread men, opening presents, singing songs, and playing in the snow. Click on the video to see what all transpired.

If you were snowed out of the gathering, please send your present to its intended recipient. If you need help with addresses, please let us know and we'd be happy to help you out. Merry Christmas to everyone. It could snow even more on Sunday, so we hope you're safe and warm in the face of the storm.

Maria's Christmas Dance

So this was Maria's part of the program last night.  Many groups perform and its very informal - supposed to be more fun than anything.  They had never practiced on this stage before, so it wasn't real polished. The most entertaining part of the whole night were the pre-school groups.  The girls were so stunned by the stage lights that they mostly stood there and stared, with no dancing.  One tap group decided they liked the way their shoes sounded on the stage and just started to tap their leg up and down.  Other kids caught on, and the whole group looked like Mr. Ed counting to the tune of Jingle Bells.  Very funny.

Christmas Program

Last night was the school Christmas program.  Some 4th graders get parts, 3rd graders have to sing in the choir, and kindergarteners get to sing at the intermission.  Maria, being in third grade, was in the choir, but helped conduct a song at the end that had three parts going on at once.  And Sam sang at the intermission - since he is part of Kinder PAWS during the school day he sang with his kindergarten friends during the day program and they let him also sing at the evening program.  I was kind of surprised, but he really wanted to do it and did a good job.  

This morning Maria got up with a terrible cough and when she coughed so hard she threw up I knew neither one of us was making it to school today.  Bad timing for me, since I was out yesterday while attending a professional development workshop in Columbus.  But we got things organized and I had Maria at the Dr. by 7:30 this morning.  Now she's on an antibiotic and some strong cough medicine (apparently it has a narcotic in it so no driving or operating heavy machinery for her), and hopefully will be feeling better soon.  We've had such a healthy school year so far - no one has missed sue to illness (except for Sam's fall, concussion, and hospital stay), so we knew it would hit sooner or later.  Now we just hope it stops with Maria and no one else gets it!

Christmas Ballet and other happenings

Maria had her first Christmas ballet performance tonight (the first scheduled performance was rained out a couple of weeks ago) and it was so cute! The girls put sleigh bells around their wrists and do a routine to Sleigh Ride. I wasn't able to get pictures (it was a show for Senior citizens in the Elks Lodge and it was crowded!) but should be able to at their show on Friday night. Maria also told us that she is helping to conduct the choir for her school program on Thursday night - busy week!

In other news, Sam ate plastic tonight when he decided it wasn't worth it to take the wrapper off his fruit roll-up and just took a bite out of the whole thing. When Ben caught him he claimed he couldn't get the wrapper off. This was not as scary as two weeks ago when he ate the foil on a piece of candy - he thought the candy was supposed to look like a soccer ball. We did call and ask the Dr. about that - she said it should be fine, and it was. Hopefully, this is not the beginning of a new habit for him.

"Cash!"

Sam, who's five and just beginning to understand the value of a dollar, has always been pretty indifferent when I give his allowance on Sunday evenings and thank him for doing his chores all week.  Not the case tonight.  When presented with his two dollars, he yelled "Cash!"  I didn't even know he knew that word.  Looks like I need to work a little bit harder at going over the true meaning of Christmas!

Snowman!

The kids were finally able to make their snowman Friday after school when it warmed up and the snow was wetter. We still have the accessories from a kit we received as a gift years ago, so he was all set with arms, eyes, nose, mouth, etc. Maria and Sam named him "Freeze," and have spent the rest of the weekend checking on his status as it continues to warm up and rain. So far, he's still standing, although leaning way over and losing parts of his face. Hopefully we'll get more snow later this winter and they can have a snowman that will last a little longer.

Snow Day

We got to enjoy our first snow day of the 2007-08 school year on Wednesday. We knew that it was going to snow, but it all came down to timing, with the bulk of the snow hitting between 2-4 AM. It started with a 2 hour delay, but we got the call at 8:20 a.m. and there was much rejoicing. We finished breakfast, relaxed for a bit, then I cleared the driveway while the kids played in the snow. Maria and Sam were a little disappointed that it wasn’t “snowman” snow, but it was just a bit too cold for things to stick. Lisa made hot chocolate when we came in and warmed us up nicely. The rest of the day was filled with TV, Wii, and plenty of rest and relaxation. Lisa and I knew when we went into teaching that there weren’t a lot of fringe benefits in the profession...no year-end bonus, company car, comp trips to Hawaii, and no executive washroom...but snow days are definitely one of the best perks ever.