Another snow day!

Wednesday we had another snow day...if you call a light dusting of flakes "snow"! The kids were anxious to get outside...especially Aaron who really wanted to make a snow angel!



Love this sweet one of my Claire bear...




She is so much more cooperative than her brother when I get out the camera!

Aaron loved making tracks through the snow.


Aaron did a snow angel, but Claire didn't want to get that cold.

Help me give this photo a name

I couldn't resist taking Aaron's picture when we found him sound asleep in his bed a few nights ago. That's a Monster Truck book laid across him.


Some possible titles...

"Visions of Monster Trucks Dance Through His Head"
"Smashing Dreams"

I want to hear your suggestions!

Thankful for snowy days too...

We were so thankful for the pretty weather at the end of the week, because it had been soooo cold early in the week! On Tuesday morning while we were getting ready for school, we saw snow flurries outside! The first snow of the winter! It wasn't cold enough to stick, so I rushed the kids to finish getting ready so we could play outside for a few minutes before school.

Claire wanted to ride her tricycle and "have a race".



Aaron had an idea to scoop up snow into his dump truck. He was so disappointed when I told him the snow was not going to be deeper later in the day!


We enjoyed it while it lasted! By the time they got out of school, the snow was gone and it was just plain cold.

Thankful for pretty days

Thursday and Friday were just beautiful! When we got home from school Thursday, the kids didn't even go inside...they immediately started playing in the driveway. We sat out there for about an hour, then moved to the backyard for another hour and a half. While they were in the backyard, I enjoyed a quiet house, did some laundry and some reading. That backyard is definitely going to come in handy this summer!

The kids got filthy and loved every minute of it!




Claire accidently put her dirty hand in her mouth right as I snapped this picture!




They told me they were making paper. They had to get the dirt and "grabel" (gravel) in the buckets, dump it in the wheelbarrow, then take it to the paper factory. Such vivid imaginations...I just love to hear them talk to each other while they're playing!

(And it's no wonder grass won't grow on that part of the backyard!)

The oven saga...good news and bad news...

Thursday night Aaron and I were so excited...the oven parts had come in the mail! When Chris opened the small box I was shocked at how many parts he had gotten for just $8. He looked through them, telling me "This is a transistor", and "This is a capacitor." It all flew right over my head. I'm not even sure I just spelled those words right.

The next morning he took the little oven control board to work with him, along with the parts. He needed equipment at his office to actually fix the board.

Friday night after dinner (which I prepared on the stovetop...), he installed the new control board. He asked me, "When you push the bake button, what temperature does it start at?" I told him 350, and wondered why he asked me that question.

A few minutes later he triumphantly announced that the oven temperature was 350!! Hooray! Unfortunately, he had dropped the control board in the garage that morning and some tiny little bulb was broken off, so now the oven display doesn't work. It's just blank. Which means that yes, I can get my oven to 500, but I have no idea what temperature I'm actually setting it at since the temperature setting was part of the display screen. So I can turn it on and hit the up arrow a few times, trying to guess that maybe 5 clicks would be 425...or maybe that's 475? Luckily I have an oven thermometer but playing guesswork with my oven setting is just not going to cut it.

Can you BELIEVE Chris was actually able to FIX the board...but then he broke it? We are just in disbelief at this turn of events.

So, since the display is not fixable, we have ordered a refurbished board from Sears and it will be here next week. All of this was an exercise in trusting my husband. I really didn't think he would be able to fix the board with all those tiny little pieces. I just knew we'd be at Lowe's or Home Depot on Saturday ordering a new oven. But let me tell you, that guy is one smart cookie and he knew what he was talking about!

The good news is that I was able to bake cinnamon rolls and muffins this weekend! I'm looking for dinner recipes for this week that can be cooked at 350, since that's my only sure-fire temp right now! And I am so happy we're not having to shell out $1000+ for a new oven!

Craft night...my favorite resolution!

I love my "craft night" New Year's resolution! On Thursday nights, Chris is in charge of the kids so I can do whatever!

Last night I swept and mopped the kitchen (to avoid doing it today!), then it was off to the craft table! It's so nice to get the night "off"...no baths to give, no bedtime stories to read. Not that I don't love doing those things, but a girl needs a night off every once in a while!

I enjoyed making a set of cards for a friend who is getting married next weekend. Her last name begins with "S". (I threw that in because Chris said, "Why 'S'?" He doesn't "get" stationery!)




A couple of weeks ago on my craft night I drew my friend Regina's boys' names and made gift tags out of them.

Brady is into pirates...


And Bennett is into superheroes!


To draw the little icons on the letters I found cute clip art on the computer to give me an idea of some simple drawings I could sketch. I had to Google "superhero logos" to find all those pictures to use for Bennett's name! After I had drawn them, I scanned them and put them in a Word document to print on cardstock. They turned out really good! I did some for Aaron and Claire too...just ABC pictures. It's the same drawings I used on their chore charts I made back in September.

I had a dream...

This morning at breakfast Aaron told me, "I had a dream..." and I wondered if he somehow knew it was MLK day. Ha!

But no, he really did have a dream last night, and he remembered it enough to tell me. It was so cute listening to him tell Daddy and me about the dream. I'm going to attempt to type out his words here...

A: "I had a dream! And I was in it. And my cousins were in it."

M: "What happened?"

A: "Well, me and Emma were riding on the back of a knuckle-boom truck. And Nate was driving."

D: "Nate and Reed were driving?"

A: "Um...no, I don't think Reed was in that dream." (Sorry Reed!)

M: "What did you do?"

A: "Nate pressed on the pedal really fast and the truck fell over!"

M: "Did anyone get hurt?"

A: "Um, no, I don't think so. I guess Nate forgot to put down the jacks!"

D: "Was anyone else in the dream?"

A: "Yeah, some grownups."

M: "Which grownups?"

A: "I don't remember. Maybe Emma and me were driving the knuckle boom truck..."

For those of you who don't know, a knuckle-boom truck is that truck that comes by (at least in our city) at least once a week to pick up leaves, branches, and other trash you put out on the curb. It has a big claw and a dumper, and when it's ready to pick up the load, it has to put down jacks to steady itself, then the claw is manuevered over the pile, where it grabs the trash and swings it over into the dumper. Aaron loves it!

His Daddy's boy

I can't help but notice how much Aaron is like his Daddy. I mentioned in my last post that Chris is a genius. Aaron seems to be following the same path. (I know...I sound like such a proud bragging mama but I promise it's true! He he he!)

There is no doubt Aaron will one day be an engineer. He is very analytical and technical. He tries to figure out how things work and asks so many questions about how things work. I remember Chris telling me about taking apart their toaster when he was younger trying to figure out how it worked (or maybe he was fixing it? He's into appliance repair, you know!).

One of Aaron's favorite things to watch? "Factories." That's what he calls all the shows that Chris turns on in the evenings after dinner..."How Stuff Works" and "How It's Made" on the Science Channel are big hits. Also "Modern Marvels" and "Time Warp", and other similar shows on Discovery. We also like to tune into "Unwrapped", "Food Detectives", and "How'd That Get On My Plate" on Food Network. Aaron will set mezmerized as he watches a machine chop corn or a factory make car bumpers.

My boys are both math whizzes. Chris never ceases to amaze me with the math he can do in his head. I think Aaron will be the same way--a couple of nights ago he did 17-12 in his HEAD at the dinner table. He was trying to figure out how many days until the 17th, and he said, "Today is 12 so cross out the 12...13 is one, 14 is two, 15 is three, 16 is four, and 17 is five. Five days!" Chris and I were floored. We asked him who taught him to figure it out like that, and he said "Nobody..." like we were crazy or something. Doesn't everyone know how to do math in their head?

He also could be sustained on PB&J. I'm serious--sometimes he asks for it for breakfast. I could serve it three meals a day and I think he'd be perfectly happy. I have been thinking about Aaron starting kindergarden in the fall, and I asked Chris if he ate cafeteria food or brought his lunch when he was growing up. He said, "Brought it, PB&J every day." For years. He seems to need no variety, and Aaron is much the same way! Aaron WILL eat his veggies though...he loves broccoli! Chris won't go near it.

Today Aaron told me, "Mommy, if I'm going to be an engineer one day, I will have to go to Walmart or some other store to buy some hunting supplies." I tried to explain to him that engineers don't necessarily hunt, and he said, "Yes they do!" Well, yes, but other people do too...it was a losing argument with him. Hopefully he will enjoy hunting like Chris does!

Aaron also tends to play alone in social situations. He is not as likely to run and romp with the boys as he is to find something to put together or take apart in a corner of the room. I have to believe Chris was like that as a child. I heard that Chris's uncle said that Aaron is so much like Chris when he was younger.

Often I will worry about how Aaron will do in school, if he will fit in or be too advanced and get bored...and as I'm rambling on about my concerns, Chris will say, "What? Are you afraid he's going to turn out like me?"

Well...no. That would actually be a very good thing!

Oven Saga...

A couple of months ago Chris had the kids home by himself for a little while and he decided to make chocolate chip cookies...from scratch! (He said he really just wanted some cookie dough to eat!) I was shocked he tried that on his own, but then when I tasted the cookies...well, I wasn't so shocked. They were hard as rocks! Chris told me they took forever to cook. (The cookie dough had been good, I was told!)

I started noticing over the next couple of weeks that things I was making were also taking longer. So I bought an oven thermometer, and sure enough...our oven was not cranking out the heat it should!

We started by diagnosing the problem. When we set the temperature to 350, the oven would get to about 250, then cut off as if it had reached the desired temperature. Chris noted the temperature sensor in the oven, found a replacement part online, and when it came right after the new year, he installed it.

The oven still didn't work. That was a waste of time and money.

And the oven has been getting worse. I've been having to crank it to its max of 550 to even get the oven to reach 350...and that takes a while. So we concluded it must be the heating element. (Even though the oven still *thinks* it's 550, but I figured maybe we misunderstood the way the oven actually works.)

That's easy enough, so we ordered the part. I was just sure that would fix it. Chris installed the new element...and NO CHANGE. Now he's take the entire oven apart, removed the control board, and has been trying to reverse engineer the board so he can figure out how it works, to figure out what's NOT working. Confusing?

Imagine my anxiety when I look in my kitchen and see this:






I just have to brag, and say Chris really IS a genius. I'm convinced. He can look at that green board with all the little gadgets on it, and he knows what he's looking at!! He is no average husband, that's for sure. His electrical engineering skills certainly come in handy around here!

Last night he told me it's not looking good. It could take quite a while to reverse engineer the board, only to find out the part of the board that's not working can't be fixed, and he has already found out you can't just buy a replacement board. He hasn't given up yet, so I have faith he will figure out what needs to be done.

We had big plans to do some remodeling of our living room/kitchen in the next few weeks, but we might be getting a new oven instead. That's exciting in some respects, but I would really rather not have this expense right now!

Some fun winter games

We have been playing some fun winter games, and I wanted to share with my mommy friends!

*This Bingo game in the February edition of Family Fun was a bit hit with my two! I didn't make it as fancy as the instructions--I just printed the game boards, and wrote out the words and cut them apart. The kids sat at little lap desks in the living room and took turns drawing words and putting marshmallows on their boards. Great for reading/spelling for Aaron, and to strengthen Claire's letter recognition skills.

*Aaron cannot stop talking about a game they played during the kid's hour at church a couple of weeks ago. Apparently it had something to do with sentences that were either true or not true, and different buckets you put the sentences in. He kept begging me to make a game for him, so I finally typed out some sentences in the same fomat he told me the teacher used at church. The sentences say things like, "It's OK to steal something from the store," or "It's OK to help Mommy unload the dishwasher," or "It's OK to share toys with your friends." When the statement is read, the kids decide if it's true or not true (or good or bad as Claire said), and put it in the right bucket. Not much too it, but they really liked it! Next time we play I will let Aaron help me read the sentences to work on his reading skills.

Aaron's playtime...garbage and legos

For those of you who don't know, I work part-time from my home. I work during naptimes, and when I tell some moms that, they say, "Oh, does Aaron still take a nap?" The answer is...sometimes.

Every day between 1 and 3, we have quiet rest time. Claire takes a nap (and sometimes wakes up before 3:00, or goes down after 1:00...I'm no nazi about the times!). Aaron has quiet play time in his room. He has to keep his door closed and play quietly. He honestly looks forward to this time! He can play without his sister bugging him and can make as big of a mess as he wants...BUT he has to clean it up before bedtime. (Many times he has said, "Next time I have quiet play time I'm going to get out ONE thing and put it back." Live and learn!) He has been known to be tired and climb in his bed for a nap without saying anything to me, which is always a bonus!

One evening I snuck up on him with the camera to see what he had been doing during quiet play time. Look at this big mess!! He DID clean it all up! That giant garbage truck is his favorite Christmas gift--he plays with it every day!

And Claire had to pop in on the video. She is such a camera hog!

Fun in the bathtub!

For a brief time one afternoon, we had a bathtub in our kitchen! And it was filled with packing peanuts! What fun!

Marshmallow Tinker Toys...a fun winter activity!

We suffer from a bit of cabin fever in the winter, so when I saw the idea for this entertaining (inexpensive!) activity, I just had to try it. Plus, Aaron is already asking for Tinker Toys for his birthday *IN JUNE*. Crazy kid.

The first thing Aaron built was a Christmas tree. The pretzels sticking up are ornaments.


Claire wasn't that great at building something herself, and she asked me to build her a stroller. So I sorta did something that looked like it might have wheels, and had two handles for her to push. That's all her imagination needed! Next I built a baby for it...here she is pushing it along the table!


Next, Aaron built a tow truck, then he built another one that is being towed by the first tow truck. You can totally tell that's what it is, can't you? (Ha!)


The great thing about this activity...it's edible!


I took a cute video of them playing and talking about their creations.

New Year's Eve...five kids under five!

The week after Christmas Chris was at a 4-day Bible study/deer hunt, so the kids and I were on our own. For New Year's Eve, we went to Jennifer & Beth's house. They were babysitting the triplets for the night and we decided to have a cousins sleepover. I brought some awesome salsa, which made for a great start to a fun party!

Aaron was so excited about the party poppers and blowers I had bought, and kept begging to get them out. Finally we let the kids count down the new year at 8:00, before they settled down for a movie. We figured it was 2009 somewhere!



Claire thought we were a bit noisy.


Then the kiddos got in their jammies and we made popcorn!




Aaron and Reed were big buddies all evening. They sat together on the couch to watch Wall-E.


The other kiddos camped out on the floor. Claire cracked me up by putting her popcorn bowl on her belly. Not sure why I thought that was so funny!



About halfway through the movie the kids were running around the living room trying to catch a second wind, except Aaron who was half asleep. So it was down to bed they went! We divided the 5 kids between 3 bedrooms and they sacked out pretty quickly! Jennifer, Beth, and I talked and played Sequence until after 1:00!

The next morning was a great breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and bacon.


Buddies again...


The girls always pair up.


Later in the morning we decided the kids needed to burn off some steam outdoors, so we bundled them up and sent them to the backyard. The boys took tools with them, and started digging in the dirt, "to make holes for the worms to breathe."



Claire was so pretty in her hat and scarf! She was trying to jump rope.



No worms yet!


After a little while we brought the filthy boys in (the girls had gotten too cold and were already inside doing crafts with me and Beth!). This picture doesn't quite capture the filthy face Aaron had. The boys said he put some dirt in his mouth!


Craft time!



I think Claire was a little tired.


Finally it was lunch time! The kids were excited to have a picnic in the living room.







What a great way to ring in 2009!