Boys with attitude

Nathan bought the boys fedoras last week, and now their favorite game is running around the house playing "Indiana Jones!!" Asher, especially, enjoys shouting this at the top of his lungs as he races about the living room, kitchen and dining room, doing his "laps" as we call them. Really, the hats are quite cool -- and the boys love them. Way to go dad! By the way, Asher's shirt ... which states "I still live with my parents" is my favorite!

Ah, young love!

Nhia, my good friend and co-worker, came over to visit today and brought her adorable kids along with her.
We constantly joke about how we'd like to see Norah and Asher married someday. They are both such cutie pies! And they gave each other plenty of hugs and kisses at our urging so that we could take photos. Poor kids!! Hee hee!

Asher, Ella and Norah pose for a photo.



Asher and Norah, lollipop twins, play with the boy toys (of which our house is full of! Poor girls!)


Norah: "Gosh, Asher, that's a super cool fire truck T-shirt you have!"


Asher, wasting no time, as he makes his move on Norah. Pucker up! Too cute!


Rhylah and Ian sit back and watch their crazy siblings.
Rhylah: "So Ian, what did you do today?"
Ian: "Oh you know, eat, sleep, poop. You?"
Rhylah: "Yeah, pretty much the same thing! You're great at supporting your own head! I can't wait till I can sit up without falling over!"


Here is some archive footage: Of Asher and Norah in February of 2006, when they were just three months old! Too cute!

Ready for Indy?

This post is in honor of my darling husband, who is perhaps the biggest Indiana Jones fan ever! Here is the trailer for the new movie. Now, Nathan and I had a big discussion about whether Fords age will matter in this film .... you know, kind of how Sylvester Stallone flopped in the newest Rambo... but we figure this will work because Indy keeps making jokes about his age, which makes it funny. Sallone was still trying to act young and cool, but as you can see from this trailer, Ford is having some serious fun with the fact that he isn't 30-something anymore. My favorite part? ... "You're a teacher?" ..."Part-time." Hee hee! Enjoy!

Oh, baby!

Okay, this post was inspired by my good friend Amy's blog. She decided to lose her post-baby weight, and now I am determined to do the same! Don't get me wrong, it's not that I haven't lost ANY of my preggers pounds. But for some reason, with this third child, the weight didn't just magically melt from my butt, hips and thighs the way that it seemed to with Gabriel.

So. This chick is gonna have to BURN it off! Ever since week 4 after my baby, I've been exercising 2-3 times a week, maybe 4, if I'm ambitious. But there have also been about 2 or 3 weeks in there where I totally lose motivation and don't do ANYTHING. (i.e. if I'm sick on Monday, I use that as an excuse to not work out all week long...ugh!)

The other pitfall for me has been after-dinner snacking. It's too easy for me to just eat some popcorn or ice cream with my hubby at night without considering what I'm ingesting. UGH!

But now I'm well and truly determined! I want to lose ... drum roll please ... 20 pounds!

I'm going to shamelessly copy Amy's idea of posting my results on my blog margin (to the left). I'll post my last workout and my results and urge anyone to bust my butt if they notice it's been awhile since I've been working out. And as a side-note, thanks Amy for this idea! It's just the motivation I needed!

Let it snow and snow and snow...

Gabe and I spent time on Saturday digging out an igloo.


Here I am after wading around the side of the house to clear out our exterior vents of snow. It was hip deep around the side of the house.


Find the street...I challenge ya! :)


Gabe stands by a drift


Snow piles up on our poor grill.

As you can see, we have snow. A LOT of snow. Driving down the streets has become sort of like driving down tunnels, with heaps of snow on both sides -- some taller than Nathan! Church got canceled this morning due to sleet and ice, and we're due to get 4-6 inches more snow today. UGH! Is Spring anywhere in sight???

A Slow Week -- but 1 new addiction

Rhylah was just too pooped out to play with me yesterday. I got so bored I just sat there watching my beautiful girl.

Poor Rhylah has been soooo tired for the past two days. She had her 4-month checkup yesterday and got three shots, plus an oral dosage. Now my kids have always responded to the "shock" of shots by completely shutting down, and Rhy is no exception. By the time we got home from the doctor's office, she was out. And she continued to sleep for almost 5 hours, until I finally woke her up to eat. Yesterday was much the same story. She slept and slept! Poor little thing! I HATE holding them still while they get their shots -- they just look at you with their little faces all confused as to why they are getting hurt and why mom seems like an accomplice to the pain. Oh, how I hate it! But it's done! For those of you who are curious, little Rhy is almost off the charts. She weighs 16 lbs 11.2 oz (95th percentile) and is 26.5 inches tall (off the charts ... so 100th percentile apparently) and her head is 41.5 cm (60th percentile.)

In other news, I have a new addiction in my spare time.... which really amounts to about 10 minutes per day. :) I've discovered piratesonline.com. It was created by Disney and is a SUPER fun game! Now I'm not a "gamer." I don't usually "do" games, beyond the occasional foray into Oregon Trail or Myst, when it first came out. But this game is just good fun! You get to design and name a pirate, name your ship, and sail the seas attacking british ships and visiting all the islands from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Too much fun! Check it out!

Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost


Here I am on our front porch, ready to go!


Blurry photos that Nate took of me when I set out into the deep snow.



For some reason, this poem really seemed appropriate for me last night. I'm not sure why it popped into my head but it did.
We got about 15ish inches of snow yesterday, when the official count was finally taken. It was horrible -- for vehicles -- and perfect -- for skiing.
I skiied to work. At 5-o-clock, it was just barely dark when I left the house. It's about 1.5 miles to work, or 40 minutes on cross country skiis. Nathan bundled me up, put my dinner in my backpack and even attached lights to my pack, in the front and in back, so I would be visible. Not that I had much to worry about -- I think only 2 cars passed me along the way. But PLENTY of other people greeted me with laughter, smiles and greetings of "That looks like fun!" or "Is that girl skiing?!" (this from a child). Or, my personal favorite, the car full of teens that pulled over and made me smile for their cell phone camera. Why???? I'm not sure!
But it was on the way home, after midnight, that I enjoyed myself the most. NO ONE was out! In fact, I skiied right down the center of Eighth Street, the busiest street in town ... taking the time to stop, right in the middle, and look every which way ... no noise, no cars, no snow plows .... nothing but silence and the sound of my breath. VERY strange, and yet peaceful too. I felt like the only person in the world. On the way home, my skiis shuushed their way down the street and the houses all looked snug and secretive with their dark windows like unblinking eyes -- the snow hanging heavy over windows and doors like drooping eyelids. And that was when the poem came into my head ... "...and miles to go before I sleep..."

Big Fluffy Flakes!

It's hard to take a picture of how big the flakes were, but here is a shot out my front window.



Here is ONE FLAKE after it landed on my hand!



Just some fun photos of Rhy playing. She's finally able to hold toys for a short while as she gums them. :)




I'm really starting to LOVE my Mondays and Tuesdays off. For those of you who don't know, when I went back to work, it was on a part-time schedule ... which has been GREAT and necessary, with three kids at home.
Today, as we were looking out the window, Asher and I saw the biggest snow flakes we'd seen all winter! It's hard to show it in photos, but I tried to snap a few!
I was just telling my sister the other day, that it's reached that point of the winter here in Wisconsin, where it snows once or twice a week and the city seems to throw up its "hands" in frustration -- and stops plowing or salting, so the streets are forever covered in one hard packed layer of snow. I find this odd. It's literally like they've given up on trying to keep up with it. So everywhere you go, you're sort of scooting and skidding and fishtailing about. Is this just a Wisconsin phenomenon?
Oh well. I always enjoy the snowy part of winter, because the next part is when everything just looks brown and dead for a long time until spring hits. Ugh. So yes, I do indeed love the fluffy white snow! Maybe I'll take Gabe ice skating after dinner tonight!

No help from the polls

So I've been confused as to who I should vote for in the presidential election. To be honest, I haven't been paying THAT much attention to all the election mumbo jumbo. Mostly because I got ticked off that it started too early. Kind of like when you go into a department store in August, and you can't buy a bathing suit, but you can purchase a lovely Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer light up lawn ornament. It makes my blood boil. So now that I'm FINALLY trying to tap into the mass amount of information, double-speak, hysteria, mud-slinging and double-entendre that makes up our political system -- I find myself ... wanting to sob. I'm not ready for this. It's like putting on a bikini in February. Argghhhhhhh!!! NOT READY! NOT EMOTIONALLY ABLE TO HANDLE IT! MAKE IT GO AWAY! Please, someone! So, to get an idea of who I might want to begin watching, I took a poll. (see my sidebar, where the quiz is located for anyone who is interested). Did it help? Nope. You can see from the results that apparently I'm dead even between Obabma and McCain. Now, I knew I wasn't a Hillary girl, so that didn't surprise me really, but wow! How diverse! Seems like I have quite a way to go before my mind is anywhere near to being made up.

Lots of "firsts"

Mmmmmm....yummy goey rice cereal!


Look at me mom! What fun!


This post is a week late, but I wanted to share Rhylah's news! She has now tried "solid" food (meaning Gerber rice cereal) and is using her exersaucer! This is big news for our little lady, who is growing up much too fast! She did a good job with the food ... spitting out most of it as she tried to figure out what to do with it. I can't say that it made her sleep any better, as it did for the boys ... because she already sleeps so well! She usually lasts each night until 5 a.m. before waking up for a feeding. She really enjoys the exersaucer too ... so does Asher, who seems to have fond memories of his old toy and keeps trying to climb inside.

Matching Cousins

Here's a cute shot of Rhylah and her cousin Abbie wearing matching sweaters. Too cute! I took this photo at Gabriel's birthday party last week ... more birthday photos to come soon!

Yet another reason to love the ice rink

Okay, so those of you who aren't into the mushy love stuff might want to skip this entry. But I have to blog about it, because it's just too sweet not to.
Yesterday I was having one of those days where the kids are going nuts and my head was starting to spin ... yeah, kinda like that girl on the Exorcist. Sometimes, as I'm sure even the best of mothers can verify, three kids (heck, even one kid) can be enough to make you want to jump out a window.
So what did my darling hubby do? He arranged for a sitter, kidnapped me for an hour and took me ice skating.
Now some might say -- One hour: That's hardly any time ... or ... Ice skating: Not especially romantic... but I would have to disagree.
One hour feels like a week-long vacation when you've had a rough day. And ice skating? Well, that's how my grandmother snared my grandpa, so it's romantic enough for me. Also, Nate and I had never gone skating together before.
We drove to Cleveland Park, and it was so late that we were the only people there ... the warming shack was closed and the lights over the "rink" were off, so it was quite dark. But you got used to it after a minute and the stars just seemed that much brighter. We had a blast, skating around, racing, throwing snowballs, tossing each other into the snow banks and just having some good old fashioned fun. I don't think I've had that much fun in one hour all winter. Thanks so much sweetheart!

Brush with an Old World tradition

Gabe and I head out to go ice skating.


Gabe stands in the warming cabin .... nice and toasty!


Gabriel on ice!



Gabe and I did something tonight that I think they've been doing in Sheboygan for possibly 100 years.
We went ice skating!
Apparently, every winter, they flood two parks in our town -- one on the north side and one on the south, and turn them into huge ice skating rinks. They just opened them up yesterday.
Today, Nathan found used ice skates for us at Play It Again Sports, only $15 for mine and $20 for Gabe's! So at dusk, Gabe and I trekked out to Cleveland Park.
How delightful! After a day of being stuck inside, it was so good to be out! And of course the "rink" comes complete with a little warming cabin with a wood-burning stove ... a huge tree stump with an axe stuck in it sits in one corner, along with a gigantic pile of firewood. An older gentleman, probably a member of the parks department, sat there reading and supervising things.
What a charming way to spend an evening! We're going back again tomorrow!

A little bit of white stuff

A good old fashioned Wisconsin snow! The most we've gotten in one batch all winter!


Gabe wades through the snow to get to the car on his way to school.


Asher gets ready to go sledding with daddy -- some quality time for daddy and son!

So we got a little bit of the white stuff last night. What I think is amazing is that in Missouri, 1-2 inches would be enough to shut down half the city -- heck, even the prediction of 1-2 inches would cause a minor uproar ... but here in good old Wisconsin, 10 inches isn't even enough to call off, or even DELAY, school! But the good news is that Gabriel is at an age where this doesn't really matter. Our conversation this morning went something like this:
Gabe: "Do I have school today?"
Mom: "Yeah ... sorry buddy."
Gabe: "That's okay mom! I LOVE school!"

Wow. How many years do you think I have left before that response changes?

Quite a puzzler!

A new super cute photo of Rhylah looking charming in her carseat ... In puzzle form! Put it together and see if you can beat my time of 40 seconds!!

Hello Miss Rhylah

I took this footage today. Rhy has a very unique way of saying hello and goodbye -- she sticks her tongue out at us. Take a peek!

Go Pack Go!

My family in their Green and Gold


"Look daddy! I'm a cheerleader!"



Today is the big game, and we're all glad that it's finally here! Here is my family, all dressed up for the big event. Even Asher has on Packer overalls! Gabriel is SUPER excited. And even Rhylah got dressed up in her new little cheerleader outfit, (Thanks, Uncle Keith!) which fits PERFECTLY, even though it's size 6-9 months and she's barely 4 months old. She sure is growing fast!!!

A little bit nuts

I like the Packers. A lot. I hope they win the Super Bowl ... I hope they go all the way. In fact, I would venture to say that I've never been so supportive of a football team, ever. Even the Rams, when I lived in St. Louis. It's easy to get caught up in the fan hype here in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin, because it's very simply ... what people DO here.
But dear Lord in heaven, I hope the media hype stops soon.
WOW.
You wouldn't believe the stories that are pouring out over the media wires lately! Not to mention the fact that everyday, our own front page is devoted to Packer-mania. EVERY DAY. And we're not even in Green Bay.
But let me tell you a little bit about some of this quality journalism ... pulitzer prize winning stuff really...
Let's see, yesterday there was the father who was arrested for forcibly duct-taping his 7-year-old son into a chair for refusing to wear a Packers' jersey during last weekend's game. WOW.
And today I had to laugh at various crazy stories analyzing the turf of Lambeau field, and how it really was from Jersey, closer to the Giants home. Ummmmm....who cares! News alert! IT'S JUST GRASS!
Oh, and the best one yet ... A Green Bay television station found out that Eli Manning's favorite TV show is "Seinfeld." So, this weekend ... when Mr. Manning comes to town, the station has decided to yank the episode off the air. So the Giant's quarterback will have to suffer without Seinfeld. Oh the horrors! How on earth will he win a football game without a daily dose of Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and George!
Well, that's it. I don't think they even have to play the game. It's all decided. The Packers' will win, thanks to WLUK-TV Green Bay. Whew! I'm glad too, because otherwise things might have really gotten crazy!!

Just a quick photo

Just a quick photo of Rhylah-roo today. I was busy helping Gabe with his blog post and ran out of time! But if you get a chance, check out his blog ... he LOVES getting comments. It makes his day! :)
This is Miss Rhy with her tongue sticking out. This has become her most favorite game of all. She giggles whenever we stick our tongues out at her, and she loves trying to do it herself. I think it's her way of communicating at this point! What a doll!

Sweet little Gracie

This is me and my most adorable, sweetheart of a niece, Sydney. In my head, for some reason or another, I seem to refer to her as Gracie -- her middle name is Grace -- which is one of my most favorite names ever! But of course, her whole name is quite beautiful!
This past weekend, we got the chance to take a quick drive to St. Louis and visit my sister and her hubby and their beautiful new daughter. She's lovely of course, and sooooo tiny! After holding Rhy for so long, and being used to her 14 plus pounds now, Sydney's tiny 6 pounds was like holding thin air!
But my sister and her hubby, Leon, are doing wonderfully well as brand new parents! Sydney Grace couldn't ask for better, more loving parents ... and grandparents too! We miss them already!