Weekly Review: January 24 - 30

When we moved into our new house last summer, our intention was that we would gut and remodel the kitchen - our tentative time frame for this being this spring. In the meantime, the L shaped mud room that surrounds our current kitchen serves as a wonderful playroom! There is one little problem though, it gets really cold out there!

We were disappointed at the thought of loosing this great play area over the winter months. Even thought it probably wouldn't make a big difference, Daddy decided to make a couple small changes. We put down an extra area rug, Daddy added some weather stripping to the back door and we hooked up a small space heater in the room. The results from these small changes ended up being nothing short of amazing! The boys now have a nice cozy little play area which they use a lot! Now that the cold weather has limited our outside play time, its great having this little spot available for the kids to just do their thing while confining the bulk of their toys to one area.

Just because we haven't posted any of Brian's "Tool of the Day" posts while Mommy has been playing catch up on the blog, don't think for a minute that Brian hasn't been hard at work! Last week Daddy wanted to install the wood thresh hold in our bathroom. Fortunately Brian was able to pry himself away from playing fireman long enough to show Daddy how to properly measure before cutting. As Brian always says: "measure twice, cut once!"

Mommy and Daddy had an appointment Thursday evening with Brian's teacher. That's right, their first parent/teach conference! When the first thing you hear is "Brian is a very intelligent little boy", you almost feel like you should be waiting for the other shoe to drop! Fortunately that was not the case! She confirmed some things that we already knew (ie: he knows his letter, colors, shapes and numbers, oh......and that he is left handed). She said that while his attention span can be short, that's very normal for a 3 year old! Since he knows all his letters, she would now like to see him working at learning to write them. All in all, she said she is very happy with how well he is doing. Hearing this was music to Mommy and Daddy's ears! Brian spent his Saturday evening winding down with some Lawrence Welk. Yes, we still tune in to Public TV most Saturday and Sunday evenings to listen to the musical magic of Lawrence and the gang! Tonight Brian got interactive and with the help of a couple bowling pins, was directing the orchestra right along with Mr. Welk!

Weekly Review: January 17 - 23

The boys got a Mickey Mouse bowling game for Christmas. There has been a lot of bowling going on at our house lately and they are really having a good time with it. Little did we know that and as it turns out, this little game has turned into a good training tool for Brian! We mentioned earlier that the boys cousin Haley turned 5 years old earlier this month. What we didn't say is that she is having a birthday party for a few friends today and it is a BOWLING PARTY!!!!!

Mommy and Daddy made the managerial decision that Spencer isn't quite ready for a trip to the bowling alley yet so he stayed home and watched football with Grandpa. Brian however, was BEYOND excited! He picked out his ball (6 lb balls were the lightest ones available) and he handled it pretty well.

There were a total of 7 bowlers in attendance. They were split into two groups and used two alleys. Brian was a maniac and even though he wanted to completely explode from pure excitement, he did a great job of waiting his turn. Every now and then we had to steer him back to the alley he was suppose to be using but other than that, he didn't want much assistance. Mommy shot a few short videos of the bowling frenzy and she is trying to figure out if it is possible for them to be loaded onto the blog.

Every so often Brian's school has a theme that they encourage all the kids to dress for. This Friday the theme was "Cool School Day" so all the kids could dress in styles from the 50's or 60's. With the aid of some hair gel, here's the little greaser that went to school this morning!

Earlier this week, Grandma started having a lot of leg/hip/back pain. Haley was planning to go play at her house for a while on Friday but since Grandma was not feeling up to her ol' self yet Haley suggested that she hang out with us! She came along with us when we went to pick "Cool Brian" up from school and the boys LOVED getting to play with her when we got home!

Weekly Review: January 10 - 16

Daddy has been hard at work remodeling the kitchen of a very nice family. The boys have been extremely anxious for Daddy to install their new cabinets because as you may know, cabinets come in really cool boxes! You guessed it.......we just got some great new toys to play with!!!!!

Now that Brian is in school, he takes his role as the educated big brother very seriously.

Half the fun of bedtime is getting to pick out what books you would like Mommy or Daddy to read to you! Sometimes the books come from Spencer's bookshelf in his room, and sometimes they come from Brian's.

Weekly Review: January 3 - 9

Since this past December was our South Dakota Christmas year, now that we are home we are having our Illinois family Christmas celebrations! There were stockings to open.

There were also some new friends to hug! Uncle Corey gave both boys "Al", the Wells Fargo pony. Anyone want to take a guess as to where Uncle Corey works???? :-)

Grandma has a tradition that each Christmas Eve, the grand kids open a package that contains a pair of her hand crafted jammies! We thought last years were cute but this years are even more adorable!!! Thank you Grandma!!!!!!

Before the tree and all of the Christmas decorations are packed up and put away, here is one more official "holiday shot" of the boys!

This week started and ended with birthdays! So, Happy Birthday to Aunt Ann on Sunday the 3rd and to cousin Haley who turned 5 years old Saturday the 9th!

Weekly Review: December 27 - January 2, 2010

Our original plan was to have started for home yesterday (Saturday the 26th) and to be home by today (Sunday the 27th). The 16+ inches of fluffy white snow outside has slightly altered those plans. What would you do if you were snowbound at Grandma and Grandpa's house? Easy question........make home made ice cream! Spencer helped Grandma get all the ingredients mixed together. Brian helped Grandpa get the salt poured into the ice cream machine and...........






EVERYONE enjoyed the yummy results!!!!!

Just because we didn't want to be out driving in it didn't mean we didn't want to be out PLAYING in it! Daddy dug out a little snow fort area for the boys to play in.

Now, about that addition that Grandma and Grandpa put onto their house! Here's a picture of the front of the house. Yup, the garage and unsided portion of the house is all new! Amazing huh?




This picture was taken standing by the bay window at one end of the addition and looking into the sun room at the other end. With all of this new additional space to race around in, I think at the end of the day, the boys were actually more tired than they normally are!




Even though we got to stay a little longer than we anticipated, eventually the roads cleared up enough for us to start for home. Thank you for everything Grandma and Grandpa! We love you both and we love what you have been able to do to your house! Absolutely amazing!!!




We drove through a lot of drifting snow (like this picture) for the first hour or so but once we got onto the Interstate, things went very smoothly. We still saw a variety of vehicles in the ditch but for the most part, our roads were pretty clear. Up to this point we have always made the trip to and from South Dakota in two days. However, since the roads were okay and since Daddy was anxious to get back to the job he was working on prior to Christmas, we decided to try out luck at making the trip home in one day. We had lunch in Sioux Falls with Mommy's good friend Jannelle and didn't stop again until we had dinner just outside of LaCrosse Wisconsin.







The McDonalds we like to go to has one of the best playlands on the planet so after they had their dinner, we gave the boys a little extra time to stretch their legs and have some fun before we needed to got back on the road. The boys were fabulous little travelers, especially considering they were strapped into their car seats for well over 12 hours!





Once we were home, it was time to start planning the final details for our New Years Eve party! The group of friends/family that we go on our annual zoo outing with are the same group of family/friends that we spend New Years with each year. Kids and adults - eating, playing games, talking and lots of laughing. We have fun every year and this year was no exception. When the kids started playing Wii (an interactive video game played on the tv), Brian was front and center in the action! It was the bowling game in particular that he couldn't seem to get enough of and it was completely hysterical watching!



We wish all the very best in 2010......Happy New Year everyone!!!!!

Our first birthday greetings for 2010 go out to the boys cousin Lauren who turns two years old on January 1st! Happy Birthday Lauren!!!!!!!