The Foot Book

Savanna brought home a bag from school yesterday that had 'The Foot Book' by Dr. Suess. It also had a stuffed animal of the 'Hoo' or whatever the character is from the book. She had to read the book and them measure some things around the house with the characters foot and with her foot. She had fun doing it. She dressed up the character as a super hero before bed and slept with it.

Snow

We really haven't had a lot of accumulation of snow this week, but it's been steady for several days. The roads are covered, slick and not melting. It's been a while since I've had to drive on roads this yucky.

Hatching Eggs

I boiled some eggs and they were sitting in the pan of water cooling. There were a few of them that had cracked and Zachary said "The eggs are hatching!"

Yucky Smog

The valley is full of so much icky smog right now. It's hard to realize it when you are in it, but when we get to our house and look down, it's like a total blanket.

Conversations

Who's the Boss?
Paul: "There is only one boss in this house and it's the blonde sitting over there on the chair."
Savanna: "What? (smirking) You forgot her name?"

Getting Along
Savanna: "Mom told us we better get along or we can't play the iPad."
Zachary: "Well, you weren't supposed to be washing my cars."
Savanna: "I was only doing the glub, glub, glub part."
Zachary: "Well, I didn't want you to do the glub, glub, glub part."
Savanna: "I just wanted your car to be clean."

That conversation came about after watching an episode of Curious George where he goes through an automatic car wash then tried to make his own at home. It's so funny to listen to their conversations.

Winter Carnival

I went to Savanna's class on Friday to help with her Winter Carnival. They played in the snow, drank hot chocolate, made bird feeders, pretended to be hibernating bears, learned about igloos and snowflakes, and played a fun game with mittens.

Turkeys and Elk

We found the big herd of elk that always come down in the fields after a big snow storm. Then a wild turkey ran across the street in front of us and then we saw the rest of them on the mountain. Zachary wanted to grab one.

Disastrophy

The last few weeks Savanna has said this word several times, and it makes me laugh but I never correct her. She said "that is going to be a disastrophy." Disaster + Catastrophy = Disastrophy

Sprinkler

In October we realized that the people taking care of the yard at the empty house next door during the summer, had never turned the sprinkler system off. Then we never noticed it on again. But the other day, I came out to put the garbage out, and I could hear water spraying. I walked over to their yard and realized that the sprinklers were on and melting the snow. The snow on the entire front yard was covered with a layer of ice. I called the city and they had someone come to turn off the water. I'm not sure why the water was still on at the house if someone isn't there to pay the water bill.

Power Outage

I felt like I hadn't actually made dinner for a while, so as soon as I got something in the oven last Thursday night, the power went out. It was out for an hour. When it went out, Savanna was playing the Kindle and that was the power we had for a while.

Adopted

A gal at work was looking at this picture of my family that was taken over the summer. She asked me if Savanna was adopted. She was thrown off by the dark curly hair. I told her that Paul's hair was just like that when he was little.

Sweet Tooth

Savanna: "Does everyone have a sweet tooth?"
Mom: "Some people do, but dad doesn't, they pulled his out when he was little."
Savanna: "Well I sure do, cause I love sweet things."

Grandma Karen

Before Hanley started Kindergarten, I needed to find a new babysitter closer to home so she could come and go on the bus and stay with someone while I was at work. I asked around and found someone that lived around the corner from us. She was so great. Zachary was just about a year old. Karen, the lady that watched the kids, had her mom living with her, also named Karen (the kids called her Grandma Karen). Zachary was the youngest of all the kids that were there and Grandma Karen took especially good care of him. They both loved my kids as their own and I loved that she always said to Zachary "I love my boy". She's been sick for a while and the last five months she has been in and out of the hospital. She finally passed away last Friday night. The service for her today was great. It's so nice to hear more about such a wonderful woman.

Karen Elsa Ojeda Christiansen

1942 ~ 2013

Earl and his sock monkey

Just being us..

More Snow

Last Thursday night it started to snow about 5:00pm. By the morning, we had about 21 inches of snow. It was crazy. It was hard to even know where to begin with snow removal.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Zachary and Savanna had parent-teacher conferences. Savanna had made a cute little snowman and landscape out of marshmallows. Zachary had a cute snowman too.

Snow

After the big long snowstorm we had during Christmas break, the scrub oak trees looked like they had snowballs all over in them.

Ducks

One afternoon on the way home, we drove past the pond and saw two groups of ducks circling around together. It was so weird. It was super cold and we were wondering if maybe they did this to keep warm.