Secret Prayer Pal Dinner

Gracie and Caroline have been participating in a secret prayer pal group at church. They've been having a great time giving and getting thoughtful gifts and cards for the past few months. March marked the end of this 'round' of gift giving, and we ended it with a formal dinner party. They loved getting dressed up for the night. Gracie is wearing a dress that was her cousin Alexa's, and Caroline got to wear a dress that is really special - her dad picked it out. I had sort of forgotten about it, but he chose it as Gracie's easter dress in 2006, the year he passed. Caroline was so proud to wear that dress - it brought tears to my eyes...just a little piece of her daddy that I could give her. Hopefully, all of those little pieces will be enough for her to know about him.

The Incredible Westward Movement

The girls were in the elementary play at school in February! I can't believe it's already April - almost May - and I haven't posted these pics yet! WOW! Gracie was a pioneer mom. She had several lines and sang a song in the play. I was so proud of her - she made it through all the lines and the song with no trouble at all.

Caroline was an indian. What a cute little indian if i do say so...she did great as well! She had lines and a song too. I think they had a great time in the play!

Jonas...

Gracie and Caroline LOVE this dog! She may actually be the best dog EVER! She sits on the couch here and watches all of us in the kitchen...

Caroline is letting Jonas pull her across the wood floor!

Good Dog!

It's been a while....again

Well, I obviously don't have time to publish blog posts on a regular basis.....I have great intentions, great pictures, and lots of thoughts to post, but not much time :)

I will be catching up soon. We have celebrated a birthday and Easter, and we have a new addition to the family to introduce. Details and pictures coming soon! Don't give up on me!!!

Snow......

Finally a really good snow to build a snowman in! I think it has snowed at least three times this year already, but the first time it didn't pile high enough for snowman art; the second time it was the dry powdery stuff that didn't work either; finally the third time we have snowman snow.

Jon and the girls went out last week and built this snowman while I was at work. The had some help from our neighbor and Jonas of course...



I love how the carrot is in there backwards. If I were home during the project, you all know I would have had to fix that :) I did ask if anyone noticed and Gracie said that Caroline was hungry and had taken a few bites out of the other end!!!! That made me laugh!



Jon added his finishing touch - the Vandy cap.



I just think this is a funny picture of Caroline.

I wonder what type of snow will fall tonight as I sit here watching the weather report for more of the white stuff!!! I am really going to appreciate the warm weather when it finally arrives. Come on, Spring!

Playing on a Frozen Pond...

I know what you're thinking. A FROZEN POND????? WHAT? YOU TOOK THOSE SWEET LITTLE GIRLS OUT ON A DANGEROUS FROZEN POND!!

Well, yes we did. Now let me explain myself ...


Grandad and Grangran have a pond on their property. Last Saturday, after all the snow and ice was really frozen, Grangran made this picture of several kids playing ice hockey on their pond.




Pretty cool, huh? In my 30 years of life I have NEVER seen a pond frozen enough to play on, so we decided that the kids needed to experience this one!

We sledded on a corn scoop:

Andy -

Caroline:

Gracie:

Heather (she fell off the scoop and Grandad had to help her out a little...)

And...this is me - Marlon fell down when he was pulling me and it was hilarious!

Made snow angels (Caroline and Andy):








Then, we finally (with the help of some of the neighbors) figured out how to REALLY enjoy the pond:








Letting Grandad pull us in a laundry basket behind the mule! It was awesome! We had a great time! I just realized that Grangran (who made the picture CD for me that had these pics on it) didn't put the best pictures on it! There is one picture of her riding in the laundry basket behind the mule...she had fun, but now I think she might have been afraid to have her picture posted on my blog doing so ;)

Snow much FUN!

Last weekend we had a *little* snow and a LOT of FUN! The girls absolutely LOVE to play with the little girl next door. Here's a pic of them introducing Rose (the hamster) to Jonas (the dog): LOL!

The funniest thing to me is that Rose is the only one looking at the camera!!!!! HILARIOUS! Jonas doesn't seem to care at ALL that there is a hamster sitting on her back...

We ended up getting about 1.5 inches of snow and missing three days of school for it! I never remember things like that happening when I was in school. I know we had snow days, but never that many for 1.5 inches!!!! WOW! I just hope they don't have to make them up at the end of the year.

Another really cool thing we did last weekend was to finally put our bird feeders out! Caroline had been asking for some bird and squirrel feeders outside in the back yard. We put one on the window outside our breakfast "nook" area with a hook that had a suction cup. The birds loved it, and we enjoyed watching them. Here are two blurry pics of some birds we saw.