snow forts

We have a lot of snow, and on Christmas day the weather warmed up to an unseasonable 39

degrees. It rained a lot too, and the the result was 18 inches of heavy slushy snow. Perfect for making snow sculptures, and that is what we did. We made a large 6 foot tall igloo and snow fort out of snow bricks, molded from a large sterilite container.

zoo in winter

We went to the zoo with my brother Aaron. since there is snow on the ground, we took a sled to cart the children around.

apparently riding in the sled was incredibly fun. The kids fell out of the sled for fun, then ran and jumped back in.

Caleb especially liked having Aaron around. It was pretty fun. Ofcourse wouldn't any kid love an uncle who pulled them and all of their siblings around on a sled for 2 hours? The kids, especially Caleb were sad to see Uncle Aaron leave today. Perhaps Aaron will was not completely sad to go.

christmas pictures

Here are some pictures of our christmas.



It was super fun. The kids got a lot of presents and there was a lot to unwrap.

earlier in the week we visited the olbrich gardens with Uncle Aaron. We made decorated paper snowmen with leaves, sticks, and other fun stuff. It was a fun project.

maddie on tv!!!

Maddie's Teacher was the teacher of the month for december! Maddie, of course, got to be on television because of this. I love it when my kids are on television.

here is a link to the clip.
http://www.channel3000.com/localvideo/index.html?v=26261

fantastic children

So I try to be conscience of the things I eat, mostly from a social justice and environmental perspective. I heard of a study that showed that women in the US who drank cows milk (which includes growth hormone) had twins at twice the rate of their english counterparts, whose cows' milk contained no growth hormone.
This is one study, so I need more information before tossing out the cow's milk; there is a huge genetic role in twinning, so that affects the results as well. Cows' milk also has a huge carbon footprint, though I do not believe it to be especially inhumane; I also believe it is disgusting for us here in the richest country on earth to spend lots of money on organic and special food when billions live on less than a dollar a day. I believe that organic food is elitist and that one day we will answer for our wanton waste of resources and selfish consumption.

I was discussing this with my husband, (who tried to name one our youngest child after comic book hero Mr. Fantastic 's alias Reed Richard), because I like him to feel that his opinions are validated, and he said;

"Well, if just having twins is the only risk, I mean maybe it could be a good thing. Perhaps our future children will have the ability to regenerate, or read minds, or we could graft steel onto their bones and then they could all fight crime"

Well, that's it. Bring on the dairy.

snow!!!

We got 12 inches of snow in the last 24 hours. Before this snowfall, we had 2 inches on the ground, so virutally all of this is new snow. This snow is fairly wet and heavy. Notice how the trees are weighed down. It is relatively warm, about 25-30 degrees.

Though I dislike driving in the snow, I have retained my childhood enthusiasm for the white stuff. Shoveling it is an adventure. Tromping through it is a challenge.( ran 3 miles this morning!). I have more fun pulling my kids around in sled than they do! Last night I pulled Maddie home from her playdate. It is the most wonderful time of the year!

I love to make snow forts. I also love sandcastles, but snow is so much more versatile! It is like fluffy white playdough. My favorite trick is to spray water on a creation, then let it freeze overnight. Snow sculpting has become more enjoyable as my children have grown old enough to assist in my endeavors and even to contribute themselves.

Martin made a tower today all by himself, he even thought of using the plant pots as molds for the bricks. It is white (the color of snow) so it is sort of hard to see in the picture.

Martin is currently working on his fort which is the first of two that we are making for snowball fights. Benjamin plays snowball fights with the kids. Each team gets a fort, then they throw snow at eachother. Generally they just throw snow at Benjamin because he lets them, and that way nobody cries.

Most of the fun is in the fort construction and stockpiling snowballs.

We love the snow!!!!!!!!

Here is a picture of Maddie wearing her new headband which she doesn't like to wear.

I plan to let her pick out the next flower head band.

Reed inspires good behavior?

Here is the scene that took place in our house today;

Reed is peacefully sleeping on the livingroom floor. Maddie is watching him sleep and stroking him and his fuzzy red sleeper. She has a sweet smile on her face and says
"Whenever I see Reed sleeping I remember not to threaten to kill anybody".

Good thing.

Christmas tree fun

There is a conflict in our home about christmas trees.
Benjamin believes that real christmas trees are very important.

"Well, why not just have a fake christmas too?" Benjamin says, when approached with the idea of an artifical tree.

Perhaps his preference has merit, but since this is MY blog we will ignore that, and simply humor his eccentricities.


I like fake trees because they are cost effective. Especially when borrowed from a friend or purchased at a garage sale.

Benjamin believes that real trees can be made more cost effective by getting a lot of use out of them. A $30 tree up for 3 weeks is $10/week. Left up for 6 weeks, it is $5/week- that's half price!
He likes to leave the tree up until all the Holidays are past. And by Holidays I mean Valentines Day. So the first week in January I get to do all of the tree removal. It is a messy and crazy business, much easier with an artifical tree, but that's alright. I am willing to be inconvenienced for the sake of marital harmony. Besides, This year I am cooking a Tofurkey for Christmas dinner. Benjamin will need some payback after that.

Since we must get a 'real' tree (is there an imaginary tree? perhaps it would cost the square root of $-25.00), We try to get a cool one. We visited a tree farm yesterday. It had a lot of trees, it was 10 miles away, and it was way over priced.

A lot ofhte local christmas tree farms justify their high prices in a variety of ways.
1. The experience of walking in nature, selecting and cutting your own tree is worth the extra $20.

If your only exposure to nature is a christmas tree lot then you are already in trouble. The parks and trails in the county are all free. You are allowed to look at all of those trees free of charge, year round, and they are even open on christmas.

2. Patronizing tree farms supports local business, small businesses and helps the economy.

No one should attempt to make a living growing christmas trees. It is at best a part time oppertunity. Small businesses with bad models a.k.a. way overprices stuff should go out of business quickly so the failed proprieters can go on to other potentually more successful ventures.

3. Local Christmas tree farms are more "GREEN" than Christmas tree lots and big box stores

Actually, chrsitmas trees in this area are an extremely "green" product in genreal. In this state the soil is perfect, nothing needs to be added to it. Importing trees to the city enmass on one large truck is much more efficent than having every family individually drive out to a farm, select a tree then drive back to the city.

We only visited one Christmastree farm this year, and it was way overpriced. The average tree was $50. Since we had driven all the way out to it, we felt rather obligated to try and find something to buy. As it turned out we left and bought our tree at Home Depot for $16.99.

A great price. I have no buyers' remorse. It smells piney and the kids love it.

When we decided to leave the tree farm, I thought of all the stuff we could buy for the $30
we would save by not buying their tree. I think we will have great stockings this year.

When we returned home, we set up the tree then let the kids decorate it while we watched Alabama beat Texas in the SEC championship. I love football season. Its like a holiday every saturday for 5 monthes, that requires no gifts, trees, or complicated relative dilemmas.

If Maddie ran the world....

MOM: Maddie, what would you like to do today after church?

Maddie: I want to go swimming!

MOM: well, we might not be able to swim today, it might be to cold, what else would you like to do?

Maddie: Go christmas carolling!

MOM: IT is a little early for christmas carols. We could go christmas caroling on thanksgiving. That would be a fun activity.

Maddie:NO! We can't do that because then we would just sing "Turkey Turkey Turkey" because it is Turkey day.

When we got home from church we filled up our little wading pool. Then we let the kids swim and run through the sprinkler. What else can you do on a 70 degree sunday in November when it is too early to sing christmas carols? There wasn't much swimming, but everyone got wet and Caleb and Maddie both wore their swim suits. I brought out the hammock and relaxed with Reed. Such beautiful weather. Everyday really is beautiful in its own way. If you live locally don't be surprised if you get some early carollers soon. It is supposed to get back to normal temperatures by the middle of next week. I love my life.

giant pile of leaves

Saturday Morning the city decided to collect the leaves on our street. The sweeper truck piled them all up in front of our house! The larger truck came to collect them later in the day, but for several hours we had a massive pile of leaves! It was fun.

Maddie's hair blends in with the leaves. She likes us to pretend that we can't see her because of her hair

Caleb liked to cover himself up with leaves and then pop out of the pile.

What a great unexpected activity for a november saturday!

It was very warm saturday, so after playing in the leaves we all went for a hike at Natural Bridge state park.

An archeological dig at this site in 1957 found firewood that was 12,000 years old. Evidence of ancient inhabitatation. These paleoindians were living in the time of mastadons and mammoths. This part of Wisconsin was not glaciated- the southwest corner of wiconsin was not covered by the glacier that covered the rest of the state during the last iceage- so the land is a lot rougher and older structures like this are preserved.

I am very glad that my kids enjoy these sorts of outings. Hopefully they will always be excited about nature and geology. I like this park because it is pretty fun but also very safe. The trail is a loop, with all of the trees bare you can see everyone all the time. There is nowhere to fall or get wet. We had a fun hike and a great day. Now we are ready for the long cold winter.

fun

We went to the zoo.

we saw the giraffe.

Reed seemed entertained. He probably just enjoyed watching all of the kids and people.

Halloween

Reed
carried around, did not dress up. was not really scared of any costumes. Did not like the cold wind at the trunk or treat.

Caleb
First a bat, then a lemur, then a Bat again. Only 1 melt down during Trick or treating. Enjoyed acting out his costumes and pretending. Really loves all of the candy everywhere, doesn't enjoy not eating all of his candy all of the time.

Maddie
planned on being a bat, then found her Lemur suit from last year. Wore the suit All day friday, slept init friday night and wore it all day Saturday including her acting class. This suit includes a 4 ft long tail. Was very disappointed to learn that she is actually a lot larger than a rela lemur. She also acted out her costume, making Lemur beds out of boxes and pretending to eat tamarind, which consists of up to 50% of the diet of some wild lemurs. Trick of treating and playing with friends went great. This is truly Maddie's favorite holiday.

Martin
Martin dressed up as the wizard Howl from Howl's moving castle. He decided not to trick or treat at all this year! We wanted to do trick or treat for unicef, but in the end we just collected our spare change. Martin is a great kid.

Ben and Valerie
We did not dress up, which is incredibly sad. I deeply regret this and next year I am definately dressing up. We did watch the WSU cougars play Notre Dame on Halloween night. The cougars lost, but they played alright. I love my team. GO COUGS!

Stop TALKING about YOURSELF all the time!!!!

show off?

Am I a show off? There are two schools of thought on this topic....

Yes you are, but we love you anyways.-(sister/mom)
and
yes you are, knock it off.-(brother)

I believe I fall in between the two. I may have an anxiety disorder, which leads to excessive narccicistic tendencies. (say that three times fast)
Ofcourse most mental illness is not a great excuse for antisocial behavior, so I need to reform. Hear is an overview of the problem. A list of my recent "bragging" activities;

1. Sewing 10 bat costumes and making an elaborate birthday party for 6yr old girl and all of her friends. I also regularly updated everyone I knew/saw/talked with on the status of the preparations and all of the great awesome things I had planned. I realized that this was not of the general interest, and a conversation about the weather or the status of the local corn crop would have been less braggy, but I was genuinely excited and really wanted to talk about it.

2. Running a speedy half marathon while pushing a baby in a stroller. Lots of fellow runners and spectators congratulated me on my great wonderful accomplishment, and looked on admiringly. I didn't mean to attract so much attention, so I (here it is, my one non-self promoting act all week) I put away my stroller as soon as I possible so people would not recognize me as the "lady who ran with her jogging stroller". I thoroughly enjoyed all of the admiring questions and accolades. I really like attention. Is that so wrong?--not wrong, but it is unfortunate. No one likes a bragger.

3. I go to the Running group Tuesday evenings at Mov'n Shoes in Downtown Madison. I went for a few weeks this summer, then I came back recently and have been attending regularly for three weeks now. The first night I was there I told someone that I ran ultramarathons. Then they told someone else, and now everyone knows. I am not that fast yet, so I wanted to establish my "running credentials" lest anyone think I was a (gasp) beginner. Bragging at running group is not so awful. If there were an arena for bragging it would be at a running group, or previous to another sporting event. The problem is, that I tell people about my running all of the time. I am always thinking about it becaus I am usually sore from a workout, dreading a workout, or wishing I was working out. It really is something I do all the time. perhaps in this arena I could just limit my running talk to fellow runners who are better than me, while running.

Taken as a group these little self promoting transgressions are not too awful. I just need to find a way to keep a lower profile. I met someone who ran a marathon and didn't tell anyone about it. I admire her humility. I told everyone about my silly first marathon weeks before I did it. I was genuinely scared, and was talking about it all of the time because I was scared to death. Unfortunatley bragging, even when it is to assuage the fear of death, is still bragging.

CONCLUSION
My bragging is not awful, but I could stand to keep a lower profile. I will be more likeable when I am more interested in others and stop talking about myself all of the time.

So this week I will do something that is totally incredibly awesome and not tell anyone about it. When people ask about my week I will say "oh no, I haven't done anything awesome at all". I am sure (in a very narcisssistic way), that I have a wide readership. None of you will ever know what awesome, great, crazily creative thing I am doing this week. If you knew you would all be brought to shame by your own lack of ingenuity. You would fall to the ground groveling in your own egergious ignorance of all things awesome. Then praise my pristine perfection as a prime example of a pretty great person.

but that won't happen, because I am not bragging about it.

half marathon

What is a superwoman?

Is is someone who can run a half marathon in 2:02 while pushing her 4 month old baby in a jogging stroller?

Well, then I guess that's me.

Mauston pumpkin dash 2009 was pretty fun. I hadn't planned on taking Reed along at first, but Benjamin had the other kids and they had soccer and classes, so we decided that If I took Reed his morning would be a whole lot easier. I took my large Burley double jogging stroller. It is covered and stays pretty warm. I put a pillow next to Reed because he is not so good at sitting up yet. He was dressed warmly and had blanket around him. I originally planned to stop during the race and feed or change Reed, but as it happened he was pretty happy and slept through most of it. I wouldn't take a baby along again, but I definately would consider taking an older kid. Especially if they could cheer me on or intimidate my opponents.

walk through Indian hills park

Sunday we walked through Indian Hills Park. The leaves are turning colors and it is beautiful. Martin and Maddie ran down the trail. They enjoy 'exploring'. Martin and Maddie call bumpy trails that go up and down a "roller coaster" and they like to run on the down hills. Caleb keeps up with them pretty well. He fell a few times but it was so fine that he got right back up and kept running along.

All of the kids climbed the tree. I should dress them all up as monkeys.. oh wait we did that last year.

Reed enjoyed the view from his carrier.

Maddie and Caleb both fit into the hollow tree trunk!

Maddie's Birthday

Maddie turned 6 and we had a Bat Party for her. Most of her firends were invited.

I made bat suits for all of the guests.

They had a scavenger hunt outside. We also played 'pumpkin bowling' and built a scarecrow. The scare crow turned out kind of creepy looking. There was a giant chocolate bat cake with yellow and pink cake inside.

Reed's Toes!

Reed can grab his toes!

What a talented little boy!

Fossils and Sunflowers

Sunday we went on a walk through Stewart County Park.

It was a pretty park, lots of lovely trees turning color in the Fall.



one of the first things we saw were a bunch of fossils in the Limestone bricks lining the trail. These had been brought in from somewhere else, so we couldn't see the entire strata together, but just to find so many fossils anywhere was pretty awesome.
This is the largest one we found, it is about the six inches across. I believe it is the cross section of an ammonite. Martin saw it first. Our little geologist.





The trail is pretty fun. After climbing up this little rocky slope Maddie told us to call her "rock climber Maddie".


Reed seemed to enjoy his little frontpack. He is out front and able to watch everyone run around.

The kids ran around the trail, up and down the hilly tree-lined way. They all had a lot of fun. Caleb had to be carried a lot. He is only 3 and is easily distracted and upset. The older two kids would typically go on ahead, and Caleb and Benjamin would stay back. When they went down a steep hill Caleb would run down first then Benjamin would get a running start and leap over Caleb!!

he loved it and said "you jumped over me" a very coherent sentence for Caleb. It was fun. I am sure we will be back.

***Sunflower house picnic***

Saturday we were invited to the 'sunflower house picnic' a friend of ours ran a daycare for several years and she would always plant a sunflower house for her kids. This year she invited our kids and some other families from church to plant the sunflower house with her. We went out and planted in the spring, and this saturday it was ready for playing. It was about 10 by 12 feet inside. There were 3-4 ft tall sunflowers for walls and morning glories grew on strings for a roof.

It was a very fun little place.

We had chocolate chip cookies and lemonade for a snack.

This is the inside to the sunflower house.

What a fun Saturday!!!!