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.