Alice joins our home

Yes..you all see correctly. This a picture of a new living thing at our home. This is also a picture of what happens when your husband goes on Craig's list on his own. This picture doesn't do it justice..it is close to two feet long. Emily is absolutely excited about Alice and constantly wants to get it out of its cage. Ryan thought it was great. Andrew looks at it through the cage and was excited to see it this morning and show me it was under the log thing in its home. We will be having daily random, "is Alice in her cage?" checks. Of course Erik likes it a bunch. Now that brings us to my reaction. For the record I have not been a big fan of snakes. That being said, I have a scared fascination with Alice. It reminds me of my pet lizard. I was in grade school and for some reason I came home from Southdale (the local mall) with this scary pet. I was terrified of it. When it was time to clean the cage I had to have someone else take it out of the cage and I was in the other room hoping it would not jump on me. I guess it was an adrenalin rush. Well, as time went on the lizard died. I actually waited a day or so to clean out the cage. I had my mom help dump the contents of the cage into a garbage bag. (which I will not do for my kids when it is time for Alice's Funeral) I kid you not it jumped out of the bag and in my memory landed on me. I don't know who was more scared, me or the thing getting thrown out. It lived for awhile after that too. So our dear Alice is now in my life and I am scared fascinated with it too. Fear not, I will be no where near its feeding times or cleaning of the cage time. I am also not to sure I will EVER open the cage on my own. But, I will stare at it, cringe at it and be happy for my kiddos (Erik included). Now it better not escape or I will be moving out of the house until it is found...not joking!!

Emily on Ice

Emily and Erik have started ice skating together. They both got skates for Christmas and have been several times together. This is a video of Emily's second time on her skates. She is doing a great job. It is fun that most of the parks here in MN have ice rinks and warming houses. She is already planning a July ice skating birthday party...indoors of course.

Snow is Falling All Around

We are still in the "we love snow" part of the winter. It is so fun to wake up on a Saturday morning and open the windows and find a snowy backyard. It just makes me want to grab a hot chocolate, cozy blanket, a good book and enjoy.

Christmas

Christmas was really fun and relaxing this year. We enjoyed the music, the decorations, and time with family and friends. The kids got to do some of their own Christmas shopping and had fun choosing different presents for people. They went with the idea.."when in doubt give silly string. EVERYBODY loves silly string!" Emily and Erik have decided to take up ice-skating together. I can post some of their early learning video soon. They are doing a great job and have gone together many times. Ryan is still busy building all the Lego sets he received this year and Andrew is riding around on his motorcycle...the ONE bad thing about a white Christmas is it is hard to ride your Christmas presents indoors all the time.

Ryan is NINE!!!

Things are always pretty busy in Decemeber. We always start off the month with Ryan's party. I have discovered how great it is to have the party somewhere OTHER than my house. Ryan thought that it would be fun to have a swim party in December with an "Underwater" theme. Mom (grandma Ginger)always does a great job of cordinating the cake with the theme. Well..lucky for us I work at the YMCA and they have a great pool/waterslide and a fun teen center to play in too. This party was so much fun..and so easy! The swimming was excellent and so was the teen center. Ryan really enjoyed being with his close friends. One highlight was when he discovered that his friend had wrapped a box inside a box inside a box...and in the end he found Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for the Wii. Another big hit was the "explosives." (a 2 liter bottle of Coke and Mentos...too funny)

Sledding

We had just finished watching a Christmas movie and Erik looks and me and asks, "Three kids, what should we do to entertain them?" We all decided sledding would be a fun option. So, we bundled up and walked across the street to the park (which has a great sledding hill) and we had a blast! The snow was perfect. As the kids walked up the hill, Erik threw snowballs at them and they shielded themselves with their sleds... hehehe gotta keep them on their toes. Let's face it better at them than at me! Andrew really enjoyed it this year...I think last year he viewed sledding as a form of cruel punishment. As soon as our toes started to feel slightly frozen we went home to a warm mug of hot chocolate.

My Dancer

This is Emily's third year of dance. She just had her Holiday Dance Show. The show was really fun. Her dance studio is so great...completely non-stress. I also think she likes the costumes. I cannot remember what songs they danced to, (oh yeah one was Rocket Christmas and another one was something about emailing Santa..don't worry I ordered the DVD) but I do know in the middle of one routine they broke into a Jingle Bell song for a bit...fun little bonus. I don't know what my problem is, but everytime I go to these dance shows I get a bit weepy. Proud mom moment I guess. FYI mine is the shorter pink girl.