Special Guest

Our special guest for the next week is Granny! We had to get up very very very very early to go and pick up Granny at the air port. Her flight came in at 7:24AM Chicago time. Our journey to the airport was a struggle. First our i-zoom refused to work, then the snow was falling so hard and so fast. But we made it there. We had to circle the airport about 5 times before we finally figured out how to get to the parking garage. Then we waited and waited. Finally we saw Granny appearing from the secured section. We got her bag and off we went.


After retrieving Granny and her luggage from the air port we decided to spend the day at the Museum of Science and Industry. I hadn't been then since I was close to Emma's age but I remembered a few things that I really enjoyed and was looking forward to seeing if they were still there. There were lots of exhibits that when we walked into them I remembered doing the same things that my kids were doing. Especially stirring up my memory was the circus area.

Here are the kids with Granny in the
agricultural area.

Many of these pictures have red eye and are a bit strange.
My camera was acting up!


All the kiddos in a large tractor.

My favorite part of going to this museum as a little girl was the fairy tale castle. I remember you could get one of your very own molded out of plastic from a machine. Sadly, that machine is gone now but the castle is just as I remember it, only much much better. I was a little let down when Emma didn't light up and oh and ah the way I thought she would. But I took her back around with just us and explained some of the rooms to her and she did then at least seem interested in it. Click here for the full story and better pictures.

The Fairy Castle

Cinderella's Sitting room with
the Prince's bedroom above.

The Scout Master enjoying his favorite field of study,
The Space program.

Here I am from behind the camera with B and Ky.

This guy looks so real.

Walking through water vapor, into the future.

Emma with an LED dress.

Futuristic car.

This is a photo that represents how all of us felt at the
end of the day.

We arrived at the museum just 5 minutes after they opened and stayed until 5 minutes until closing. The drive home was scary with all the snow and almost white outs. But we made it safe and sound. Where we found my mom had made us a tasty dinner of spiral ham and the trimmings.

Christmas 2009

Well, here it is in all it's Christmas Glory. The story of our Christmas vacation. What fun! So the 18th was the kids last day of school and of course the Scout Master had off as well. As a matter of fact, he has off the entire time that the kids have off!! I don't know yet if that will be good or annoying (ladies you know how it is to have a man under your feet all the time). Anyway, the kids really wanted to make a ginger bread house. I am not so eager to do this because usually it ends up that I do it and they eat the candy, which makes them hyper and me cranky. But the kit was on clearance so I broke down and bought it. This is us putting it together. Looks like they are doing a lot of the work! I never did get a picture of the finished product but let me assure you it was very awesome. We had a Christmas tree in the front window and a evergreen wreath above the front door.

Here is my comedy troop. See how I have already
started to frost the roof?

Here is our Christmas tree before the kids tore into
the presents.

For those of you wondering what the heck in on top
of our tree...it's the angel Moroni.
(click on the name to find out more)



B with one of her new baby dolls.

Emma with some beautiful earrings
from Granny and Grandpa.

Kyle with what I am sure was a DVD.

After the opening of all of our Christmas packages. We proceeded over to my sister's house and eat to our hearts content and then opened more packages.

Emma opening a Wii game for all the kids to share.
Here big gift from the Grandma and Pappy
was a robotic full size cat.

B with her boots from Grandma and Pappy and
a lolly pop from Disney world.

Kyle and a game that describes that grin on his face.

The Scout Master was given the gift of
Men's Health Magazine from my parents.
This was the gift that he was most
excited about.

Tonight we are heading to bed early because we have to drive to the Chicago airport and be there by 7:30AM to pick up a visitor that will be with us for the next week!

Ramen Noodles

Years ago when the Scout Master and I had only been married for about 6 months we wanted to move from our no heat, no hot water apartment into something that would be friendly to our meager income but also provide us with those maybe not necessary but certainly nice to have features. A married couple who where really good friends with us had what we called a sweet deal and let us in on some insider information that could lead us to a new and more desirable apartment. See Joyce and Ernie were what we called apartment police. They lived in a building where they kept watch over the girls that lived there, making sure that the boys where out on time and all that jazz. Aspen apartments would rent out their unused apartments to married couples. The Scout Master and I knew we had to get in on that because Aspen apartments had to be campus approved for unmarried students to live in! They had free heat, local phone and cable!! We are talking a MAJOR upgrade from the apartment we were living in (which by the way was not campus approved, apparently once you are married you can live in any dark hole you can find).

Anyway, the lease on our crappy sub-par, sock blacking apartment was up and we were jazzed to move. But on what money The Scout Master made feeding cows (yes, he really did that and sometimes I helped, it's a long story that doesn't have much to do with or current story so back to that later). What was I say? Oh, yes......so we were going to move but we needed to come up with some money. The only money we had other then our rent money was food money. So we put a down payment on the new apartment and ate Ramen Noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner for about a month. Really, a month. That isn't even me being dramatic or anything.

Needless to say that after that time Ramen Noodles didn't make onto our menu after that. But a few weeks ago while I was at the grocery store I picked up a 12 pack of Ramen Noodles for our food storage. It was a nostalgic purchase, I admit it.

Somehow the Scout Master got a hold of them and made them for dinner for everyone. This was the kids' first experience with Ramen Noodles. They loved them!! So to commemorate there first taste of chicken flavored Ramen Noodles I had to take a few pictures.

Emma thinks they are fun!

Kyle breaking the rules and eating
with his fingers.

B. Having a great time with all those noodles!

I have to admit after so long a time they tasted good and had me thinking about how cozy it was in that new apartment with the heat, the hot water, and the cable.

School Parties!

Today was party day at the elementary school were Emma and Kyle go to school. I started out in Emma's class and helped them make reindeer food. It's a delightful mixture of oatmeal, glitter and in this case sprinkles. The kids are to put it out on Christmas Eve to attract the reindeer to our house. They also make these little train engines out of a variety of different candies that they then glued together. Super cute!

Here is Emma in her class.

After a while I went down to Kyle's class to see what he was up to. I found him at the cookie decorating table. Where he had frosted his own cookie and was enjoying it quite thoroughly.
I then helped while his class made.......yep, reindeer food. I did see a kid eat the mixture of oatmeal and glitter. Yuck!



After a little stay in Kyle's kindergarten room I headed back down to Emma's room to see what was going on there. They were having snacks! YUMMM!!! Her class has the best treats because a catering mom does them! These fantastic little Santa portraits are made from nutterbutter cookies dipped in melted white chocolate and sprinkles and well everything that could possibly be bad for you, but taste so good!

Emma refused to let me take a good picture of her...so here is
what I got!

She her choo choo train made of candies? Cute right?

I had a really good time at the parties. I am so happy that the Scout Master was home with B so that I could go and enjoy some time at the school parties.

B Finds an Ink Pad

Need I say anything else? Thank goodness for wet wipes!! They are good for ink pen too. I know from experience!

Fillings

This is the time of year when we start looking at our insurance and seeing what we have left to use before it mysteriously disappears at that magical 12th hour on the last day of December. That means it was time to find a dentist and use that insurance.

In all of my 31 years I have never had a cavity. Yes, you read that right NEVER. So here I am in the dental chair and I have 4 teeny tiny pin head sized, didn't even know they were there cavities. Which they then drilled and filled. It wasn't as bad as I had heard people say. I only had to be numbed for 2 of them and they were close together. But then again I was awake and alert when I had my compacted wisdom teeth brutally extracted from my mouth and went through 38 1/1 hours of medication free labor, and recovered from 3 c-sections. Maybe I just have a high tolerance for pain, I don't know. Either way it was not a terrible experience and I think the dentists office was a blast with all those ladies.

PS. I think I might have seen a peek at what I would like to be when I finally get my chance to go back to school. We'll see. Anyone who has been cavity free for 31 years must have a small obsession with teeth. Why not put that to good use.