Happy Leap Day!

Nothing too noteworthy happened this week in our household. Here are the highlights.

On Tuesday, Hannah made this mask. The only thing I did was cut the holes and put the string on. Everything else was her idea. Then she gave it to a friend at church.

Today Gramma and Poppa came. They got to stay home while I drove the bus. Great excitement for all! Halee wouldn't even take a nap she was so excited. (You'll see that excitement in the next picture.) Anyway, Gramma and Poppa brought them a surprise that they got to open after dinner. The surprise included 2 projects each. Right away they had to work on one project. Dad had to help as I was doing the dishes.

When I got home this afternoon, Halee was wearing this nametag. Ed went to a seminar today and had to wear this name tag. I wasn't home when he got home, but I'm guessing that Halee wondered what it was. So, Ed made one for her. I asked her if I could take her picture as she wouldn't take the name tag off. This is what she looked like all evening. (Plus she didn't get a nap and was exhausted and in bed at 7:00 - bath and all!)

And here is what the name tag said - Halee Wilson "Klutz" Extraordinaire. Completely describes her!

We will enjoy a day of skiing tomorrow. I'll try and take my camera and get some pictures!

Jenny

Recently I have learned that a friend of mine has cancer. She is 38 years old with 2 little boys (ages 4 and 1). Originally she thought that she just had breast cancer but further tests resulted in finding that she has stage 4 liver cancer also. She will begin her chemo treatments on Tuesday. Her docter tells her it is not curable, but is treatable and the spots on her liver will respond to the chemo. She is truely amazing me and I am learning so much from her as she goes thru this. I invite you to read what she posted on her blog so that you will understand more about how she is handling this. We can all learn from her! Click to read Jenny's blog(link). Please pray for her.

Sizzix

(This may be a boring post if your not into scrapbooking or paper crafting. However, I found it pretty neat and wanted to share!!!)

Two Christmas' ago, I received this Sizzix machine (a die cut machine) as a gift. I have wanted to use it, but have just never gotten it out. Well, I decided today was the day! I'm so glad that I got it out. Now, I have it sitting on the counter and all the parts in one place that I can use it as needed!

Here are all the die cuts I have thus far. The yellow ones on the left are the alphabet ones I used today. There are many, many more I could get! This is a start.

This is what they look like on the bottom (the cutting side).

You put your piece of paper over the letter you want.

Then turn in over and put on machine.

Then slide it in a cut it by pushing the handle down.

This is what you get!



This is the project I was doing. Basically it is self made letter you can use for anything. The main idea is scrapbooking, but . . . the options are limitless!

Halee

I decided to write a whole post just on Halee. She says and does the funniest things lately and wanted to share them with you.

In this picture she is wearing some new jammies I just made for her (Hannah has a matching pair as you can see in the background.) and a scarf her Gramma just made for her.

Some of the funny things she says:

She is always talking about when she grows up to be a mom. She will live in a pink and purple house. Today she said that her dad and his friends will build the house for her (and her dad's name is Sally and her name is Sally and everyone is named Sally). She tells me that when she is a mom and she drives a car I can sit in the front seat with her while she drives.

Recently Ed's Gramma past away. Almost every day when she prays, she prays for Grammy Cracker to go up in heaven.

She also prays, "Thank for Jenny's cancer to go away." Oh, how sweet!

She also talks a lot about her grandparents. She wants to know when they will come her or when we will go there. All of them are her favorite, but at different times. She will ask who goes with Nana. I will say Grandad and she will say, "Oh, he's my favorite. I miss him. When will we go to his house?" She'll say that Poppa is so silly.

She loves to go to school. She knows that she goes on the days that Hannah doesn't. She asks everyday if it is her school day.

One of the girls in her class at school is named Kiana. There is a girl that rides our bus whose name is Teonna. Now she calls Teonna Kiana and asks her is she will sit with her.

Speaking of sitting on the bus - she is extrememly picky who sits by her. One would think that she would be glad for anyone to sit by her. No! She throws a huge fit if someone sits by her and she doesn't want them to. I have to solve the issue by either asking that person to find a different seat or by telling her to just look out the window. Most of the time I do the latter because I want to know that she doesn't always get her way and that sometimes we just need to cope!

Lately she has been singing a lot. Here are some of the songs she likes to sing.


The Fruit of the Spirit. I guess she is nervous or something in this video!


The days of the week


The BIBLE

Long Weekend

We had a long weekend at home. Today was President's Day and there was no school.

The weekend on started on Friday evening with a party at the church building. It was "Ladies Night Out" where the men do all the preparation, planning, decorating, cooking and cleaning up. The theme was "Yesteryear Memories" and we were to dress up as we did when we were in high school. We also had previously given our high school picture to the coordinator and then had a little slide show. It was fun. The kids had babysitters and played their own games and such in the library.

Then on Saturday Ed went to help Gage do some insulation work on their house. So, us girls stayed home and did our thing. Well, actually we did run a few errands (I'm starting to teach the Fruit of the Spirit in Bible class and wanted to find some things to decorate or fun things to do in class and in this town it is rather hard. The only thing I bought was some fabric to put on the bulletin board!) We did eat lunch at the mall - Chinese our favorite! But here are the highlights from home.

The girls got out the paints and painted some shoes and witches hat which their Nana sent for Halloween.
Then they went into the garage to ride some bikes.

Sunday was the normal church activity day. It was kids night and the lesson was on being a wise man and building your house on the rock. We had tacos for dinner.

Today I had to go into the bus barn and do some payroll work. I couldn't leave it until Wednesday because that would mean a whole weeks worth of work and only 2 hours to do it in. So I spent almost 2 hours there today. The girls did great just playing quietly.

This afternoon we got to go outside and play. It was almost 40 degrees! The first thing Halee wanted to do was drive the car.

However, she's not very good at steering and was always getting it stuck. So she would get out and try to push it. It didn't work and Hannah or I would have to come and rescue her, but she had fun.

They also rode their bikes.

And scooters.

Then the played in what's left of the snow. They had all the bikes and cars and scooters by the front door and were doing some kind of make believe story. They made this cake in the snow with chalk.

While they were doing that, I was making dinner. I decided to use the last squash we had. I grew acorn squash in the garden and put them in the garage to "winter." For some reason they turned orange, but still tasted good, so we ate them.

This is our favorite recipe to eat acorn squash with.

Stuffed Squash for Two

1 medium acorn squash

1 T butter, melted

2 T brown sugar

3/4 t salt, divided

1/8 t pepper

1/2 lb ground beef

3 T chopped celery

3 T chopped onion

2 T all-purpose flour

1/2 t rubbed sage

3/4 c milk

1 c salad croutons

1/4 c shredded cheddar cheese

I deviate from the recipe a bit - I cook it in the microwave 5 minutes and turn over and cook 5 more minutes. Then take it out, cut open and scoop out seeds. The put meat filling in it. Here is what the recipe says:

Cut squash in half; discard seeds. Place squash cut side down in an 11x7x2 in baking pan; add 1/2 in of hot water. Bake, uncovered at 350 for 30 minutes. Drain water from pan; turn squash cut side up. Brush with butter; sprinkle with brown sugar (we don't like it sweet and just put some salt in it), 1/4 t salt and pepper. Bake 30-40 minutes longer or until squash is tender.

Meanwhile, in a skillet, cook the beef, celery, onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in flour, sage and remaining salt. Gradually stir in milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.

Remove from heat; stir in croutons (sometimes I just put in some bread crumbs). Spoon into squash halves. Bake uncovered for 25 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake 5 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

Happy Valentines Day

Make a postcard - it's easy!

Tuesday

Today was a very prodictive day at our house. All the schools had early release at 12:30 (I know, very strange on a Tuesday and they have to go back to school tomorrow all day!). That means that we got home at around 1:30 and stayed home the rest of the day! Neither of the girls took a nap (Halee fell asleep on the bus and slept 20 minutes and was done), so we had lots of fun at home. They did a lot of playing. We also finished up a few projects. This first picture is of all the box tops we found in our pantry. Hannah's school is have a box top drive and they are due on Friday. The class with the most gets a pizza party. I have been gathering them for a couple of weeks and I think I had about 10. We have a total of 48 and the other 38 came from items in our pantry!!!

We also finished up our valentines. Here is Hannah writing a note to her teacher. We made jars of homemade hot chocolate and added a note that says, "you warm my heart."


Here are Halee's tags. I took this picture because of how she is writing her name. The "e's" need a little work, but she has the Hal down. I thought she did pretty good!

In the mail today came some valentine's from their Gramma and Poppa. It included some stickers. They couldn't wait to sit down and make a picture. I was not even in the room while they were working on their picture. Here is Halee's. I was quite surprised that she made these flowers with stems and all and that her picture actually looks like something!

This is Hannah's picture.

The other day in the car, Hannah starts singing this song. It is I Corinthians 13:4-8. I was quite amazed that she just sung the whole thing. So, I asked her to sing it for the camera. I know that if you can put anything to song or rhyme, kids remember it best. Just about evey memory verse she learns at school is to some kind of song. I wish I would remember that when I am teaching Bible class! I also wish I had the creativity to come up with a song for every memory verse! Anyway, you can tell that at school they listen to music to this, but the fact that she knows it is what counts, in my mind!

This got her in the mood to sing and she wanted to sing all the songs she knows. This one she called the cowboy song! She's quite the show girl.

Lastly, we had the college kids over last night. It was basically a going away party for Chris, who has come out of retirement (he took last semester off and was a bum and this semester decided not to finish grad school but find a job) and took a job in Oregon. He is leaving on Thursday. We gave the kids some blank puzzles and they were to write or draw their favorite memories of Chris. After that and dinner, the kids were just being kids. Shane was laying on Connies lap on the couch and Connie says, "Lets see how far I can let my spit out without it hitting you on the head." So, the following is a video of that. Just a warning in case you don't want to watch! It's quite funny! Oh, the things they can come up with!!!!!!!

Here are some more projects done at school. These 2 snowman Hannah made at school.

Halee made this owl at school. It was a following directions activity.

Tuesday evening, Ed went to help Gage work on the house. So we had some game time. Here is Halee playing her version of connect 4. She puts one in and I put one it until we've put them all in. She releases them and we start over!

For Hannah's birthday she got the Jumpstart World Kindergarten computer game. It has taken her a while to get into it (because in the beginning our computers were too old for the game), but she has now and asks at any free moment to play. I think she is about to complete the first level and move to the second level. There are 12 levels in all.

Week of January 28th in Review

Here is the week in review in pictures! It's a long one!

On Monday evening I dug out my lettermans jacket. Our church is having a "Days to Remember" funtion and they are wanting memorabilia to decorate with. This is my contribution! The girls were quite fascinated with it and wanted to try it on. Here is Halee.

Also on Monday Hannah brought home a book to read. This is a book she is to read to us. She was quite thrilled by being able to read her own book. She was supposed to read it 3 times and take it back to school. I think she read it about 6 or 7 times. She got a new one on Wednesday and another on Friday (which we haven't read yet because we were out of town this weekend and it still in her dad's truck which is at the bus barn!)

When I started filming Hannah reading, she was being silly. She can do much better than this, but thought you would enjoy it anyway!

Halee wanted her picture taken too!

On Wednesday morning, Jenny had some errand she needed to run. I offered to babysit and she even left Aydan with me! Here is Halee and Aydan.

Halee and Mallory are pretty good about letting Adam be a part of what they are playing. He doesn't really play with them, but is around them. They had fun playing "teacher" for a long time. One person (Halee or Mallory) would talk in the microphone and tell them what to do. The other person would dance or stop or whatever they were told. Then they switched off. In this picture, Mallory is the teacher and Halee and Adam are the students.

Then of Friday we went to Fairmont Hot Springs. Ed's company had a meeting there and then the family could join them for the weekend at a discounted rate. So off we went. Tisha and I carpooled together since Dan and Ed were already there. After a CRAZY bus route we finally got out of town around 4:45 (we were hoping for closer to 4:00). As soon as we arrived the girls put on their swimming suits and went swimming. We had plenty of time because we all had dinner together (whoever in the company stayed over were invited) and our reservation was at 8:00 pm. So about an hour was spent swimming and then we were off. We got back to the hotel at 10:30 or so and directly to bed (2 VERY tired children!)

This is Hannah.

And here is Halee.

Then on Saturday we headed for Discovery Ski Area. This is the first time this year we have gone skiing. It was an adventure! Last year we put Hannah is ski lesson and she had a tough time. Finally on the last day, and after Ed worked with her most of the afternoon, she went down the hill by herself. So this year I wanted her to go skiing before ski lessons to be more comfortable with it. Well, in the morning she was very scared and had a hard time. But in the afternoon, Ed worked with her some more and she was going down the hill by herself!!! Then I was able to make a few runs with her. So HOPEFULLY went ski lessons start in 3 weeks (we probably won't be able to go skiing again until then) she will be comfortable and lessons more beneficial!

Here is Ed and Hannah on chair lift.

Here she is skiing all by herself! YEAH HANNAH!

We also put Halee on skiis. However since I was mostly with Halee and Ed was mostly with Hannah I never got a picture of her. She did better this year. Last year she would just be limp and we would have to hold her all the way down the hill. She tried doing that this year, but I made her stand up. If she limped out on me, I would let go and she would have to stand up. That's about as far as it got. Since we didn't get to bed until almost 11:00 pm, she was extremely tired.

By 2:15 or so us girls were done skiing. So we went into the lodge for some hot cocoa. Ed and Dan went up to the top (as Ed hadn't been able to really ski yet) and Tisha and I packed the kids up to go back to the hotel. Well we had to wait on Blaise and Rylan who wanted to do 2 more runs. The girls all did really well playing games at the table. They played the quiet game and then started making silly faces to get the other person to laugh. Here is Denali but by the time the camera snapped her silly face was over!

Here is Halee's!

And Hannah's!

Finally by 3:30 we were loaded up and ready to go. It was a full car! In the way back was Denali, Briley and Hannah.

Then Halee, Rylan and Blaise in the middle (Rylan and Blaise are Tisha's nephews on the Stahly side. They didn't want to stay and wait for their parents so they went home with us.)

When we got back to the hotel room and after a little quiet time, we went back to the pool. They have this huge water slide (I think it is 350 feet or something like that) and we went on that for a couple of hours. However we were having so much fun, I didn't stop to take a picture (plus it is outside and after being wet, the last thing I wanted to do was stand in the cold to take a picture!) It was a fun weekend, but we are all exhausted now! (In fact all of my family is taking a nap right now - what am I doing blogging?????)