SNOW

The snow is pretty. We were a little slow at getting out to clean our drive.

Below is the Power Wheels in a drift.


Sam thinks the snow is for playing. See her hopping prints from where she bounced through it like a rabbit.

LET IT SNOW

The snow is so pretty. The drifting makes it look like we have a foot or two in some places. Sean's Power Wheels Jeep is buried in a snow drift. Of course, the kids are chomping at the bit to go outside but it is still snowing, it is only about 20 degrees and the wind is blowing up to 35 mph at times. A bit too cold for going outside. Sounds like they might get to do that tomorrow. We'll have to keep an eye on Sean, Sierra and Sam (our dog). They could get lost in a drift.
I will try to take some pictures after it stops snowing and before we dig ourselves out.

Is It Spring Yet?

It's been snowing pretty much all day. It's hard to tell how much we have... I heard 2 to 4 inches so I guess others cannot tell either since that is a pretty wide range for an estimate. The snow is very fine and the wind is blowing it all around.


I have a cold so it is just as well that preschool was cancelled today. I didn't want to get out in the cold windy mess. Sean was disappointed that they were missing their field trip to the Recycling Center. I thought I would include a picture of my friend a kleenex box and I found out that I must be pretty boring when I have a cold. We just use the standard cardboard kleenex box as is... no fancy covers. Look what I found as I looked for a picture.




For whatever reason, I think I'd have issues with pulling a tissue from someone's nose to blow my own. Even if it was Shakespeare himself.

Recipe Share

Welcome to anyone linking over from Lysa Terkeurst's blog. I am looking forward to all the other recipes that you will be sharing. I am going to share a couple of favorite recipes.
Here's my favorite recipe for family get-togethers and pitch-in dinners:

Hashbrown Casserole
30 oz. package frozen shredded hashbrowns
2 C. shredded cheddar cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/4 C. melted butter
1 C. sour cream
1/2 tsp. each salt and pepper

Spread potatoes in pan. Mix other ingredients together. Pour over potatoes. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes.

Here is a recipe that is delicious.
Tortilla Chip Chicken Casserole
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup salsa
1 14.5 oz bag nacho tortilla chips (Doritos)
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves, diced
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine the soups, salsa and milk. Mix well until smooth. Layer a 9" X 13" baking dish with the tortilla chips, then the chicken, and then pour the soup mixture over.
3. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, top with the cheese and bake for 10 more minutes or until cheese is bubbly.

First thing... weather forecast. This evening the news showed us getting 6-9 inches between tomorrow and Saturday. Snow this time... they haven't mentioned ice. We still have standing water in our yard from all the rain so we should be able to make some snowcones or something.

Now for some more Children's Museum pictures.

DINOSPHERE!

The dinosaur exhibit is one of the kids' favorites.
Families dig dinos... and get sand in their shoes.


Sierra is showing signs of less shyness, but this employee seems quite young so it's possible she was mistaken by Sierra for a child.

Sean is displaying his domestic (maternal) side by sitting on the eggs.

Just before he climbed after Sierra, Sean said, "Sierra, some dinosaurs eat dinosaurs, you know." Run, Sierra, run!

The lighting (or lack thereof) made photographing the dinosaur skeletons difficult in the dark, but I thought a couple of these turned out nicely.

ROBOTS & US at the Children's Museum

The Robot exhibit was fun. The kids got to use a remote with a robot and got to see a robot arm put together a puzzle of shapes.
We met this fellow at the Android Cafe where he was enjoying a cup of coffee. Sean was a little intimidated by him at first but once he realized that he wasn't going to move off of the stool, he decided he was safe to touch.

Conversation this afternoon:
Me: "Sean, what is that black stuff on your face?"
Sean (after thinking): "Why don't you lick it to see if it tastes like marker?"
Me: No comment.

Here are some pics from our field trip yesterday.

First, we visited the Curious George exhibit. The kids have been looking forward to it. Sierra thought we were going to see the movie.
Rocket slide.

Shopping at the market.

Trying out the rotary dial phone.

Went to the Children's Museum today. It rained all the way there. When we left, it was raining ice which hurts when the wind blows it in your face. Fortunately, the roads were only slushy and kind of slick for a short distance on the way back before it became rain again. Sean and Sierra had gymnastics this evening. Tiring but fun day. I'll try to post some pictures soon.

OUCH!

Sydney stopped by for a visit today. She brought her mama and daddy and big brother, Matthew with her. She is quite a ham for the camera. :)

Toasty at last!

We have our furnace back in operation and are toasty warm tonight. Thank God for meeting that need for us! We were blessed to have wood for our fireplace and a couple of electric heaters to keep us comfortable until it could be fixed. We were also blessed to have sunshine all day, something we have seen little of recently. We are thankful for a thoughtful repairman who called to see if we were almost ready for him to return before he started another job so he could fit us in. (We had to remove water from our crawlspace so he could access the furnace without getting electrocuted. People are so picky these days - ha.)

He felt bad that he could do nothing to the furnace last night which we really appreciated.

Callie looked at the bright side to our situation today. She said we would save money by not running the furnace. So we had a general math lesson about the electricity to run the space heaters and the expected invoice from the repairman. Not quite a trade-off, but I liked her optimism.

Please keep the family of Shaelynn Sue in your prayers. She lost her battle to brain cancer last week at the tender age of 2 years old.

Also, please continue to remember Julian's family in your prayers as they continue to heal and go on with their lives. I want to share part of his mom Mimi's post today. Through God's strength she continues to still think of others who are suffering because of this terrible disease. She feels blessed to have her three surviving sons to keep Julian's memory alive and is reminding us to not forget those who may have lost a child, especially an only child. If you know someone who has been through this, let them know you still think of them.

No parents should hear the words“ time of death , 11:22 am “ referring to their
child, EVER! Along, with feeling their heartbeat slow down and stop under their
fingers. Fingers that days before were used to feed our babies one last donut
hole, fingers that went thru their newly grown hair , fingers that wiped away
all their tears , fingers that were used to rub lotion on their little baby
tummy , fingers that wont ever get to touch their sweet face. I don’t know what
hell feels like but at times I am sure losing a child is pretty darn close . My
heart goes out to all the parents who have lost a child to cancer ( because of
the horror of treatments , up and down emotions, bad news after bad news ,I know what it is like …) , but particularly the ones who have lost their ONLY child to
cancer....

Still cold... still no heat. Because of all the rain and frozen ground and melting ice, our furnace is surrounded by water (in the crawlspace) so the repairman could not work with it last night. Jeff is home today pumping water out of the crawlspace so he can put some boards down to make it safe for the repairman to get to it to see what is wrong. Then we will probably need a part and hopefully will not have to wait long for that.

The good news is that the temperature today is supposed to be a balmy 33 degrees. It's only 20 degrees right now. We have a fire in the fireplace, a space heater in the hall and a little compact heater we are using to keep warm. The kids and I might have to take off if the smokiness from the fireplace becomes too irritating.

Jeff got very little sleep since he babysat the fire all night and I slept a few hours. I could almost curl up under some blankets for a nap. Actually, I might bake something in the oven for some more heat. :)

COLD NIGHT!

I got into bed a little bit ago. Jeff was freezing under extra blankets. I quickly noticed cold air blowing on me from the vent. I went to check..... uh oh. No heat. And to top it off, the fan won't stop blowing.... cold air. The outside temperature is 22 degrees.

Trying to find a heating guy to come out tonight. Wish us luck!

Guinea pig gets a haircut.

Nice weekend so far. We scraped a lot of slush/ice/snow mixture from the walk and driveway and pushed the glacier from the van (see previous post for pictures). We did some decluttering. I found a new way to get the kids to help pick up. I got a couple of laundry baskets and told Sean the white one was for his things and the blue one was for Sierra's things. I think they thought it was a game. Hey, whatever works. Today we had church and we've played with play-doh this afternoon.

As some of you may know, I often cut my own hair. Well today, we decided to groom the guinea pig. A haircut was in order. It was quite a feat. As you can see, she was quite a mess when she came over..

We put her in the salon chair (Littlest Pet Shop), spun her around and took a look. Ewww, what a mess. Dead ends.... damaged hair from color. We knew this was going to be a challenge, She was ready for a change as you can see by her big smile.

We started with a shampoo. Then we cut all the old and damaged hair away. She was happy to return to her natural color.

I think the results were spectacular. She looks like a new guinea pig, wouldn't you agree? The whole effort left everyone hungry. She was ready for a snack and very glad to be able to see what she was eating without all the hair in her eyes.

How many fingers do you see?

Sean was playing in his room today when he came to me with his football. He was practicing holding it using the laces for his fingers. Then he asked me in a very serious tone, "Do we grow more fingers when we grow bigger? There are a lot of holes on this." Such deep thought for a 5-year old.

A good reason to clean out the garage... This is solid ice now. Might have been a trace of snow underneath at first but then it was the white pellets of sleet and then freezing rain.



See what a good plan it was to leave the snow underneath to help with traction? I stomped my way out to bring the trash cans back to the garage and get the mail.

Slicker than snot....

That is what the roads must be.... for the authorities to already have closed schools for tomorrow. The last time I can remember that happening was when I was a kid (a long time ago). We celebrated by going outside about 9pm and building a snowman... back in the 1970s when we used to get measurable snow. It seems all we get now is enough snow to make the ground look white and then enough freezing rain and sleet to make it useless. I saw the neighbor kid cleaning off his driveway earlier. Perhaps he did not know we were going to get ice too. We think it is good to have a cushion of snow underneath to help with traction, so we leave the snow on the driveway. Truth is that we are getting a second round tomorrow. What fun.

Sean is coughing tonight. I think he's having some allergies since no one else has caught his cold. I think he's allergic to Callie. He did spend some time in her room this evening. Well, actually, he's probably more likely allergic to Binkie the guinea pig rather than his sister. I tried the Vicks thing again... he sure is ticklish when he is asleep. He walked out of his room a few minutes after I put it on his feet and asked me to put him back to bed. I don't know why he does this sometimes. Tonight I asked him why he got out of bed. He looked confused. :)
He's still coughing so either not enough Vicks or he needs some Delsym or the nebulizer.

We live next to the interstate. The snow plow trucks are noisy. Traffic is moving well so the plows are doing a great job scraping and salting. Either that or the drivers are in denial. Usually lasts until they end up in a ditch or see someone else slide off the road.

The sky is falling....

I have been watching the news recently about the planned attempt to shoot a dead satellite out of the sky before it can crash to the earth. I'm thinking... this seems like a little problem. I guess the good news is that they know that this thing is going to fall. The bad news is that it is a long shot that the Navy will be able to shoot it down. Heat seeking missiles might have a hard time finding a cold hunk of metal. So they are planning to try to do it during the day in hopes that the sun will warm the satellite just enough for the missile to find it. The satellite is as big as a school bus.

Have I ever mentioned that Chicken Little was my favorite book when I was little.... the original one, not the movie? :)

Have a nice day.

Aha, put one in the win column for the weather people! We got snow! About 2 inches. It was the fine powdery stuff that blows back in your face when you clean your car off in very cold wind chills. Too cold to play in it and too dry to build with it anyway. On the bright side, it is very easy to clean off the walk and driveway. I just scooted it with the shovel.

Sean had pajama day at preschool and today was his day to be the line leader. He was so anxious to get to school. I think he was more excited about being line leader than he was about wearing his pajamas. They started a half hour late since the school corporation had a 2-hour delay due to the slick roads. Our next chance for snow.... tomorrow night. Not sure how much we are supposed to get, but Indy is saying 1-3" as of this evening. Then we might get ice on top of that on Friday from the freezing rain. When is spring?? I'm ready.

How about those Hoosiers? :) Very important win. Purdue has been very impressive this year. Perhaps under Matt Painter their chances of doing well during March Madness are much better than they've had.
Unfortunately, I was busy working on my Bible Study lesson for tomorrow morning and completely forgot about the game.
As for coach Sampson's future... my prediction is that Friday will be his last day as coach and he and his assistant will be fired. According to his contract, they only have to pay him through the end of the month in which he is fired, so Friday makes perfect sense. If that happens, perhaps Dan Dakich will take over as coach for the rest of the season? There are some who say Greenspan (Athletic Director) should be fired too. I don't know enough about what he knew when he hired Sampson to have an opinion about that.

I am on a roll this week - ha. I missed the Daytona 500 on Sunday too. Can you believe that? I had plans with a friend that I haven't seen since November so that was more important.
It was nice that a driver (Ryan Newman) from Indiana won, but it would have been nicer if it was the one from Columbus (Tony Stewart). ;) I saw the after-race interviews and felt sorry for Tony... he looked like he was almost going to cry. I can imagine he was very disappointed. I am looking forward to seeing Dale Jr. win this year with his new team. It could be a fun year with Dario Franchitti now in Nascar. I'm not sure if I spelled that right but don't feel like looking it up.

Sean's cold wasn't too bad today. His voice sounds a little like Kermit. He was still coughing in the morning and before bed but so far I haven't needed to get out the Vicks.

We are supposed to get some snow tonight. I will believe that when I see it! :)

What's up...

We got a quick blast of snow today... enough to cover the grass and make visibility tricky for a while. More snow than we got when they had predicted we were going to get dumped on last week. I think meteorology might be a low stress job. Think about how often they are wrong but they keep giving us the forecast. The weather is one of those things that helps remind us WHO is in CONTROL. GOD.

Sean has a cold. Not bad yet but he is coughing and back on breathing treatments as a precautionary measure. He was still coughing after he went to bed, so I went in and took his socks off, rubbed Vicks vaporub on them and put the socks back on. I've read about this home remedy in emails and online a few times. Seems like a pretty simple thing to try. I haven't heard him coughing lately so I think it might have worked. Interesting.

This is currently my favorite song. It is sung by Point of Grace. It is called How You Live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW1daW6k0LE

Happy Valentine's Day!

The kids got a game or puzzle from us. No candy. Mamaw stopped by and gave the kids their gifts.

I made Jeff a pie. I told him not to get me flowers. I love flowers but I do not enjoy them when the prices are inflated just for this holiday. He got me a card and jewelry instead. My favorite kind of necklaces.

Sean walked over to me earlier and said, "Mommy, do you know how I recognize you?" "No, how?", I said. "By your hair", he said. I replied, "Well, I'll try to keep my hair then." He agreed. "Don't get your hair cutted."

Not sure where that came from but I had been thinking of coloring my hair again to hide all this white. I still have a box of magic color left. I guess I'll have to rethink that now. I sure wouldn't want my own son to not be able to recognize me.

Once again the weather folks were wrong. First, they said 5-8 inches of snow + ice. Then it was 4-6 inches snow + ice. They used their disclaimer that the more ice we get, the less snow. Well, we got some ice but barely a trace of snow, then a little more ice and another dusting of snow this morning. All in all though, the roads weren't too bad. It helps that the ice turns to slush and then refreezes... that helps provide some traction. Schools were on a delay and we still made it to Bible Study this morning. Valentine's Day forecast.... Sunny and 40s.

Rock Climbing

Callie loves climbing the rock at Freedom Field. I love these pictures of her on the rock.

Freedom Field.
While Sean was at preschool, the girls and I went to a local playground called Freedom Field. It is a special playground that is designed for the physically challenged and also has some unique equipment that we do not see at our other parks.
The temperature was in the 40s but the wind was chilly. Enjoy the pics. I have some more close ups of the girls that I will post soon.

Sean went back to school today sporting a stylish new hair style. He wondered if everyone would recognize him. It turned out that they recognized him but did not notice the haircut until he pointed it out. Then they wanted to rub his head. By the time he came home, it was back to his usual hair.

There is power in prayer. Friends from church and family members have been praying for Sean. On Tuesday the doctor said Sean would get worse before he got better. He hasn't had any fever since Tuesday and his swelling is almost not noticeable at all now. He was just like his usual self today.

This afternoon he asked me if he could play Tonka Garage on the computer. I told him if he picked up the t.v. room first, he could. I went upstairs and he was downstairs for a while. Some time later, he came up and said, "I picked up the t.v. room a little, can I play Tonka Garage now?" Then, before I could answer, he said, "I didn't really pick up the t.v. room. I was kind of watching t.v. Can I still play Tonka Garage?" I was pleased to see how his conscience worked on him. He's growing up so fast and I don't just mean in size. Last week when he was sick with the pneumonia, several mornings as he was doing his breathing treatments, he watched the video Franklin Learns to be Honest. I guess it made an impression.

Oh, and we discovered something else from the parotitis. Sean has a new molar that is almost all the way in. A little early for a six-year molar. He was alarmed at first about why he would be getting another tooth but after I explained that it is because he is getting big, he thought it was pretty cool.

He's coughing some in his sleep tonight so we might have stopped the nebulizer too soon. We'll have to re-evaluate that.

The doctor said that Sean has parotitis. The parotid glands are the salivary glands that go from in front of the ear around the bottom and to the back of the ear.
He thinks it is a viral kind and took him off the antibiotic. He said it will probably get worse before it gets better. He said it is kind of a mild generic mumps. I don't think it is as swollen on his right side today as much as it was last night. His left side is slightly swollen and it is tender on both sides. He hasn't had much fever today and the ibuprofen works really well. He says he feels pretty good. He still has some wheezing from the pneumonia but his cough is nice and loose.
I don't know how long this will last... forgot to ask that. It is contagious, but maybe we won't all get it. :)

Setback....

Sean seems to have developed another infection. He first complained of pain when he was chewing around 11:30am and I noticed it was puffy. He took a nap after preschool and when he woke up about 6:00, he had 102.2 fever and his face was really swollen. I talked to the doctor on-call this evening and he ordered him an antibiotic which we started tonight and he will see his regular doctor in the morning. We think it is an infected salivary gland - parotid. It is the one that also gets swollen with mumps, so Sean looks like he has half mumps... just on one side so far. It is a little scary that he is sick again just one day after finishing his antibiotic for the pneumonia. He feels pretty good and the swelling seems less since he took ibuprofen.

For fun, here's a little story from this evening. Sierra had the end of her finger in her mouth for some reason, so I told her to take it out of her mouth. Then Sean said, "Yeah, you don't know where it's been!". :)

Did anyone watching the game last night notice how quiet the announcers got after Eli Manning threw the winning touchdown with 35 seconds to go? They didn't say a word for quite some time. They were speechless. Calculating their losses, perhaps?

How about those Manning brothers???? Way to go Giants!!!

Sean seems to be feeling much better. This is the first day he has not taken a nap and his cough is much better. He's all done with the antibiotic and the Orapred so hopefully the leftover cough will fade the rest of the way.

HAPPY WARTHOG DAY!!!

I explained Groundhog Day to Sean yesterday. I searched for some activities for us to do today and we were all ready. This morning, he hadn't been up long before he remembered the holiday. "Mommy, it's Warthog Day!", he exclaimed. After I hid my laugh, I reminded him it was Groundhog Day. "Oh yeah", he said. I think he had trouble with it because he'd never heard of a groundhog.

I found a video of Punxsutawney Phil online and played it for Sean and Sierra today so they could see a groundhog. They thought he was really cute... for about five seconds then they wanted me to print their coloring pages so they could color one. They both showed true creativity in their coloring page. Sierra's groundhog was pink. Sean's was brown but he added a cave, a shadow and the sun to his artwork.

Of course, we all know... either way, there is still six more weeks of winter.

So tired.... big day.

What a sunny but cold day it is! The wind was sure something else last night. At one point I told Jeff to go see if the garage was still attached because it sounded like the wind might have ripped it from the rest of the house. After seeing the damage on the news to other houses, that probably wasn't too much of a exaggeration. Some houses lost roofs and siding and were split almost in half in counties north of us. South of us a car was tossed off the road and a mobile home was turned over.

Sean had a good night but a really rough morning. We went to see the doctor after he lost his breakfast a few times from coughing so hard. The doctor wanted us to put him on cough medicine. They usually don't want that but she said they don't want him coughing that hard either.

He made it to Circus Day for a while but was ready to leave by the time they were done.

I couldn't find our dog Sam this morning. I expected to find her huddled in her doghouse which is up next to the house. Instead, when I opened the door, I heard a rustling noise from the deck. Out she popped.

And here's a picture from a few days ago when Sean still had fever. The black fur ball on my stomach is Shadow.

It is raining so hard right now that I feel like I should be YELLING SO YOU CAN HEAR ME.... the rain is beating against our master bedroom window. I just talked to my brother to alert him that his county was under a Tornado Warning. He was sitting in his truck at home waiting for the storm to lessen so he could go in. He said they just had moth ball sized hail. Yes, it is January and we're having severe thunderstorms and at least one tornado. Kind of strange considering our state just recognized a 30-year anniversary for the Blizzard of 1978. The temps have fallen from the 50s into the 40s. It is supposed to be 12 by morning, so we'll be switching from our spring jackets and rain gear to our ice gear in less than 12 hours. What is ice gear, you say. Mainly it consists of some slip on straps with spikes on them for our shoes.

Sean hasn't felt very well today. I think maybe he overdid it yesterday. He still has a nasty cough and isn't eating much. I'm hoping he can go to preschool for a little while so he won't miss Circus Day when they put on a pretend circus. We have his elephant mask ready to go. I think it is pretty clever if I must say so myself. Sean and I worked on it together. I will try to post some pictures tomorrow.

Sean had a better day today. Very little if any fever. His appetite has increased (probably from Orapred) but once he starts eating, he won't eat much (probably because of the antibiotic). He's still wheezing some. He played more today but was wiped out by 8:00pm and didn't argue going to bed. He looks pale, but I have to remember - he has pneumonia.

Quick update. Sean still had fever today but it only went to 101.2 this evening and Tylenol took it down. I got the prescription for Orapred filled and he had one dose this evening. It's going to be a long week as he had trouble going to sleep from just the one dose. He is still wheezing some. He isn't eating much but he never does when he is taking antibiotics. It seems he is getting better just very slowly.