Snake Sighting

We had a visitor today. Pete was outside mowing and apparentely scared him up onto our patio. He came and knocked on the door to show us. The kids all thought the snake was cool and were pretty excited to see him. Noah grabbed his two-headed snake, so he could see the snake as well. Pete kept poking it and making it snap at him. Livie didn't like that. She wanted to play with him and didn't like the idea that he might bite. So, Pete took each of them out, one at a time, to sit on a chair and get a closer look. That way they could see him, but not get bitten by him. Livie liked that. They all did. We have little garter snakes around here from time to time. I think it's the first time we've had one actually come up on our patio before though. Most of the time we'll see them slithering through our yard when we're outside playing. That usually freaks the kids out though, so it was nice that he was sitting there quietly for them to look at instead. :-)

Come Meet Daisy

Many of you probably know that we are big fans of the American Girl dolls. Madie got her first Bitty Baby on her 2nd or 3rd birthday. Got her first Doll when she was 4 and just last summer her Aunt Jill, her Nana Trolinger, and I took her to the American Girl Store in Chicago where she used her own money to buy another doll, Emily. It was a really special day and we just love the collection. Of course, now that Livie is older, we wanted to introduce her to American Girl stuff. We got her a Bitty Baby for her 2nd birthday last December. She and Madie play all the time. Their closet is an American Girl hot spot. :-)

Anyway, this summer my sis and I went to a garage sale and found a doll for $20. It wasn't in great shape. The hair had seen better days. There was paint on her legs. And, her legs were falling off. But, considering a new doll is over $100, I thought it was quite a deal! So, I bought her for Livie, since she didn't have a big doll yet. She named her Daisy after Daisy on MarioKart. :-) Anyway, we got her last June and finally got around to sending her to the doll hospital in WI. Yes, there's a doll hospital. We filled out the form, letting them know what Daisy's problem was. She had to have surgery on her head. In fact, they gave her a new one! We packed her up and mailed her out. All the kids came with us when we sent her off. Well, yesterday we got her back from her trip. She looks amazing!!!! Like a brand new doll! They did the "surgery" and cleaned up her arms and legs. No paint is left on her at all. They even reattached her legs, so she can sit up and stuff again. They put her hair in bows and she was wearing her hospital bracelet and her hospital gown. She even got a certificate of good health with instructions from her doctor to give her lots of love. And, a "Get Well" balloon to top it all off. Livie was so excited to open her up and see how her Daisy turned out. She hasn't even changed her from the hospital gown yet. She loves it. So, here is a picture of her with her almost brand-new doll - Miss Daisy Trolinger.

****By the way, one of the reasons it was so exciting to get her back is because we didn't know what she would look like. She was an older doll, so we weren't sure what head she'd come back with. So, we were super happy to see how cute she was!

SLIME TIME

Tonight was our 2nd annual fall outreach kick-off party. The kids in our Sunday School program help me get it ready and we send out flyers and get signs posted, inviting children from our church and the community to this special night. We had 9 different games and crafts, as well as the playground equipment for them to play on. Since it was called Slime Time, we had several games of slime. And, this slime was nasty, let me tell you. Not to be super gross, but it was like bins of mucas. I should have taken a picture of it on your hand. If you stuck your hand in it and pulled it out, you'd have giant globs of it connected to you and the bin and it was impossible to clean off. The kids loved it!!!!!! :-) We had a fishing wall, where they could get a prize. We had pools of bubble solution, so they could make bubbles. A giant beaker for them to try and knock the balloons into and a few more games on top of that. We also had a craft center where they could make mini-beakers of slime to take home. They could pick whatever color they wanted and mix it up. And, they could make beaded necklaces too. We had over 30 kids come, which is a bit more than last year, which was nice. Since I was at the church all afternoon, Pete brought our kids for me. This was Livie's first time being a part of it and she had a ball! They all did. They were running around and trying all the different games. We now have 3 beakers of slime on our table, a take-home bag of goodies, and several necklaces. :-) Must've been a hit!

Two years ago when I officially became the director of our Sunday School program, I decided we needed a special way to kick-off our new season. We have the summers off from SS, so we try and do something special to start us off. I wanted a way to not only make it fun for our kids, but also make it available for their friends and kids from all over our community. So, last year I asked if we could do a nighttime event that had a carnival kind of atmosphere. They said "sure" and we did it. It was so fun last year, so we had to do it this time too. Because I'm the director, that means it's all on me to do it. So, you can only imagine how much work it is. I'm so thankful that I have people in our church who always lend a hand when I need it. I love our church! But, even with those great people, a lot still falls on me. I can't tell you how happy I am now that it's over!!! :-) It's so fun and so worth it, but seriously, it's so exhausting. And, I still have to go back tomorrow morning and clean up 16 gallons of slime!!!!!!!!!!!! Boy, is THAT going to be fun! ;-)

Smiling Napkins

Noah got a new brown highlighter at school yesterday as a prize. He was so excited, because Madie had received a purple one just like it last week. He wanted to try it out and I guess he didn't need paper to see how it worked. Instead he got out several napkins and drew smiley faces on them. But, that wasn't enough. He wanted to display all those napkins. He started sticking them on the windows and the table. Then gave one to Livie and to himself and took them with us when we went to pick up Madie from dance class last night. And, of course, they didn't just leave them in the van. No. They had to take them with us and show every person who walked by. I'm pretty sure most people didn't see the smiley face and instead saw two kids showing them napkins. We got more than one weird look. I tried to explain to them that not all people are wanting to see their napkins right now, but they didn't care. As people were coming in to pick up their daughters, they were greeted by 2 silly kids, shoving napkins in their faces. Yeah. Try explaining that one. I'm sure that from now on I'll be known as the mom with the crazy napkin kids.

A Typical Sunday Afternoon

I have no pictures to accompany this blog post today. There really hasn't been anything terribly exciting happening to report. But, I had to laugh at my sweet husband's reaction to this typical Sunday afternoon. Noah has had a fever this weekend, so Pete stayed home from church with him and Livie. I got back with Madie and had picked up lunch for all of us - so, so far it had been a pretty good day. They played Wii while we were gone and he got Taco Bell for lunch. Not a bad start, I must say. After lunch, I went and watched a little tv in the bedroom, while he stayed in the living room and watched the Bears game. This is apparently where things went downhill. :-) The kids were having a great time playing dress-up and were running around the house in their different costumes. Then they decided to bring every stuffed animal in the house into the living room hallway and the kitchen and make them their audience. Well, carrying all those animals and trying on all those costumes caused the kids to repeatedly run in front of Pete while he was trying to watch the game. It wouldn't have been a bad thing, except that they ended up losing, which put him in a bad mood. So, to blow off some steam, he decided to go mow. He had just been mowing about 10 min when it started pouring down rain and thundering and lightening outside. I went out to see what was going on after I heard that first crash of thunder and found him in the garage just staring at the rain. He saw me come out and was like, "just go back inside. I don't want to talk about it." ;-) He wasn't mad. Just a bit dejected. The rain ended up sticking around, so he finally came back inside, with his now partially mowed lawn out there laughing at him. He decided that in order for him to deal with the disappointments of the day, he needed to play Jedi Force and blow people up. The kids were quietly playing now in our bedroom and he thought he might actually get a couple minutes of repreve. That was not to be. The minute they heard the "beep, beep, beep" of the Wii turn on, they ran out as fast as they could, jumping over the couch yelling "I want to play!". He said nothing. I just saw his shoulders sag and his head lower. This poor, tired dad - who just wanted a few minutes - was now joined by an audience of 3 quite loud children. Now, I should be sympathic to his plight. He is, after all, a wonderful dad, who does so much for us. But considering that this is completely normal and what I deal with every day, I just had to leave, so I wouldn't further upset the situation by cracking up laughing. :-) I am so used to the constant whining and mess making - the noise levels and the running around. But, I was sick yesterday and spent nearly all day in bed, so he's going on 2 straight days of kid-sitting and laundry duty that I think he's getting worn out. And, he wonders why I want a vacation!! I think he's beginning to understand why. :-)

The Force Unleashed!

Today, as a surprise, we got Pete the new Star Wars Wii game. We had it all planned out how we were going to surprise him. I told the kids that we'd put the new game in the Wii drawer - yes, we have a Wii drawer ;-) - and say, "Hey, daddy, we want to play Wii. Can you pick a game out for us?", then have him open the drawer and SURPRISE!, there's the new game. Well, as soon as Pete walked in, Livie ran for the Wii drawer and said, "Ta da!!" and showed it to him. So much for the "plan". ;-) Anyway, he was really excited. And, since we've home from the Cracker Barrell tonight, he's been playing while we all watch. Now, why is it that the day I decide not to do my hair or put on a stitch of make-up when we go out, we run into half the people in Ottawa that I know? We ended sitting next to our best friends here in town and I ended up meeting 2 other guys that Pete works with. I always look like crap when I meet Pete's co-workers. I hate that! But, I digress.....he's so good at video games, that it's fun to watch him. It's a lot like his computer games, only he has to swing the remote like a lightsaber. Pretty cool stuff! I guess you can even fight each other, so if I ever learn how to play, I can fight him. And, considering how much smack we dish out at each other during MarioKart, I'm sure we'll be even more competitive at this game.

**As I was typing this up, Pete came and told me to see what Livie was doing. He had given her the remotes and she was kicking the other Jedi's butt! She was swinging the remotes all around. The Jedi didn't have a chance!

To: Uncle Andy

Today the kids got a package together to send to their Uncle Andy (Pete's brother) who is in Iraq right now. Livie and I picked up some snacks today while the other two were in school. Then when they got home, Madie and Noah made a picture for him and they all signed a card for him. They packed it up and put army stickers on the outside that they got at the scrapbook store. They were pretty cool stickers!! Then I took all three of them to the post office and they mailed the package to him. :-) Last time we sent one, Madie wanted to send him something really special. She went around the house looking for just the right thing. She wanted to send him a bunny she had, but then she thought the bunny would get scared in the war. She thought about it for a long time and finally ended up making him a picture instead. Each night they pray for their Uncle Andy and say they want him home safely. They've asked a lot of questions about the war. They have a hard time understanding it. I told them that grown-ups have a hard time understanding war too. So, I think getting to make pictures for him and knowing that they get to send him things that are yummy and fun is cool and make it better for them. They do a good job at making those packages special for him and always have ideas of what they want to mail him. Noah was in the store a few days ago and found a Wii pez dispenser thingy and knew that he HAD to put that in the package! The army stickers were another thing they knew they had to get. We always sit down and make a list of what we want to put in there. The packages they give you for flat rate stuff are small. They always have a list of like 20 things, so we have to trim it down a bit in order for things to fit.. ;-) But, hopefully in just a couple weeks, that package that they worked so hard on, will arrive in his hands and make his day a little better. :-) I mean Hostess coffee cakes have GOT to be better than army food, right?!! Heck, broccoli might be better than army food! Well.... maybe not.

Fizz and the Kids

The kids had a half day at school today, so I was trying to think of something for them to do that might actually be helpful to me in the process. :-) Next week is our 2nd annual fall outreach at church. It's something that I wanted to do last year, so I brought it to the committee and got it approved. It's a way for our SS kids to kick-off the new year. They get to invite friends and we also invite people from the community to come as well. It's a lot of work, but lots of fun! It was so cool last year, that we decided to do again this year as well. So, next Thursday we're doing "Slime Time". It's based off the Power Lab VBS that many churches in our area did. One of the things they do on "Slime Time" night is get their pictures taken and then we send them their pictures with an invite to come back to our church. Well, I thought, will all that I have left to do for the outreach, how can I have the kids help today. BINGO! We're going to build Fizz! So, we got the box out and all the pieces to the big puzzle that he was and put him together. It was pretty fun! I wanted to take a picture of the kids with their finished project. They were pretty impressed with themselves. And, I think he's going to make a stunning addition to our outreach night! :-)

My Little Ballerina

Madie began her 4th year of dance class last week, but I didn't take any pictures to celebrate that moment and let me tell you why. I had written on the calender that dance was to begin today from 4:15-7pm. I even had it in red letter with 2, yes 2, exclamation points. Well, last week, around 4:45, I got a call from her instructor Miss Lisa. "Where is Madeleine," she asked. Apparently dance started LAST Monday, not this Monday. So, I rushed very quickly to get her into her leotard and get all three kids loaded, so we could get to Ottawa for her to at least get in the last 2 hours. So, in the rush, no pictures were taken. Today, however, I was prepared. I made sure I had her dance bag packed - leotard, tights, leg warmers and jazz shorts. I brought her snack and a bottle of water. And, most importantly, my camera!! So, after we did a little flood watching, we took her to dance class. Just us girls, since Noah was still with Pete at the dentists (read below). She's taking ballet, tap, tumbling, and jazz - which is new for her this year. At her dance academy, they try to make sure all the kids get exposed to the many areas of dance and not just one or the other. Her class is for 3 hours every week. I think it's a lot, but she loves it and it's only that one day, so it's not too bad. This year is recital year, which means she has special routines to learn and costumes to get. She LOVES recitals, so she's especially excited about it this time around. As you can see, Olivia is also ready to begin dance, but we opted to wait until she's closer to 4 like Madie was. Then she'll follow her big sister's footsteps into the world of dance. Not sure if sticking out her tongue is considered a "dance move", but Livie seems to think it is. ;-) Let's just hope she can wear all of Madie's old shoes. Dance shoes are soooo expensive! $120+ this year alone!!! I can only imagine what the costume(s) will be! Anyway, here is Madie on her second day of dance. :-)

More Flood Pics

I took more pictures when we were in Ottawa this evening. It began raining around 2:30 and is kind of raining off and on. Hopefully it won't last much longer, because I don't think we can handle what that rain would bring. Madie and Noah really wanted to see what was flooded and so did Pete. So, I ran Noah over to the dentist (Pete was already there getting his teeth cleaned) and then took the girls over to the Y again. We ran into a few people we know from church there. One of my friends, Betty, said that the last big flood was in 1982 and this one was even worse than that one was. Wow! So, Madie got to really see what it was like and was excited to see how much water had covered the Riverwalk. She and Livie splashed around a bit, then I took her to dance class. After that I met back up with Pete and Noah at the dentists and we headed out to look at all the stuff. We went a couple places I had not gone this morning. Down by the Illinois River there is a school. It's completely flooded out and they've cancelled school the whole week. You can see in the pictures how completely covered the school is right now. It's going to take some time for the waters to go down and I'm sure they'll have quite a clean-up in store for them once it's down. We walked down a bit farther to the riverside and took some pictures. You can see how high the water is next to the light pole. That's up on a road beside the river. And, it's up that high. Noah just thought it was all so cool!! He was jumping around and couldn't believe how it looked. The funniest thing to me though was how many people were out. There were several out looking at the rivers and stuff this morning, but when we went again, it was after work was let out for most people and the river was just lined with people. I'd bet there were hundreds of people in all different areas of the river - taking video and pictures. It's a pretty big deal! We got a call from someone from church tonight, letting us know that if we wanted to volunteer, they are planning on sandbagging through the night to help keep the waters from getting to the high school and the homes around there. With the additional rains today, there's a real threat there. It's not been raining hard, but anything else at this point can threaten those areas, I think. Anyway, the last picture is over by the hospital. You can see how the river has reached the train bridge there. The lower level of the hospital parking garage is submerged. I'll be interested to see if anything happens after the Illinois River peaks and how much damage has been done to those areas.

The Mighty Flood Finders!

You've probably noticed that I haven't posted much this week. Well, there was a reason for that....rain! It rained and it rained, then it rained some more. Last weekend we were hit with the remnants from Hurricane Gustav. We had around 5" last week and then this weekend it started raining a bit on Thurs and then poured rain pretty much from Fri until yesterday. I think we ended up with another 7-8". Some of that were the leftovers from Hurricane Ike. Thankfully we didn't get the wind that sometimes comes with the hurricane. Just got the rain. Well, since it finally stopped, Livie and I decided to go on a bit of a scavenger hunt, looking for the worst flooded areas. I knew a few good places to look, since it was nearly flooded yesterday as we drove to church. In fact, as we drove to church, the road we usually take was nearly covered in water. It's down by the marina and the water was about 2" from the edge of the road. When we left church, the road was closed due to flooding. I went there today to look and boy, is it flooded! It the picture above with the "do not enter" barricade in front of it. For those who don't know, Ottawa is smack dab between 2 large rivers - the Fox River and the Illinois River. So, if we get a lot of rain, there's usually flooding. Because we got so much rain over the past couple of weeks and the fact that such a large area of IL was covered, the rainwaters have made the rivers particularly high. Higher than it's been in a long time, so I've been told. As Livie and I walked around, we found we weren't the only ones curious about the flooding. There were lots of people out and about - taking pictures, pointing, talking. It was all very interesting.

The first picture is of Livie and I - the Flood Finders!! The next picture shows the river by us here in Marseilles. It's the Fox River and it peaked last night I guess. You can see where the water is on the pillars of the bridge. It's usually much, much lower than that. You can see Livie pointing at the water in the next one. She thought it was all really cool. We're standing by the Middle East War Memorial in town. It's the only nice thing in our town actually. It's a beautiful tribute. In the pictures to follow, you'll see the baseball diamond is completely submerged. Then the picture I mentioned above where the road is completely covered. There are a few that are covered in other parts of the city too (Ottawa, that is). The one that Livie is standing in, is in front of the YMCA. That's where we went for Noah's t-ball. The whole parking lot is flooded and you can kind of make out the sandbags piled in front of the door. The walkway we're on is called "The Riverwalk" and every day after t-ball, we'd walk down and look for turtles. That probably won't happen for another week or so. Only the first few feet by our church is above water. Our church by the way, is right next door to the YMCA. Thankfully we're up the enbankment though, so there's no flooding in there. Livie really wanted to splash, so every place we went where we could reach the water, I let her tap her feet in a few inches. Since the rivers are going by so quickly though, I wouldn't let her go more than that. The next few pictures are of Allen Park which is on the Illinois River. It's supposed to peak this afternoon. Those things sticking out of the water are the tops of slides and pavilions. Last, but not least, is the Fox River by the High School. It's nearly at the bottom of the bridge, it's so high. The high school is surrounded by both the Fox and the Illinois. It's right where they meet, so the water is especially high in that area and moving by really quickly. I wouldn't let Livie go down and stomp around down there. It wasn't safe. So, I let her throw rocks in instead. She liked that. You can see in the background the brick building. That's the high school. One or two more days of rain would've brought the river above those levees and flooded the school. You can see in the background them filling sandbags to prevent the river from coming up higher on the other side of the bridge. It's all pretty crazy. I'm anxious for Madie and Noah to get out of school to show them as well. We drove by a couple places yesterday after church, but it was raining so hard, we didn't let them out of the van. I know they'd love to walk down by the Y to see it there. But, Livie and I had fun. She loved watching the water and looking for more places to check out. I know I posted a lot of pictures. Hope I haven't bored you with it all. But, those who have been here will probably recognize the places in the pictures and will be able to see how high the water has really gotten. It's pretty unreal!