Winter Record

I thought it would be important to make note of the weather this winter, so when we look back, we'll remember how totally awful and crappy it's been!  This has been the snowiest, yuckiest, nastiest, COLDEST winter I can remember having since we moved to IL back in 2000.  We've had 5 snow days this year.  Four of them because of the bitter, bitter cold we had - aka -40 to -50 wind chills.  Like I said, AWFUL!

We've also had tons of snow.  About 3 years ago we had one big "Blizzaster" where we had thunder snow and wind and we got like 12" of snow in one big storm.  Our neighbors, who have lived here for their entire lives, told us that was the kind of snow that comes once every 20 years.  Well...... it wasn't THAT long!  We've had snow falling all the time.  The wind has been out of control.  It's not been fun.  BUT - the weather forecast shows the amazing, beautiful, much-needed temps hitting 50 degrees by week's end.  So, I thought I'd better take a few pictures, so in the years to come, when I find myself complaining about our "awful winter", I can look back and say, "Well, it's not as bad as 2014 was!".

Pete placed this measuring stick - along with Noah's wind gauge from Christmas - in the front yard as the snow began to really pile up.  It's at 12" right there and that isn't even at the deepest parts.

You can see the piles that are around our driveway.  Piles and piles and piles and piles of snow.  I'm actually curious to see what the final snowfall amount is for this winter.  I've tried looking it up, but haven't found anything that says what it's been.  I have heard things like "It hasn't been this cold in 100 years" and that we've had more snow this year than we have in the previous 30 years, stuff like that.  But, I don't have any actual numbers.  But, we have quite a build-up of snow and it's supposed to snow again tomorrow.

This is a closer look at the piles around our driveway.  It comes up to my chest.  The kids haven't even been able to enjoy it, because the temps have been so terribly cold.  They can't play outside when it's -6 as a high!  So, this is a record of the winter of 2014.  Not fun.  Pretty at times, but so cold that it's been miserable.  I know I speak for this family, and probably every family in IL and IN combined, when I say "WE ARE READY FOR SPRING!". :-)

Being The Loving Community

On Sunday we had a special Valentine's Day event, where we pass out cookies to everyone in the congregation.  This is our third year doing that and the kids always love doing it.  It fit in perfectly with John's sermon series about our mission statement - "To be the loving community of Jesus Christ....".  There's actually more to it than that, but it starts out that way and that's what we wanted the kids to do - BE that loving community of Jesus Christ.  

So, we started by having them pack up bags of cookies and add a verse card.  The verse cards had John 3:16 written out, with the word VALENTINE spelled in red using the letters of the verse (thank you, pinterest!).

When they were done packing, they had to sort and count them and put them in baskets to take upstairs to the sanctuary.

Before they did that, however, we let them each take a bag for themselves to eat. :-)  It would've been mean and cruel to expect them to touch the cookies and pack the cookies and not get to eat any!

When they got upstairs they got to pass them out to everyone.  Noah frequently left the sanctuary to roam the halls looking for the cookie-less.  It was fun!

Such a great group of kids!  These guys were stationed at the back of the church and we had another crew at the front of the church.  It was a great morning!

Invention Convention

After many, many months of planning (and one snow day), the Invention Convention was in full swing yesterday!  This is a project that all 7th graders must do and they begin the planning stages of it in October.  They write reports, come up with an idea, and make their idea a reality, so they can show during the convention at school.

Madie actually won an Honorable Mention yesterday, so she was extremely excited!  Here she is holding her ribbon. :-)  The first place winner created a box you could open on a chain-link fence, so you could take pictures on a baseball field without the fence blocking you.  It was really cool!

 Here is the board that she made.  She worked really hard on it.  She did it all by herself.  The only thing I helped with was taking the pictures of Livie and actually sewing together the pocket.

We thought these "Before" and "After" pictures of Livie were hilarious!  "Before" she was sad, because she had no place to put her doll.  The "After" picture shows her joy when she finally had a place for that doll!  The doll is in the picture at the top, sitting inside the pocket we made.

She used different fabric pieces that she picked out to show the color options for the pocket.  This side was for the girl colors/prints.

This was the boy side of colors/prints.

This is the actual pocket attached to her leggings.  We used really strong magnets to hold it onto the pants.  She put this cardboard iphone in it to show how it works.  

It was supposed to be last Wed night, but the snow day we had postponed it.  I thought I was going to miss it, because I work on Thursday nights, but thankfully they had it right after school.  Sadly, I think that kept a lot of parents away, because they had to work, because usually the place is packed during the Invention Convention.  But, I'm glad I got to go, even if the timing was bad.  And, you'll notice in this picture that Noah is growing his hair out.  Sigh.  He informed me that he's growing up and making some changes to his appearance.  Pete keeps calling him "Bieber". ;-)  It's the style and I can't fault him for wanting to be more independent and different now that he's almost 11.

We took time to go around and look at all the other inventions.  It's fun to see how creative some of these kids are.

Of course, we had to take a picture of Madie and one of her best friends, Ashley (and two of Ashley's sisters).  She's a sweet girl.

So, all that planning paid off!  They did a great job on their inventions and Madie was thrilled to pieces to win a ribbon!


**UPDATE - Today (February 18th) Madie came home and told us there was a mix up.  She actually got third place!  She will be receiving a ribbon tomorrow.  So, YAY for Madie on that great accomplishment!

Superbowl Sunday!

Yesterday was Superbowl Sunday and, even though the game sucked, we had a great time with our friends.  We had invited our friends Jayson and Laura over, as well as their kids.  Then Pete invited a couple guys from work - David, whose wife has been out of town for a while and was home alone, and Dane, who is staying at a hotel while he works at the plant for a few weeks.  He's from the WV site.  So, it was a smaller crowd than what we're used to, but it was a great time.  Pete, my introvert husband, doesn't always like when I invited 20 people to the house, so this was just perfect for him. :-)

We ordered pizza and I made lots of food for the occasion.  I swear, one of my favorite parts about hosting is making fun foods and the Superbowl definitely lends itself to some great food!  The hit of the night was the Buffalo Chicken Dip.  It's spicy and yummy and a recipe we got from our friends, the Havengas, when they came to our last Superbowl party 3-4 yrs ago.

Now that Pete has his very own "Man Cave", he was excited to share it with actual MEN!  And, for a while that worked out nicely.... UNTIL

the kids started their epic ping-pong tournament.  They all dressed up in costumes and paired off and started a really hilarious game of ping-pong.

On one side was Emma the banana and Madie the Vampiress.

Then Tessa the Sombrero lover and Noah the ?????  I don't even know what to call a kid dressed in a ballgown with a Rolie Polie Olie head, clutching a Hello Kitty doll.  But I give him points for being unique!

And, of course, we can't forget Livie Batgirl with her pom-poms of different colors to cheer them on!

The ping-pong game got them really wound up, so the noise level got a little loud.  Pete and the guys decided to head on upstairs and finish the game up there, away from the crazy, noisy children.

Laura and I and our girls (sans Livie) watched the half time show together.  The girls loved Bruno Mars (heck, who didn't), but once the Red Hot Chili Peppers came on, they were in total mock-out mode.  "Who are these OLD guys?!" they said.  "Why are their shirts off?"  "Ewww... old guys should NOT have their shirts off!"  (excessive laughter) "Why are they moving their heads back and forth like this?!" (start mimicing the band)  "Hahahaha!  That's stupid!".  Now, throughout the mocking, Laura and I tried explaining the the RHCP were popular when we were in high school and college and that HEADBANGING, yes that's what it's called, is awesome and everyone used to do it.  Quite frankly, I didn't realize that was an 80s-90s thing.  I figured the kids still did it.  I was very wrong and the girls just laughed hard.  Apparently I am now old.  Guess I should've been clued into that when Madie told me she loved the song Tonight, Tonight and I thought she was talking about the song from West Side Story, but I digress.  It was a really fun night and I'm so glad that, despite the disappointing game, we all had a great time together!

Madie's Dance

On Friday, Madie had another school dance.  I love that there is a theme for them each time, because she loves getting to pick out an outfit for the occasion.  That night's theme was "Masquerade".  They got to buy these masks during school that day for  $1, so she picked out the butterfly one, because it matched the outfit she had chosen the night before. :-)

This was the first dance without her very best friend Michael, but she took pictures while she was there and texted him when she got home.  It's fun to see that, despite the distance, they can still have fun together.  A couple nights before they skyped for an hour and then spent that night texting for a while as well.  

She had a great time while she was there, hanging out with her friends.  She didn't dance with any boys this time, but she said she didn't mind at all.  She just enjoyed being there and having fun!

Fancy Nancy Valentine Event

I don't know if you remember me posting back in November about a painting party I went to, but Livie and I just went to a Fancy Nancy Valentine Day Party there today and it was so much fun!

Now, you know, if you want Livie to get "fancy", she will find every possible thing in her closet to wear in order to be the very fanciest person in the world.  She decked herself out in boas, sequined gloves, a hat, and an umbrella!  Yes, folks, she was the epitome of fanciness!

She even had me get fancy.  She had me wear a heart headband, a blue boa, and several bracelets.

Taking pictures with her was a riot, because she directed the whole "shoot".  This was my favorite pose of hers. ;-)

We were worred that the event was going to be canceled, because of the snow we are getting (I think the total accumulation is somewhere around 8" and it's still snowing.  But, we braved it and are so glad we did, because we wouldn't have wanted to miss such a great afternoon!

When we got there, we quickly realized we were the fanciest ones there.  In fact, I do believe I was the ONLY fancy mom there.  At the very least, the only mom there with a boa.  Livie made sure all of her accessories were in place before we began.

At the table, she had made little raspberry lemonades for everyone with Fancy Nancy labels.  So stinkin' cute!

She even gave everyone a special Valentine's Day cardboard straw.  Livie LOVED the lemonade!  She even made Red Velvet Puppy Chow with Valentine M&Ms.  What a great snack!

She had the girls gather around, while she read the Fancy Nancy Valentine's Day book.  Livie loves Fancy Nancy and had never heard that book before, so she really liked it.

Once the story was over, we all went over to the tables where she had all the supplies ready to make Valentine's Day cards.  There was so much to choose from.  Each girl got to make 10 Valentine Cards.

She had them gather around, so she could show them how to make the cards and show them the work tables that had additional tools to use.  They had a glitter station, a rubber stamp station, and a special scissor and punch-out station.

Here is Livie at the rubber stamp station.  She really liked doing that.

But the glitter station was her favorite!  We visited this station a lot.

As we worked at our tables, she brought around special felt stickers that she had, as well as special glitter tape and yarn.  There was so much to choose from!  And, we loved all of it!

Here she is getting ready to fill in a heart with glitter.

We miscounted and actually made 11 Valentines, but no one seemed to mind that.  Didn't she make some great ones?!  She had so much fun and we definitely used up every minute of those 2 hours.

She had a wonderful time and I was so glad to spend some time with just her and me.  We don't get the chance to do that very often.  Looking forward now to the next event!