Blueberry smoothies and Sunday comics.

I have been trying to come up with a clever caption for this photo all day, but nothing quite right comes to mind. I wanted to post it anyway though, because it's silly. Eve has me seriously beat in the abs deparment! :)

Around 1:30pm this afternoon it was sunny and almost 37° outside. Not the norm for January around here! I suggested a walk to the playground and they LOVED the idea. However, they were both still in pjs, and it turns out they hadn’t had lunch (I was at the gym at lunch time and they told Alan they weren’t hungry), and Eve was working on cleaning up a monster sized mess in her room… so it was 3:15 before we finally got on the road!! A might chillier and darker by then! During that time one of Eve’s classmates had called (her mom, really) and agreed to meet us at the playground so there was no turning back on the plan.

We walked to the playground and discovered they had flooded and frozen the field to create a skating rink! It was pretty bare-bones, lots of breaks and cracks, grass poking through in parts, but impressive nonetheless considering the weather we’ve been having lately. The kids were thrilled and “skated” for awhile.

Eve, "skating" on the ice

I brought the RC car along too.

Did you know owls can sneaker skate?

The car didn't work so well on the ice.

There were lots of leaves frozen under the ice.

I don't know how many times I had to tell those crazy kids not to lay down on the ice!

About 20 minutes later we were all freezing and about to head home when Eve’s friend finally showed up. So we stayed for another hour. It was sooooo cold! We made it half way home before we broke down and called Alan to come rescue us! :) Our hero rushed out in his slippers to save his freezing family (and he did a decent job of not laughing at me for the crazy idea in the first place!)

Warm at home we enjoyed homemade (this morning) Cran-Raspberry White Chocolate Scones (thank you KAF!) and warm beverages. Then some family game time and off to bed. Overall a very nice day! :)

I asked the kids a few days ago about what we should do for New Years Eve. Lex reminded me that last year we went cosmic bowling and he suggested maybe we should do that every year. I guess we now have a NYE “thing.” :)

My camera is having issues, ugh!, but here are a few pictures from our rockin’ evening!

Eve's opinion of her bowling skills.

Lex took the first game. I thought this picture was better than it is!

Eve won the second game.

Now for the real reason they want to go to the bowling alley.

I think he's a little too big for this ride!

Now Alan and I are going to settle in with some fizzy drinks and a silly movie. Maybe we’ll see the ball drop, maybe not. Happy NYE!

For some silliness at snack time we got out a Mad Libs book this afternoon that the kids got for Christmas. They have gotten these books once or twice in the past and never shown much interest, but today it clicked! We went through a bunch of them. Most of the time I did the writing and the kids came up with words, but for a few of them Lex did the writing while Eve and I came up with words. It was fun! I think it would be a great car game. I’ll have to remember for future car trips :)

Mad Libs Lex

Eve got pretty excited thinking up crazy words!

At one point, when asked for an adjective, Eve said, “Love.” I said that’s not an adjective and she said, “‘Love’ means ‘I love you.’ I’m describing you with love.” So sweet!

Lex diligently writing the crazy words we thought up.

We had a busy day today! I’m exhausted! Alan went to an energy conference all day so the kids and I decided to do some holiday activities. Starting with a Gingerbread Festival! I hear about this every year, but this is the first year we’ve actually made it. People donate fully decorated gingerbread houses that are auctioned off for a local non-profit. There’s also a silent auction, craft booth, and tons of a kids activities. It was fun, but totally chaotic! We bid on one gingerbread house when we first got there and another one at the end, once we saw we’d already lost the first one and I wasn’t willing to bid more than $30 for a gingerbread house! I suspect we didn’t get the second one either or else I think they would have called by now. I also bid on two items from the silent auction… but again, I’m assuming no call means no win. Oh well.

There were some pretty awesome gingerbread houses on display…

This one made me laugh. Occupy Candyland.

This all white one was just amazing!

Decorating gingerbread cookies, donated by KAF. Yum!

It's 10:30am and this is her second holiday cookie of the day! Can you tell?! :)

Holiday story time

After about an hour and a half of that chaos we decided to head to Panera Bread for lunch and a few errands over that way. I’m not sure where my brain was when that decision was made! Saturday in West Leb is never calm, but when you add in the whole holiday thing, it was just more chaos. The line at Panera was out the door, but we waited and luckily it moved quickly. Then we went to Home Depot where they had nothing I wanted and Jo-Ann’s Fabric which I’m super excited is now open and expanded! We got lots of things there and lucked out because the line was insane when we first got to the store, but there was no line at all by the time we got around to checking out. That balances out the Panera line, right?! :)

This is how we roll these days.

Eve was initally mad that she doesn't get to use the kindle in the car too, but she's eventually resigned herself to old fashioned books again (which I think she really prefers anyway!)

Lex found a train set at HD that he really wanted. I told him to write a letter to Santa. He left the store in an existential crisis. :) (just kidding... kind of!)

When we got home were were all EXHAUSTED! I was so tired that no only did I set aside my to-do list (ha! like I’m that organized these days!) and sat down on the couch to read for an hour, but I actually dozed for 15 minutes! I haven’t done that in a very long time. Lex came down from his quiet time and announced that he had four blog posts he wanted to make. :) Late afternoon passed by with some blogging, some crafting (Eve made gingerbread necklaces for the nativity characters), and some dinner. Then bedtime! Yay. Now it’s bedtime for me. We are all looking forward to a DO NOTHING day tomorrow! I hope to read the paper. That’s my big goal :)