
It’s a beautiful day for a blower door test. Hopefully the test-out will show a sufficient energy savings so we can get a lovely refund from the state.

It’s a beautiful day for a blower door test. Hopefully the test-out will show a sufficient energy savings so we can get a lovely refund from the state.
A few weeks ago we decided to replace our old (old, old, old) printer with a fancy new one. It worked well for about a week, then declared itself jammed and despite our best efforts to convince it otherwise, HP ended up replacing it. The new one arrived yesterday and works like a charm, except it won’t print in color. Gah! I was mumbling and complaining just now to Lex about having to deal with HP again and figure this out (I’ve been on chat support with them now for awhile and the dude has no idea, he keeps asking where I bought the printer from!) and sweet Lex says, “We can just color it in with markers or crayons. It’s ok Mom.” Isn’t he sweet!? :)
Happy March! We are counting down the days until Spring and Eve’s birthday. Both exciting events around here :) We have been lucky with lots of sunny days lately, but I’m very much ready for warm weather. Ready to go outside without two layers and big boots. Ready to retire the snow shovels for the season. Just plain ready.
We’ve been busy lately. I have to go get Lex at the bus stop in just a minute (early release today!), but here are a few quick pictures from the past few days…

We got more snow on Sunday. Seriously. Do you see why I'm tired of snow? The banks lining my driveway are taller than I am!

My friend came over the other day to take some pictures of Eve painting rocks for a story in a magazine. Eve HAPPILY obliged! She loves painting rocks :)
I’m in a total funk these days. Not sure why. The eating is out of control, I’ve lost all motivation for WW, my to-do list just grows and grows…. sigh. I need something, just not sure what. Unfortunately the delicious Cherry Almond Scones from KAF that Eve and I made today are not it, despite the fact that I’ve eaten almost all of them! I think I need more sleep. Must work on that…
Chow for now!

For Christmas, Eve got two American Girl dolls from Rosy. These were dolls that we played with when we were kids! Oldies, but goodies. They are in great condition, but a little dirty and the hair was dry and came out a lot when Eve brushed it (in her oh-so-gentle three year old way). American Girl has a cleaning and repair service they call Doll Hospital. I asked Eve if we could send the dolls to Doll Hospital for a few weeks but she said NO! A few weeks later when the dolls were a bit less novel, I wrapped them up and sent them away. I felt a bit guilty doing this while she was at school, but I’m holding strong in my opinion that sometimes Mom knows more that the preschooler, and those dolls need some TLC if they were going to last for another generation. I got lucky and she didn’t notice they were gone.
Today they came home! American Girl does a beautiful job. They came home all cleaned (with new heads, hence the shiny hair, shh!!) and dressed in hospital gowns. They even had little hospital bracelets and discharge instructions. Super cute! Eve was thrilled to see them!! :)

She loved the braids and ribbons. Hopefully they stay in for a bit because I don't think we can ever recreate that look.
I’m off now to wake up the poor tired girl from her nap and take her to swimming lessons.
I need a new blog header. We’ve had so many sunny days lately and this header looks too gray and depressing. No time at the moment, but stay tuned. :)
The Legos came back out this week, after a bit of a hiatus while trains dominated the living room. Lex counted out 100 Lego pieces to bring to school yesterday for his 100th Day celebrations. This morning the kids were lying, side by side, reading the Lego instructions. I grabbed the camera, but was, of course, moments too late.
I decided that since the kids are getting older and no longer napping (much) that we should start doing some day trips. We had school vacation this week, so Alan took Friday off and we drove up to the Echo Lake Aquarium and Science Center. I had big plans for a fun day. We ended up leaving a bit late and getting there right at lunch time, so we stopped at Ponderosa for lunch. Wow, it’s been ages since I’ve been to one of those. Believe it or not, that place IS NOT terribly WW friendly :) An all you can eat deep fried buffet!
Anyway, after lunch we went to the science center and everyone had fun, for awhile. Eve had taken an unexpected morning nap in the car which did not bode well for the day. After about an hour at the science center she was asking to go home. At one point she even said, “I’ve had enough of all these fish!” About a half hour later she was half asleep in my arms. We hung out for a bit longer but ended the day much earlier than I hoped for. Unexpectedly we met one of Lex’s classmates there. That was a fun surprise! His parents had gone to school nearby and recommended we check out a cool pedestrian street nearby. Eve started crying in the car so we were going to skip it, but then she cried that she wanted chocolate. Funny, I know, but we had mentioned getting chocolate at the Lake Champlain chocolate store. Funnier still, we all wanted chocolate so we gave in to her crying.
She pulled it together for a bit, but not long. It was a beautiful sunny day and I was eager to explore that lovely pedestrian street, but I guess I’ll save it for another day (wanna go on a day trip with me, mom?) We force fed Eve some ice cream (haha!) and then headed back to the car. She was asleep by the time we got out of the parking garage! I actually think she had a fever for most of the day. She slept well last night and woke up healthy and happy today. Whew!