Mama?????

Karis: Am I in charge of Ryanne?

Me: No, why would you need to be in charge of Ryanne?

Karis: Brennan says that he's in charge of me, Jadyn is in charge of Taryn, Taryn is in charge of Brennan, Isis is in charge of Chief, Morocco is in charge of Velvet....

*****Do you see where this is going? *****

I told her that at the moment I was the only one who was in charge of the 5 kids, 2 puppies and 2 cats since daddy wasn't home to be in charge too.

Sleepy girl

Spring Break Vacation

We're in the midst of figuring out where we'd like to go on vacation during spring break.

Many different ideas have been discussed. St. Louis, Mall of America, Disneyworld, visiting my family and just driving and seeing where we might end up.

It would be nice if we could do a little bit of what everyone would like...but we just don't have that much time during Spring Break.

Oh Mother Nature......

I really wish she would decide what she's going to throw at us on any given day. We've had freezing rain and freezing fog all in the last week. The freezing fog was actually pretty neat. Today we're back to snow and blustery winds. The weather lately just makes us want to stay in and either read a good book or watch a good movie with some popcorn.

Ice Jams!

Pepsi Bowling Tournament

We headed up to Rockford bright and early this morning so that Taryn could bowl in the Pepsi Tournament. It was her first tournament and she was quite nervous. She is alright though and definitely had fun!

Not a snow day....

We got an ice day instead.

After having Monday off from school, the kids are home again today due to all the freezing rain we got yesterday and overnight. The windows in the sun room are covered in ice, The sidewalks, driveways are slicker than slick. The puppies don't even want to go outside since all they do is sleep and slide over the very frozen, slippery snow. The main roads are cleared off for the most part, but the side roads are really nasty. I have nowhere that I have to go today and even if I did I wouldn't attempt going out. It's not worth it.

I wish....

there was something really exciting going on that is keeping me away from posting pictures and blogging in general, but really we're just busy with normal life in general. =)

The cold nasty weather has up all wishing for the sun to come out and nice WARM weather. It's not happening any time soon though, so we'll just continue to bundled up and hope for temps at least in the 30's sometime VERY SOON!

Report Cards

Report cards came home today for the 3 older ones.

Jadyn is doing great. She's on the honor roll again and is the top reader in her class. She definitely likes to read like her mommy. She ended up with A's & B's across the board and ended up with a couple of awards.

Taryn is doing fantastic. Off to a rocky start at the beginning of the year, she has brought her grades up tremendously! She's been struggling and with some tutoring after school on Thursdays she's getting the extra little nudge she needs to keep going. 3rd grade is hard...it's the year that the teachers really start to transition them to being "BIG KIDS." It means lots of work, writing solely in cursive and a decent amount of homework with a lot more responsibility.

Brennan is right where he needs to be. From the stories he comes home with, I swear he's 1 of probably a handful of boys in his class that hasn't been sent to the office for bad behavior. His teacher has her hands full this year. He's bringing books home every night and reading them to us. He really likes to read them to Jadyn.

All in all I couldn't be happier with how they are doing.

Ice Burg Ahead!!!!!!!!

One should always be paying attention when backing out of the driveway. Even if they've done it numerous time. If one thing grabs your attention at the wrong time you could be like me and end up running over an ice burg on the side of your driveway and getting yourself stuck!

After trying to dig oneself out...you end up calling your husband who laughs at you wholeheartedly and then tells you to get out the shovels and try to dig yourself out. After explaining that I had already tried that and it's not working he was on his way to the rescue.

After digging and digging and whacking at the darn ice, the neighbor across the street came over to see if I needed some help. With some more digging and pushing of the expedition I was finally free. Called Kolin and he was 2 blocks away from home.

I left to take Karis to school since we were already 30 minutes late. When I came home I came upon a candycane lawn ornament stuck in the ice as a caution cone.
(go ahead and laugh, I know you want too)

This is what I get to see out of my side mirror now. When Kolin got home from work Friday night he swiched out the candycane for 2 orange flags.

So Very Pretty

If you can't find the baby....

make sure you look in the bathtub in the kids bathroom.

Kolin went looking for her tonight and somehow she ended up in the bathtub. We're still not sure exactly how.

Back to school today!

As much as we enjoyed our Christmas break, everyone was pretty much ready to head back to school today.

It's Bouncing Zebra Time!

During the last couple of weeks or so Miss Ryanne has discovered and fallen in love with the bouncing zebra we got for Karis when she was Ryanne's age. It's been in Ryanne's room and every day she'll go up there and play with it.

I decided today that I'd put in the living room and as you'll see she's one happy little girl.

Happy New Year!