january

Ugh.  Re-entry has been haaaarrrd.  

There hasn't been much on the calendar, which is nice, but we haven't been bored.

Emmy can be little miss helpful sometimes.  This is my latest clock case project.  Haha.  I have too many hobbies.

 So, referencing an old family inside joke I sent Bob this picture- "Obviously, we need to move the thermostat..."  He was not impressed.  (Once, long ago, we rolled into my Aunt's house pretty late at night and they were busy fishing wires to move their thermostat so that they could hang a different picture over the piano....)   I'm out of walls upstairs, and I'm not actually going to move the thermostat, so my cool new 'Architecture of American Houses' print I got for Christmas is living in the basement.  Matt told me I'm not allowed to cross off the styles that I don't like.  Ha.

 The big girls went back to school.  The early mornings were/are hard.  Miriel hasn't been sleeping well, so it's been unpleasant all around.  She also has an uncanny knack for waking up 10, 20 minutes before my alarm. 
Cecily got sick at school the first week back.  woot.  It lasted less than a day, but she stayed home from school the following day and was bored. The last time I was in Hobby Lobby I brought home some 'cut and sew' doll clothes kits because they looked like fun, so we spent the afternoon sewing.  The cutting and the straight seams were pretty doable for the girls, but finishing tiny arm and neck holes were not.  I'm not sure that it was any easier or faster than using a traditional pattern, but they are cute!

The fabric itself is printed with different colors and patterns, button plackets, collars, etc. so the dresses look more detailed than they actually are.  Not that you can tell from this picture. :P  

They are all rather fond of the classic 'crumby noodles' and this was their reaction when Bob put AALLL of them on his plate.  "You can't do that!" "Don't we get ANY?!"  The horror. hehe.  

Teeny tiny cupcakes in the easy-bake-oven.

Our sweet neighbor lady brought us an amaryllis bulb for Christmas and we enjoyed watching it grow and blossom.  

When they steal your phone because they need to take some pictures...  

You can't soar with the eagles in the morning if you hoot with the owls at night... how many times did I hear that growing up?  This is what happens when you are wide awake until 1 AM, you fall asleep by your toys in the morning.  

When you teach them how to use the phone-
"Mom, I need to talk to Grandma Kathy!"
(distracted and busy with Miriel) "Not right now."
"Emmy, I need to talk to Grandma Kathy!"
... 
"Wait! What!? Who are you talking to!?"
*sigh*  At least I don't think they mind toooo much. :)

So pretty in the middle of grey winter.

Bob and I went to potluck one cold snowy evening and the girls got to play at the farm.  Janelle made soup and grilled cheese and it was so good.  If I didn't have a melted cheese hater we would probably be eating it at least every week.
Michelle and Nathan were in IL over MLK weekend to close on their old house; we went to the farm for supper that night. The "kids" played with trains.

Shelly and Emmy made skillet cookies.

Some guys came over to play games. 

Lena and Troy entertained kids in the basement.

Good times.  
Teeny-tiny half scale chairs! (1:24, regular dollhouse scale is 1:12)

We were eating supper and the amaryllis fell off of the windowsill.  It must have gotten too top heavy with all of those beautiful blooms.  It was a sad day; alas poor amaryllis, I knew him, Horatio.

Oh, you know, just boiling embroidery hoops on the stove... as one does.  My sister says I have too much time on my hands.  Perhaps.  I also have no social life, no job, and no friends, so there's plenty of time for random hobbies.  :) 

We got a new book in the mail.  And then I cried a little inside that such a thing is necessary.  

Dear, domestic, little Emmy came upstairs with a yard of fabric and some scraps from my stash- "Can I make a table cloth like Grandma's?"  So she worked on pinking the edges of a table runner while I hemmed a little table cloth. 

So cute, if slightly clashing.  

Such a fancy table called for water in teacups with their afternoon snack.  :P  Overall, not a bad way to spend a cold afternoon.  

We were honored to get invited to play games with Dale and Meg's family last Sunday.  The girls were bouncing off the walls excited.  

Monday morning Cecily woke up with a fever.  woot.  So she spent the day in quarantine on the couch. And fretted about being sick and not wanting to throw up (she never did) and just general weepiness about everything.  Her emotional state is almost a more accurate predictor of temperature than the thermometer.
Poor bored Emmy wanted to make her last lip balm, then she cried that it was all done.  "Jake and Rachel gave it to me.  I miss it so much!"  I shouldn't laugh...  but it's hard when she's so sweetly pathetic. :)

I like oreos!  

Another random picture I found on my phone... somebody took a bunch of pictures of this moon lamp/nightlight- it was an impulse buy while I should have been Christmas shopping and the girls think it's the coolest thing ever.    I maybe do too.  :)

 Cookie monster.  haha.  I know, I know, she should be eating healthy, organic, fruits and vegetables, but cookies are just the perfect texture for her right now...  also, fourth kid.  

 Poor Cecily missed school Monday, Tuesday, was still feverish Wednesday, and they need a note from a doctor if they miss 3 or more days.  Gah.  So frustrating.  She had one symptom. And it wasn't even a high fever.   But I dutifully dragged her in to the Doctor where she could expose more people and be exposed to worse germs, all for a paper that says she was sick.  Poor kid, it ended up being kind of a traumatic visit.  They were running way behind so we sat for quite a while, then the resident came in and was checking her over.  She was not happy.  And she wouldn't stick her tongue out enough for him to see her throat so he had to use a tongue depressor... on the child who is terrified of gagging, it was a fate worse than death.  So she was sobbing and he had to give up.  Then we waited for the doctor who was not her regular doctor (incidentally, I remember him from Grade school->high school.  slightly weird) and had to go through the whole rigmarole again.  He got a little better look at her throat and saw some spots and wanted to swab for strep.  Oh. My. Stars.  It was bad.  More tears.  And after all that it ended up being negative for strep.  *sigh*  So two hours later we were home with that precious note that says she can go back to school when she's better.  Which would have happened anyway. 

If I ran the world there would be a nurse at the office that met you at the door and swabbed throats and looked in ears and if they saw something you saw the doctor and if they didn't you could go home.  And they could hand out notes to the people who are probably going to be better in a day or two with or without making small talk with three different people and sitting around for hours staring at the posters on the wall.

And of course, she started to perk up a little bit and was acting more like herself that evening, but her temp was still over 100 so I had to keep her home again.  But she was fever free Thursday morning!  Woot woot!  There was great rejoicing!         

So.  Miri-miri is 9 months old today! She's getting so big.  And fun. Now if she can just remember how to sleep for really long stretches at night...
Blessings.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

So. Wyss Christmas was the 28th.  We had to get up bright and early and haul all the way over to Roanoke... because apparently the powers that be dithered about the date for too long and nothing was available closer.  Breakfast started promptly at 10... or something like that.  It was amazing and almost makes the drive worth it. hehe.

 It was time for presents after we cleaned up.  So impatiently patient....  

 So thrilled!  "Did Grandma Lydiann find my list??!!"  

 It's very hard to share you new paw patrol tower that only comes with one pup...  

 Since some people eat 'Brunch' when we normally eat breakfast and don't plan lunch, I brought a bunch of lunchables for the children who don't understand the concept of eating a late-ish breakfast, skipping lunch, and eating an early supper.  And for Troy.  Ladies, he's single, enjoys long walks on the beach, traveling, and is great with kids.  hehe.    They were eating under the table. Just because. 

 Helping Boden with his legos...

 I got to play a hand of Rook with Scott and Abby and Ned.  I couldn't remember the last time I had played Rook.  And now Ned's in Singapore so who knows when I'll get to play Rook with him again.  Abby and I won.  :)

 They make us take a grandchildren picture every year, and this year they got the adults too.  It was amusing.

 Miri looks like she's about to slug Emmy. 

 Uncle Fred telling a bunch of kids how he hurt his face.  

 The girls barely stopped running all. day. long.  Cecily and Emarie were a (wild and crazy) pair and they were sad when it was time to leave.  

 But all good things must come to an end, and we had to get to bed so we could get up for church in the morning.  :P  We did set up their new game from Emarie (*cough* Austin *cough*).  They were not so sure about it... and honestly, I can't decide if it's horrifying or hilarious... meet "Pimple Pete."  If you pull out his pimples wrong, he sprays you with water.  

Rest day... no plans, just spread out the toys and the crafts and chill.  

We didn't make any plans for New Years.  The girls all seemed pretty tired of going places, plus, Miriel.  So we made some appetizer type snacks after church and let them drink pop.  I was going to put them to bed, but Bob thought we should let them watch a movie and then put them to bed when they got tired.  Yeah.  At 11:30 they were still wide awake, wound up, and driving me crazy.  So I made them go to bed because I was tired, but they were all up still at midnight. (I need a drink!  I need a kleenex! Is it midnight yet?)  And Miriel decided to stay up until 2 sooo... no rest for the weary.

We were all a little bleary the next morning...

 The rest of the week was pretty quiet.  We mostly stayed at home.  The Christmas decorations got put away and the presents found new homes and we cleaned.
Friday morning, Tim and Matt came and put in a water line so I finally have an automatic ice maker!!  O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!  After the whole fridge debacle last fall I had ordered an ice maker... which took an insane amount of time wading through fridge websites and online refrigerator manuals trying to find a model that was compatible with our older fridge.  And then it took several attempts to install it.  The ice maker needed an adapter to plug into an older fridge, but did they have that info in any of their manuals or websites or sell it with their kits?  Nooooo, of course not.  So I got it all hooked up in the freezer, and Bob helped jerry-rig the water valve into the right place and hooked up...  then we had to wait for Tim to see if we did it right.  I was pretty excited when they came. The girls were excited to show them all of their hatchimals... haha.  
We went to a farewell open house for Miss Sarah at the library.  Somehow we managed to not spill any lemonade and not get too many crumbs on the table.  I'll miss her, even if Cecily doesn't- "I probably won't remember her..."  

 24 hours later... Eeeee... a whole tray full of ICE!!  I am inordinately excited about this, I know.  It's just that I haven't had an ice maker in 10.75 years.  And I despise using ice cube trays.  It's too bad we didn't have an ice maker while I was pregnant with Miriel and couldn't drink anything at room temperature... thankfully, I can drink Dr Pepper at room temp. again, but NOW I DON'T HAVE TO! Unless I want to.  :P   

 We went over to the farm for a little bit on Saturday afternoon.  We did a puzzle, and Jack-e-boy came over.  The girls didn't want to play Pimple Pete again, but they were glad to show Grandma and Jack how.  Dad was at a blacksmithing class (why I don't know....) so we'll have to teach him some other time.  :)

Tomorrow we have to go back to school.  Mur.  It's been a good break. 
Blessings.

Merry Birthday and Happy Christmas!

December always seems to go so fast.  Fair warning, there are a lot of pictures ahead...

The girls helped me bake and then decorate cookies.  It's so funny to see their personalities at play... Cecily is neat and meticulous but loses interest pretty fast.  Cadence is still at the more is better, pile on all of the frosting! stage.  

And sweet, domestic Emmy truly enjoys this sort of thing and would have decorated every cookie for me with a smile.  

This ridiculous Unicorn headband came home from school one day.  Woot.  

Sigh.  So, our bathroom sink drain has been slow lately.  I decided to try a pot of really hot water before resorting to draino.... so I filled a big kettle, heated it up, and poured it down the drain.  It worked!  You could tell the point that whatever was constricting the pipe was cleared out and the water started draining faster.  And then.  There was a gurgling in the tub.  And horror of horrors the tub started backing up every time we turned the sink on.   Yay.  

Of course it was lunch time, and Miriel was hungry, so Emmy made us all lunch...

...while I took care of the baby and Bob plunged the tub.  We just love Saturday morning plumbing adventures.  It worked though, and everything has worked fine since. #crossourfingers  #olderhouseproblems 

The girls were delighted when it snowed and could not wait to play in it.  Well, this one was a little unsure of her snowsuit.

But she loved being outside!

We need a hill. haha.

My 35 birthday was the 17th.  I actually had a lot of fun!  Probably mostly because I decided that this year I would not sit at home and feel sorry for myself for my overlooked mid-December birthday. So I took the girls to McDonald's for lunch before we went grocery shopping... I probably should have explained the 'random acts of kindness in honor of my birthday' before hand  because they were a little mad at me because of one of them.  ha.    

Far over the Misty Mountains cold....  Cadence tried out our ridiculous gnome/dwarf bottle toppers on the soda assortment we bought for Christmas.  

I was hungry for chocolate and peanut butter so I tried a recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse brownie cake...  It didn't look like the picture, but it tasted pretty amazing!  

We took the girls to Red Robin for supper.  I'm sure those pay at the table things are great for the restaurant, but we were pretty sure little miss can't-leave-the-screen-alone was going to order all kinds of extra food.

We don't get out much...

On the way home we drove through the festival of lights.  Miriel was not happy (she doesn't like driving in the dark) so I got her out of her seat so she got to see the lights too.  
Bob got me a new mini library kit and a round clock, plus a LOTR book for visual inspiration; it appears I may be making another clock into a tiny hobbit hole.  Haha.  We're not sure this particular clock will work, but now I'm inspired.  It was a good birthday. 

Wednesday morning I had the younger two girls buckled into the van to pick up Emmy from school. When I tried to open the garage door it went up a little bit, went back down, went up again, went back down, went up a few inches and stopped.  So I decided to unhook it from the chain and open it manually since we were already running a bit late... when I pulled the cord it SLAMMED down and I couldn't lift it at all.  Woot.  One panicked call to the grade school so Emmy wouldn't worry and a help! call to Sharon, later; Emmy was home and Sharon and I tried to lift the garage door so the van wouldn't be trapped.  Yeah.  The spring had broken so we could barely budge it.  The repair guy couldn't come until the next day, so we were grounded on Thursday too.  My mom picked up Emmy and ate lunch with us so I didn't have to walk up to the grade school in the cold.   
Little Miss I-must-read-for-exactly-20-minutes and not a second more (or less) parked in front of my microwave timer.  Her book must be open and ready to go before she starts the timer, so she can start reading immediately.  Odd child.  :P  

 Thursday evening was the Grade School Christmas program.  

Miriel and Cadence did pretty well in the bleachers.  Towards the end, Miri was getting a bit restive so Cadence and I were out wandering the hallways with her.  I was not paying quite enough attention to Cadence... she was climbing on and off some chairs that were standing against the wall.  Right under the fire alarm.  She was reaching.... Her hand was mere inches away when I grabbed her.  It.was.so.close.  I don't even want to think about what might have been.  #nichtsnutz

The big girls got out of school early Friday.  After their class parties- the kids were visibly vibrating.  
We went to the farm for Schlipf Christmas that evening.  Last year, we were all sick and didn't get to go so it was exciting to be there and healthy.  The girls were all shy- except for Emmy with her new best friend Joshua.  They brought a saran wrap ball for the kids, which some of them understood better than others.  ha.  My girls were quite pleased with their treasures.  Cecily even said that it was "the best Schlipf Christmas ever!"  Haha... since she remembers so many of them.

We were back at the farm the next day for Christmas round two!  They could hardly wait to open their presents.

They also kept Grandpa and Grandma busy catering to their every whim.  

Aurelia is just so cute.  

Miriel was more interested in Grandma's toys than in presents.

We gave Nathan a fun new game called "Charty Party."  Unfortunately, it needed to be heavily censored, but the sanitized version was still hilarious. It's like apples to apples with charts and graphs... one of the combos had me in stitches... tears, rolling down my face.  It wasn't even that funny.  
The boys played a game of (AC) World Famous Pedigree.  

We sang a little bit of Messiah.  Acappella.  We sounded amazing.  Or something.  
The dining room is getting a bit crowded; we've now outgrown the extra table and have added a kids table in the living room.  

We got home late and rushed the girls through baths and to bed for church the next morning, so they were pretty excited to finally get to play with their new toys Sunday afternoon.  Just roasting a hot dog over her campfire.  

That evening was the Beutel Christmas.  They have been talking about the nativity play...  
Oh, hello!

 One scrappy little shepherd,

 Two little angels.

We did our little family Christmas the next day.  

The older two girls picked out presents for everyone at the Santa's workshop and it's always quite interesting to see what they chose.  And poor Miriel put up with a lot of strange hats...

A paw patrol craft!

She wanted to work on it right! away!  With lots of help, of course- why do I do this to myself?

Somebody was jealous of the crafting so I pulled out this color your own nativity "craft" for the older two. 

I didn't do anything too fancy for Christmas dinner.  Bob suggested Cornish hens like my mom used to make; the girls were not super impressed.  "These are really small turkeys!"  
It's been fairly warm so the only snow left was in the disappearing pile the snowplow left.  Bob and the girls spent quite a bit of time "snow bowling."  Basically, rolling snowballs down the street and seeing who could get them to go the farthest.  

We spent Christmas Eve with the Kochs.  It was a small crowd this year, so I think I actually got to talk to everyone.  It was another late night for the girls though, so if it wasn't for stockings I'm not sure they would have been very happy to get up in the morning for church.   

Her very own Peter and the Wolf! 

They all got timers... see above.  Hopefully I will get my microwave timer back.  Also, Miri-miri is adorable.

That evening was Kid Christmas with Bob's parents.  Cecily really wanted to wear the kitty cat leggings that she got in her stocking with her kitty cat shirt.  (insert eye-roll)  I wouldn't wear them together...but... whatever, put a skirt in between so you're not wearing all pale pink. :)  

I think I like this new toy!  

Thursday we finally had a break and spent the day catching up on laundry and playing with new toys and fighting over silly things.  
Friday we cleaned the house, Matt stopped by, and our sweet neighbor lady came for a bit.  And the girls finally, after two days of begging, got to paint with their new paints from Aunt Susan.  Cecily painted a cat. Of course.  Emmy's was a house... Cadence's was very abstract.  

Bob went out to his parent's for adult Christmas in the evening.  The girls and I made a fizzy bath bomb (yet another craft kit) so they had to try that out.... and got everything ready for the day of days. But, this is getting plenty long, so you'll just have to wait for it.
Blessings.