The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

...heard of this children's book title before?  That pretty much sums up the last two days at our house.  A bad case of the flu invaded our home and we were sick beyond belief.  Isaiah had been sick earlier over break, but only for a few hours.  Ava became pretty sick on Tuesday night, followed by Andy two hours later, followed by me six hours later.  I really can't remember a time when I felt this horrible...it was awful!  The worst of it lasted for about 6 hours and was pretty much over after 24 hours.  Our whole family stayed home from school on Wednesday and Thursday just trying to get better. We watched lots of movies, ate lots of soup, toast, and crackers, and drank tons of Gatorade.  Today was a new day...we woke up like usual, had our coffee, got dressed, and carried on as normal.  Thank goodness!

Sorry I have no recent pictures that I've taken to show you...more to come this weekend.

My Three Happy's:
1.  My Dad's hip replacement surgery went well.  Unfortunately since we've all been sick we are not able to go visit him...doctor's orders.  The recovery is long...and if you know my Dad he is not the type of person who likes to sit still.  This will be a challenge for him.  The perk...walking around Disney World come May/June with a new hip and no pain...all worth it.  Please continue the prayers for my Dad to give him strength to get through this.  Love you Dad!

2) Tomorrow we will be going to visit Aunt Jody and Tim.  They got back from Florida on Monday and have gifts from Disney World to give the kids.  We're also joining them for dinner with Andy's parents, Tim's Mom, and possibly Tim's sister.  We're really excited to meet his family and get to know them better.

3) The weather...our outside thermometer read 64 degrees yesterday.  How is that even possible?  I keep telling myself...it's got to snow at some point...doesn't it?  All we've had so far was one little snow flurry and that was barely enough to dust the ground.  I know that I shouldn't be wishing for snow but I know Ava and Isaiah are really excited to make their first snowman and snowfort this year. 

Happy New Year to You

We hope you all had a fun New Years Eve..maybe you just spent it watching a movie and enjoying a nice glass of wine like we did...nothing too fancy.  How crazy is it that it's already 2012!  It's a new year filled with new possibilities, new goals to achieve, and watching your children grow up in front of your eyes.  I'm sure this year will go just as fast if not faster than this one has. 

The past few days have been filled with so many fun things.  As mentioned before Ava and Isaiah "jump" when they hear, "Do you want to do a craft?"  They love hands-on activities and I love seeing how each one brings out their creative side.  We did this craft last year in January and I think that it was one of my first few posts to the blog.  So if your curious to see how these two little cookies have changed in a year...you can go back to January of 2011 and see almost the same pictures. 

We made a cute snowman...with edible things.  We never eat the snowman since we use glue...but there is fair amount of munching done throughout this little project.  To make this we used mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, orange jelly beans, M&M's, stick pretzels, and pull and peel licorice.  I helped to make the circles with squirt glue but the kids pretty much did the rest.

Isaiah adding his arms and chocolate chip eyes...this guy was popping marshmallows in his mouth left and right.

Isaiah's final project...I've never used pull and peel licorice for a scarf...but I kind of like it!  A pull and peel fruit roll-up would be cute too!

Ava working on her snowman...

...gluing on the M&M buttons...

...and ta-da Ava's little Frosty.

The next few pictures are just some random ones I took the past few days...Isaiah was zooming his Captain America figurine and motorcycle around the floor.  His sound effects were funny to listen to!

If you pay close attention to all the pictures in this post the kids are in different pajamas constantly.  They seriously went through 3 or 4 pairs a day.  They just "felt like changing" ALOT! 

Aaaaargh Maties!

Two pirates enjoying a friendly sword fight

Ok...so I can't and I mean can't take down all of our trees.  All "Christmas" decorations are down but I have left out all my "winter" decor along with a few trees because I love the white lights.  I can pretend it's snow, right?  Well the tree I have pictured above was my "gingerbread/candy" tree.  After gathering up all the snowman ornaments I had around the house I discovered that I have about 40...so why not make a snowman tree to keep up for the month of January. 

I left my snowflake dishes in our hutch along with come crystals and pearl garland. 

One of my favorites...I love this little guy...I think I picked him up at the Ankeny craft show a few years ago.

Another Ankeny craft show purchase years ago.  This snowman was painted onto an old screen window.  I have this on the ledge as you go down to the basement.

These kids have been obsessed with puzzles lately.  Isaiah wanted to work on Ava's 100 piece Hello Kitty puzzle.  We finished it together...but he did lots of it on his own. 

Ava working on her Fancy Nancy puzzle...again.  She loves it!  She completed it, showed us, and then tore it apart to do again.

Ava and Isaiah working on an alphabet train puzzle.  Ava and Isaiah were singing the alphabet and would then stop when they came to the next letter.  When I walked by Ava was saying, "Now Isaiah, I'm going to show you some letters and I'd like you to find the letter L."  She's such a little teacher! 

Nope...not Disney posters...Disney puzzles.  Andy and I bought this big box of Disney puzzles last summer.  There were from 100-500 pieces per puzzle.  Andy's Grandma worked on some of these puzzles for us and we did some as well.  Hobby Lobby sells puzzle glue that you apply and it holds all the pieces in place.  We put these seven puzzles on one of the walls of the toy room.  They look really neat and will remind us of Disney each time we walk into that room.  (There were two more...but the kids wanted them on the walls in their room.)

Mickey playing baseball

Toy Story

Pinocchio

The Lion King...if you look really close you can see Mufasa's face in the clouds. (Mufasa is Simba's Dad)

This puzzle looked impossible...thank goodness Andy's Grandma is good at puzzles.  This one is Snow White kissing Dopey and the Dwarfs...it's hard to see but really pretty.

Ariel

Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Belle

We wish you the best this year! 

My Three Happy's:

1) My New Year's Resolution:  My house needs to be cleaned out...organized!  The last time I've really gone through things was before Ava was born.  So...my resolution...I will be organizing one area of the house each week.  It could be one drawer, one cupboard, one shelf...little by little I will eliminate the chaotic clutter we have hiding behind all the closed doors.

2) Isaiah melted my heart tonight.  After his bath I was helping him put on his pajamas and out of the blue he said, "Mommy, I love you, and Ava, and Daddy, and Jackson, and Jesus."

3) Our weekly TV shows have started again...time for Mike and Molly!  Love that show!

Go State!

Well, Iowa State's bowl game tonight didn't turn out as we had hoped.  But a true Cyclone fan supports their team no matter what.  This afternoon we went to Andy's Grandparents house for a little "Cyclone Party."  We snacked on yummy food, ate pizza, and cheered for our team.  Although the outcome wasn't the best we still had a fun time getting together again.  The kids love it there and were full of giggles and smiles all night.

Great Grandma and Ava...Ava colored a My Little Pony picture for Grandma and was reading to her what she wrote.  We're so happy to have her back home again, healthy and happy.

Isaiah...yes in pajamas again.  The kids have this thing where they want to bring pajamas with them whenever we go to a relatives house.  They play for a while in clothes and then within an hour are in their pajamas.  Isaiah was showing Grandpa Richardson "Alfie" his talking robot that works on various learning activities.

Great Grandpa Richardson showing Ava a trick with a rubber band

Cousin Kirstin was helping Ava with a 100 piece Fancy Nancy puzzle.  Ava loved working on it with her and on the way home said, "Can I bring that puzzle next time so Kirstin can help me again?" 

Isaiah worked on a Tonka Truck puzzle and a Cars puzzle.  They both have been really into puzzles lately.

Uncle Darrell relaxed and enjoying the game.

Andy and Isaiah eating pizza and cheering on the Cyclones!

Grandma and Ava cuddling in a chair.  They brought the kids these really cute Cyclone shirts.  They say, "Cy is my BFF."  They also got a new Barbie and Captain America figure with a motorcycle...just for fun. 

Isaiah won $5.00 at the end of the 4th quarter.  We draw numbers and add up the score at the end of each quarter.  The last digit represents the winner.  Isaiah was very happy and said, "I'm going to by a Buzz Light Year rocket."  I asked him where he might find that.  He said, "I think at Target."

Andy won too...but gave his money to Ava. 

Uncle Tim came up from Bettendorf to join us

The kids were playing "Tickle Bug" with Uncle Tim and were trying to capture him.

Tim became trapped in the closet behind Ava...the kids were guarding the area to make sure he didnt' come out.  They love this game!

Tim told Ava and Isaiah about how his own kids, Leita and Brad, would ride "the spaceship" with him when they were little.  Of course they said, "I want to do that."

Away they flew!

Isaiah doing the wheelbarrow...this guy is strong!

This little lady is too!  They both love anything involving physical activity.  Ava often makes the comment, "This is good exercise."

I haven't blogged for a while because we've been so busy.  We've been doing lots of shopping and basically just playing around the house.  Have I gotten anything accomplished this week?  Nope...not really.  I guess I did throw away three trash bags full of "junk" that we don't need anymore and boxed up some things for our garage sale next summer.  The kid's rooms are now completely organized..everything and I mean everything has a place.  It's so nice to walk into a clean room with nothing under the bed and an organized closet...wish I could say the same about the other rooms in our house.  In time...right?

My Three Happy's:
1) Playing, playing, playing...I can't tell you how much playing we've done.  Going to the park because the weather is 50 degrees, riding bikes, doing winter crafts, Legos, puzzles, coloring, it could go on and on.  We've also cuddled up the past few nights and have watched a few movies.  We've watched The Smurfs, Mulan, The Lion King, and we just got Rio in the mail from Netflix.  We're so busy during the day it's nice to unwind at night with a warm blanket and popcorn.  The kids LOVE movie night.

2) The weather has been insane.  On a sad note there was no snow at Christmas, but you really can't complain about 50 degree weather.  I haven't even been wearing a coat.  I hope we have a mild winter....how great would that be!
3) Jody, Andy's sister is in Florida right now!  She's been at Disney World for the past 5 days...so jealous.  We've sent about 120 texts back and forth to each other since she's been there.  I love feeling like I'm right there with them.  They're having a blast and it just excites me even more for our upcoming trip in May!

Run, Run, as Fast as You Can...You Can't Catch Me I'm the Gingerbread Man

These picture are OLD, OLD, OLD...like three weeks old...but are still fun and something that I wanted to post but kind of forgot about.  We always make gingerbread houses at home each year.  In the past we've made the big fancy kind that comes in a kit, we've made the typical graham cracker kind, and in the future we hope to bake our own gingerbread pieces to create a house from scratch.  This year we opted for the graham cracker version.  They turned out cute and the kids always look forward to this!

We found this cute gingerbread family complete with a dad, mom, boy, and girl...perfect for our family.  The kids ate lots of these little cookies but also used them to decorate their houses.

A pretty clean table...organized and ready to go...in the end frosting and crumbs covered the table along with little candy pieces scattered everywhere.  It's so worth the smile on Ava and Isaiah's face as they are creating their own houses.

We used a variety of hard candy, peppermints, candy canes, etc.

Isaiah frosting a "wall" of his house

No milk cartons here...we build from scratch!

Isaiah wanted to build a peppermint sidewalk.

Ava and Daddy working together

Ava working hard with Daddy to put the walls up

After lots of frosting...it's finally in place.

A quick picture of Isaiah's house as he continued to add more candy.

Not finished yet...

Someone likes detail...Daddy told  her to use this kabob stick to make the frosting look like dangling icicles...she was all about that!

It's so funny how different the kid's styles are.  Ava's candy was more symmetrical and color coordinated...while Isaiah's was just random pieces of candy put where ever he was thinking at the time.  I love how their little creative minds think.

This was Isaiah's house.  Our friends Lindsey and Donald gave us some Christmas goodies along with their card and Isaiah insisted on using the chocolate covered pretzels as a fence.  We ran out and had to use some of our own.  You can also see a sugar cookie tree on the right that he thought was needed on the side of the house (another Lindsey and Donald treat). 

Another view of Isaiah's house.  After constructing the walls and roof of the house that kid did all the decorating by himself.  He was so proud!

Ava's house...she wasn't interested in the fence idea but instead created a colorful sidewalk of Fruit Loops.

Each year it's so fun to see how much better the kids become at making their houses.  This is such a fun little project we can do together.  Unfortunately these houses didn't last for long.  We put them on the stove to "dry" so they would stay together.  Typically we put them on top of the refrigerator as a decoration.  When we got home the next day, we were greeted by one empty plate and a partially eaten house.  Jackson was apparently craving sweets that day and managed to get himself high enough to reach these houses on the stove.  Ava's house was completely gone...candy and all...and Isaiah's roof was eaten off.  Jackson never got sick...he must have a strong stomach.  The kids were okay with it.  I guess we've learned from this experience to put the houses up high the moment they are done. 

 My Three Happy's:

1) Making a trip to Target and Hobby Lobby today to catch a few good deals.  The kids spent some of their Christmas money at Target and picked out a few new toys.  I found some Christmas ribbon for three trees in our house for next year, lots of wrapping paper, Mickey Mouse Christmas glasses, and a few random decorations for our "formal" tree to use next year.  At Hobby Lobby I bought a bunch of new peppermint and gingerbread decorations to add to our gingerbread/candy themed tree. 

2) Having an AMAZING day with the kids.  No one was grumpy,  irritable, or argumentative.  They got along so well, listened, and were smiling all day! 

3) Eating dinner at Hickory Park..enough said!