Evie and Annalise Taller

Good Bye old blog

2010-07-08T21:17:00.002-04:00

Well, this blog has been filling up and I started to notice that some of my old posts are missing. I would hate to lose more so I started a new blog

www.thetallergirls2.blogspot.com

Change your bookmarks.

Don't worry, this blog is still here for reference and for future reference (in case you need an embarrassing picture of a kid with spaghetti all over her face when her boyfriend shows up for the prom).

When we got back

2010-07-07T20:56:00.002-04:00

After we returned from Minnesota, we had a lot of recooperating to do. There was a lot of whining and a lot of laundry. but that doesn't make it too much different from any other Monday of the summer.

The girls took a spin on the Barbie Powerwheels Jeep. Yep. A powerwheels. We are a three car family now. I couldn't be happier as this is one of my childhood dreams. I think Jim was all for it too until he started to see what it was doing to the grass. Evie is the principle driver, but she is teaching Annalise to drive.

We also harvested our first cauliflower. It was delicious and we ate it for 2 dinners.

We also returned to find that the cat that was hanging around is still hanging around. So I named it Dario Frankitty (get it? After this year's Indy 500 winner? This may have been my most clever thought ever) and bought a bag of cheap cat food. We think that Dario actually belongs to someone because he is very friendly and also doesn't want to eat the Meijer brand food.

Evie had her last swim meet.

She competed in the backstroke, free style and breast stroke. All in the first heats! Wow!

Her last dive in.

Next year, we hope that she opens her hand to help propel herself through the water.

Day 5, WBL style

2010-07-07T20:38:00.005-04:00

On our last day of vacation in Minnesota, the girls were begging to go to the lake. I love the lake and have so many good memories of it, so I said yes (after stopping at Caribou first, of course).

I mentioned in my last post that the lake has receded since we have moved. Apparently this is a natural, cyclical thing that happens, so the locals aren't worried about it yet. I do have to say that it was quite disturbing to me to see the shoreline out so far from where it used to be (about 150 feet).

After a long hike, we finally made it to the water.

Those apartments used to be on the shore. That's pretty far. As you can tell, I'm amazed by this.

There was a lot of sand to play in and Annalise managed to get quite a bit on her body.

We met up with Ethan, Mary Kate, and Amy and decided to have a Cup N cone lunch. One more time for old time's sake.

Here they are all polishing off their hot dogs. Don't worry, ice cream was dessert.

As we were leaving WBL, we stopped to pick Jim up from the rental car place. Parked there was Aunt Becky's dream license plate. Even from Wisconsin.

We headed back to Wisconsin to stay the night with our friends, the Rohl Family. While we were there a serious storm rolled in. The sirens went off and we all took cover as a 20 minute hail storm rolled on through.

Here's part of the crew hiding out in the basement. Annalise saved the stuffed cows.

After the storm, we loaded all the kids up in the truck to see the devastation. 8 people in a truck. I'm sure we were breaking several laws, but hey, we had fun.

The hail really did a number on all the crops and probably the Rohl's roof. There was also at least 8 inches of rain that caused this flash flooding. Jamie is posing with the address marker standing in some very gross run off. Thanks for the excitement and beer Jamie and Jenna!!

Day 4 of Minnesota

2010-07-07T20:18:00.004-04:00

After running around for a few days, the girls had rested up and were up bright and early. We decided (well, I did) to make a walk down by the lake after I got my daily dose of Caribou coffee.

The locals all told us how far the water levels in the lake dropped, but I had to see it with my own eyes. I could hardly believe it. There was grass growing in the middle of our lake! This was the sunrise. It was hazy because of a wildfire burning somewhere in Canada.

Not too many boats were tied out. The boat launches were very shallow and because of this, there wasn't much traffic on the lake. There were the die hard fishermen that dumped a few boats. the girls thought it was interesting to watch as a van backed up the trailer to dump a boat in. They were very concerned that the van was going in too.

We visited the historic 2 story gazebo. This was constructed over one hundred years ago (and restored a couple of times) by a WBL man for his daughter's wedding. You can still get married there.

Our pretty little girls. Yes, I made them wear their matching dresses. Annalise still likes to match, but I think this may be the last time Evie will allow herself to be dressed as "twins" with Annalise. I think she has finally gotten to the age where she can be embarrassed.

My goofy Shlee. What a cutie.

We took a walk along the "new" Lake Avenue. They repaved it since we left and put in a nice berm and flower beds. The girls were impressed by the height of these lilies.

After hanging around the lake until we were too hot, we headed down to pick up Laura, Nate and Michele and go to the Minnesota Science Museum.

It overlooks the banks of the Mississippi River and the trains that come in to the station. This was the daily Amtrack. Inside, there was all kinds of stuff to do and I was busy trailing kids instead of taking pictures.

On occasion, they did stand still enough for me to get a picture. Here is Annalise building yet another barn.

Evie was working on some structure to see what pieces she could take out without knocking it down.

Later, after we saw the dinosaurs, the weather lab, the grass maze, and the rock collections, the girls played with the air and ping pong table.

Sometimes I forget that Annalise isn't a baby and is almost 4. I wouldn't be surprised that Evie was coordinated enough to do this at 4, but Annalise reminded me that she is growing up and can figure out things too.

Evie and Laura had a good time making a ping pong ball move across the table.

That night we went to Marketfest. it was fun for the adults, but a whiny mess for the tired and hungry kids. We left early (but not before a serving of cheese curds, mini donuts, and lemonade) and threw them in bed.

Taste of Scandinavia and old friends

2010-07-01T21:41:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday night, Evie got to stay with Laura for their first sleepover. I promised Annalise we would do something special without Evie. I used this opportunity to send her to bed early and then go to one of my favorite old restaurants, Taste of Scandinavia Bakery. There is really nothing like it in Indiana.

Annalise ordered one giant pancake with a side of butter. Yes, she is licking the butter. This kid loves butter.

I haven't found another place in the Midwest that serves sweet breakfast Lefse. Yum. Lefse is like a very thin pancake, but they make it so good here!

Later that day, we had lunch with our old neighbor, Pat. I wish I would have taken some pictures. She is great and loved to see the kids. We took a look at the outside of our old house. It's not looking too hot. It was sad to see all the work we put into it and now someone is neglecting it.

That afternoon, we visited our friends, Nicole, Ella and Walker. Ella and Evie were first friends since they were babies. Nicole and I hung out a lot when they were little. Now all the kids are growing up .

Annalise, Walker, Ella, and Evie. They had fun time playing together.

Goofy kids.

Como Town

2010-06-30T20:54:00.004-04:00

On day 2 of our wild Minnesota Adventure vacation, we met up with our friends, Michele, Laura and Nate. They used to live just a couple of blocks from us and Evie and Laura were friends since they were tiny babies. Our trip of the day was to Como Park where they have installed "Como Land" since we moved. Well, there was something similar to Como land before, but it was much more rickety and carny. Now everything is permanent and looks all fancy and new. It was a hot day, but we were armed with lots of water and 4 very excited kids. Evie kept calling it "Kokomo Town". I thought that was funny.

One of the very few rides that all four rode together. The big girls often took off on a ride that Annalise didn't have the courage to go on. Nate could care less, because he was having a ball on those cars that have 4 steering wheels and drive in a circle under a big umbrella.

The girls attended "Como Driving School" where they all got their own little car. It's similar to a PowerWheels. They got to drive wherever they wanted. There was even an area called "car wash" because it was close to the sprinkler park.

Annalise got the hang of it very quickly and was serious about driving. When they exited the ride, they each received a "driver's license". I couldn't convince any of them to drive back to WBL in the station wagon while I took a nap.

All four rode the swings together. Annalise and Nate really enjoyed it and went 3 times in a row. That was nice because it took a long time to get the swings loaded and Michele and I could sit and chat in the shade.

At this point, the crowd was pretty thin so we let the big girls journey out on their own (of course, we could almost always see them because Como Town wasn't much bigger than a school playground.)

They finally worked up the courage to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

They didn't spin much, but we think they had fun on it.

Meanwhile, Annalise put out fake fires on top of a ladder truck.

The big girls went on this frog hopper about 10 times. It was a great day, but hot. After refilling the water bottles several times, we decided to head back to WBL for some cool refreshments.

The cup N Cone looks exactly the same as when we left. The kids working it still can't do math either because the 2 times we visited, and ordered the same thing, we were charged 2 different prices. Oh well. It was good to be back in the true heart of town. I was reading a book about communities and the author was talking about the places people could meet up. Your house (the first place), my house (the second place), and a location that is comfortable and a gathering space for all in the community (the third place). The Cup N Cone is definitely the third place for all of WBL. It is everyone's home away from home.

These three girls could barely eat their ice cream fast enough before it melted. That night, when we returned to the hotel, Jim asked me what kind of rash I had on my leg. Just ice cream drips. I was so hot and sweaty, I didn't even notice.

Nate, also hot and sweaty has the face of someone who has been stealing ice cream from his mom.

Mall of America

2010-06-28T20:52:00.005-04:00

On the first day of our trip to Minnesota, we woke up earlier than most of our friends. After a leisurely breakfast and a trip to Target, we drove to our friends, the Larsons, house. We ate some lunch, played and caught up with one another. And then we headed off to the Mall of America to visit Underwater Adventures. It is an aquarium that features a walk through tank so the sharks and such can swim all around you.

Like everything in the Mall of America, it was bigger and more colorful than anything you could imagine (I would also like to take this time to say that the Mall of America is a very loud place. Especially in the amusement park area where you basically need to be yelling the whole time to be heard).

Evie and Erik pose in front of the beaver lodge. Erik is 5 and Underwater Adventures is one of his favorite places to visit. The kids were so excited that they practically ran through the entire exhibit.

Probably the best picture I took all of vacation. I love the reflection as Evie sees the turtle. Annalise seems to care less.

We also spent a good amount of time examining shark teeth and fish parts. As you see, you need to look very closely.

Erin and Peder play on top of the pirate ship in the play area. Thanks for being such a great host Erin!

A treasure greater than gold.

Ditto.

After Underwater Adventure, we headed over to the Lego store/exhibit. The girls had a great time playing and building stuff while I visited the Apple store just around the corner to get help with my ipod.

Peder stacks up blocks with great concentration.

Erik worked very hard on his creation and had to have a picture taken of his building before we could leave the Lego area.

Annalise build, what else, a farm.

evie raced her vehicle down the track. It completed its journey smoothly.

We finished our shopping and got a few things to bring home. Then we went over to the giant blue store across the street.

I never thought the day would come where I could use "Smalland" inside of Ikea to take care of the kids while I shopped, but it came! We had a nice shopping trip and the girls got to stay in the cage and throw balls at the birdhouses on the wall. Thanks Erin, Erik, Peder, and Kym for accompanying us on this fun trip!

Smells like Wisconsin

2010-06-27T16:49:00.003-04:00

On Father's Day, we set off our our weeklong adventure to Minnesota. Jim had a training up in Chaska so the girls and I tagged along to see some of our old friends and go to our old favorite places in the land of their birth. There wasn't much to take pictures of until we got to Wisconsin. I have never been to the House on the Rock or seen the geology of the Dells (outside of the fake rocks in a waterpark), but we now stop at the Cheese Chalet in DeForrest, WI every time we drive through. And every time, it is a treat for the senses. Annalise was so excited to have her picture taken with the big cow.
And on the inside of the store, she found some stuffed cows to love on.

Aunt Becky, this one is for you. An entire case filled with cheese in a jar, curds, and shaped cheese covered in wax. These are your people, Aunt Becky, they want you to come back. Did I mention how awesome the weather was? Not even close to 100 degrees.

This sums it up. I love Wisconsin Cheese. We picked up some curds for the drive north and then got in line to pay.

Of course, someone had to put on the cheesehead. She looks so natural if she was only wearing carharts and a neon orange hat.

Later, we had to make another pit stop at one of the scenic rest stops. This one had a trail up to an overlook. You would think that we were conducting a death march up the side of Everest the way these kids were whining. Heaven forbid you get out of the car and leave the DVD player for 10 minutes. Annalise complained all the way up that a bug was in her eye. What are you going to do? The bugs were everywhere. She's lucky that she wasn't eaten by a bear.

At the scenic overlook. I don't know what setting on my camera was pressed to make all the white appear as pink. It looks a little cool, I guess. This would qualifiy as our Father's day hike.

When we got to St. Paul, we decided to have dinner at a bar that we saw on "diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" on the Food network. It was called the Nook. They are known for cheeseburgers that have the cheese in between two hamburgers. The Nook also had some great beers on tap. What a good way to spend Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day

2010-06-27T16:42:00.002-04:00

We had a Father's Day celebration a day early since we were driving to Minnesota on the actually Father's day. The girls had fun wrapping the presents for dad. Annalise would give him something and then tell him what it was before he opened it.
I can't remember what everyone was so surprised about in this picture, but they were sure having a good time.

I kept asking Jim what he wanted for Father's Day and he never really gave me an answer. So I told him if he didn't tell me something, I would get him something that I wanted. We have been getting a lot of rain around here lately and I have been wanting a rain gauge.....Viola. The perfect Father's day gift. He was less than excited about it.

And during my many trips to Meijer, I found Jim the perfect sweatshirt on the clearance rack. Now he has something to wear to church this fall.

Swim Meet

2010-06-27T16:33:00.002-04:00

Evie is participating in the neighborhood swim team again this year. She is pretty excited about going and swimming every morning and has done well at the 3 meets. Just a bunch of string beans hanging around the pool. Can't believe how tall and lanky she has become since last summer.
Here she is with her buddy, Lauren.

Her first event was backstoke. She also swims free style (or more commonly known to the parents as "anything that gets you to the end of the pool") Evie is in the lane in the middle of the pool.

Look how smooth she glides through the water.

Here she is getting ready for the breast stroke. She means business with a start like that. She ended up participating in 6 events that week and came home with 4 blue ribbons. Wow.

Soccer and Splashing

2010-06-17T19:14:00.004-04:00

Annalise is participating in her first soccer season through the Parks and Rec district. We have met for the last two weeks at an indoor soccer place because of rain. This was her first outdoor "practice" and it was pretty nice outside for a change.

At this age, everyone gets their own ball, and even then, some of the kids lose interest.

Annalise has 2 coaches, some girl and then a young man with a thick accent named Carlos. He's pretty good at soccer.

The name of the game in 3 year old soccer is run til you drop.

The park where Annalise plays also has a sprinkler park. We didn't go to this park at all last summer so they were excited to run around. The air was comfortable and the water was COLD!

Somehow, I managed to talk them both into wearing tankinis. This almost never happens, but when it does, it is way easier to get in and out of a wet suit when someone has to go to the bathroom.

Evie may be outgrowing the water park a little, but I think she still had fun.

Not sure what prompted this funny picture.

Annalise spent a lot of time following Evie around. that's ok with me because Evie is a rule follower and I can pretty much trust her. It was the first time I was able to sit on the sidelines and just watch them play. it's only taken me 6 years to get here.

then they decided to pick wildflowers in the park. they were pretty and all in bloom and it touched my heart how much they enjoyed picking clover.

Their bouquets. Evie is so busy so far this summer break. She is at swim team every morning and has swam in 3 meets. She also is doing art lessons once a week. the biggest chunk of her time is devoted to reading. She is reading beginner chapter books and could read 4 or 5 a day if I let her. Her summer reading record for the library is almost complete, but I don't think she will stop reading when she is done. I love that she reads, but I have been trying to broaden her horizons from the Rainbow Fairies series. Last week, we brought home a book of poems by Shel Silverstien. She really liked those.

Annalise gets dragged everywhere for Evie's stuff. She enjoys soccer and following Evie around. she is also into "reading". I have to say that I feel guilty that I don't sit down and read to her as much as I did with Evie at this age. she just isn't that interested. She would rather be playing with her tiny plastic animals or playing in the "polly village" that she inherited from her big cousin, Marin. Annalise is making friends of her own at swim team practices. Other little sisters who are too young to swim. they all run around with their pink striped towels and play Barbies. it's cute.

Our two girls are growing up fast.

But one tends to still be a monster.

last week

2010-06-07T19:17:00.004-04:00

The beginning of summer vacation was fast here. We had a great Memorial Day weekend with lots of swimming and cookouts. It was awesome. Then we had a day and a half to gear up for the arrival of the SC Turners.

Annalise is flexing her art muscles and made these glasses for Evie and herself.

Annalise started soccer. This is her first "team" sport. She really enjoyed it and ran all morning long. Later that day, she had her cast removed! She is healed! She was holding it funny for a few days but now is almost completely back to normal.

Henry, Juner and Aunt Becky arrived. As always, we were having too much fun to take many pictures. We did promise Henry a marshmallow roast. So in between eating hot dogs and going to the pool, we ate smores. They were awesome, but we think we will stick to the regular marshmallows. I found chocolate vanilla swirled ones at Target, but when you roast them, they turn this weird green. Wow, what a warning signal. Doesn't bother Juner much though.

Three kids eating up the smores. We also had Marin and Evan over for some fun.

Evie had her last soccer game of the season. Sadly, it may be the last game of her career as she told Jim that she needs a break from soccer. She is thinking of gymnastics in the fall. Hmmm.....

Juner was super cute. We wanted to keep her. When she gets excited she does a little dance and she is always so happy to see you first thing in the morning. She calls all women "mommy" and all men "papa". Jim and I ate that up. She also calls all girls "Sadie"--her cousin on the Turner side of the family.

Annalise shared her animals and they both had a great time lining them up and playing with them, until June decided that she wanted Annalise's horse that makes sounds. then there was trouble.

June's animals were sleeping. Adorable.

And she yelled out the name of each animal. We can't wait to have more nieces and nephews. thanks for coming to visit, Turner family. And if you are interested in seeing more of their trip (because Aunt Becky took more pictures than I did), cruise on over to their blog, the Turner family.

Welcome Averelle Samatha!!

2010-06-07T19:15:00.002-04:00

Sweet little Averelle (Elle) Samatha was welcomed into the world by her parents, Clay and Erica last Wednesday. She weighed in at 9 lbs and 6 oz and 21 inches. We are thrilled she is here and can't wait to meet her! Congrats!

The Indy 500 Parade

2010-05-31T20:23:00.004-04:00

As I have said before, we in Indiana LOVE us the Indy 500. I proudly displayed the checkered flag on our house the entire month of May. We decided to go the Parade this year with 300,000 of our friends.

Our special friends and neighbors, Izzy, Oli, and their dad, Gavin joined us at the parade. The girls sat so still and watched the parade without making any trouble. They also drank as much water as I could give them because it was close to 90 degrees and we were sitting in the hot sun. There was a little breeze, but not much. It was just plain hot and the Italian ice stand near us was looking pretty good to those 3 girls. Too bad their parents are cheap. ( I also had a reason to wear my bedazzled race flag t-shirt)

The parade started with the Indy police parade squad. These are their actual patrol bikes, but we wonder what kind of time they have on their hands to practice stunts like these.

It was the first parade we have ever seen with giant balloons. The kids were impressed with each and every balloon. This balloon was sponsored by Window world. Window world also sponsored John Andretti driving for King Richard's team (thought you would like to know that, Henro).

And the Purdue All American Band. Love them. Slightly disappointed that they didn't play "hail Purdue". Since they took on the "American" role on this day, we still liked the John Phillip Sousa march and the giant drum. Boiler Up! A side note, there were lots of bands in the parade and every single one of them had on their wool uniforms. Most of the uniforms were black. Reminds me of the days when I marched in the Bryan Jubilee and ended up with heat stroke. And the High stepping Apaches were wearing shorts! Those poor kids. Hopefully some good band parents (Band-Aids) were squirting lots of water at these kids.

Elmo and Dorthy made an appearance. I think this was the girls' favorite balloon.

This was Annalise's favorite float because it featured a barn and cows. Remember, Winners drink Milk.

The grand marshals were the Butler Bulldogs men's basketball team. We also LOVE us the Bulldogs right now. We will miss you next year Gordon.

This is the princess float. To become a 500 Fest princess, you have to be going to school in Indiana. ( we aren't sure if you have to be born here). This isn't a beauty contest, but more of a scholarship thing that is largely based off of grades and community service. I can get behind that. Evie and Annalise are in training to be princesses. Also, the "queen" gets crowned by Mario Andretti, so that would be something to look forward to.

The drivers were all in the parade. We saw all our favorites including, but not limited to Sarah Fisher, Danica Patrick, Dario Francetti (and his lovely, glistening wife, Ashley Judd), a couple Andrettis, a bunch of Brazilians, and Graham Rahal (shown here). Old Graham races for his dad on Rahal-Letterman racing. Their sponsor is Quick Trim--a diet aid. Quick Trim's spokesperson is Kim Kardasian. Say what you will, but I think she is just as pretty in real life as she is on the TV. I DON'T think she should have been in the parade. That's just being ridiculous.

Favorite son and Daughter of Indiana--Jim Neighbors and Florence Henderson. Old Carol Brady was pretty off key when she sang God Bless America before the race, but Jim touched the hearts of many when he sang Back Home Again in Indiana. For what it's worth, I know more people who think that the pre race festivities matter more than the actual race. We also all love the jet planes that do the fly over at the National Anthem because they also fly over our houses 5 or 6 times in a holding pattern. Best part of May in Indiana if you ask me.

Here's Heilo, the pole sitter. He didn't bring it in for a win, but everyone loves him too. He's fun, small, and has a great accent. What's not to like??

Lots of Love surrounding this parade and the race. Can you tell that I'm slightly partial to everything involved in the month of May??

As I mentioned, it was hotter than the dickens out there. As soon as we started rolling in the traffic, Annalise was out like a light and slept almost the entire ride home (which took us an hour because of traffic).

Evie tried to sleep, but didn't. She did look cute trying though.

Strawberry Picking

2010-05-31T20:13:00.002-04:00

On Friday, the girls and I made our annual pilgrimage to the strawberry farm. It's pretty good, I've only had poison ivy once. So I suited up in pants and wore gloves for picking. I figured that the girls would be ok since they weren't interested in getting strawberries in through the weeds.

We arrived early, but so did a bunch of other people. This was the 4th year we have picked at this farm and it was the most crowded that we have ever seen it.

Annalise had big plans to pick a bucketful. I think she may have eaten a bucket full.

Evie was initally very serious about her picking. She also wanted to take the green off all the berries. I told her it was ok to leave it on.

Again, Annalise doesn't let the cast slow her down and picked a bunch.

Andrew and his mom and sister came. Check out that outfit. we think he was wearing all colors of the rainbow except for purple. I especially like his socks.

Eventually, the kids got bored near us and took off down the row to see who could find the biggest strawberry. Who do you think won?

Our harvest turned into pie and lots of fresh eating for everyone. I think we may go back again to get our batch for jam. We also are close to having cherry harvest, so strawberries may get skipped this year.

Annalise's last day of school bike rally

2010-05-27T22:03:00.003-04:00

On the last day of preschool, it is tradition for a bike rally to occur. The kids love decorating their bikes and riding around the racetrack.

Here's part of the pack of kids. Amazingly, there were only a couple of crashes.

The classes each got up and sang songs. This is Annalise's buddy Chloe. I wrote in an early post that Chloe doesn't speak much English. Annalise was thrilled when Chloe said her name.

You can see that the cast doesn't hamper her bike riding.

Annalise with her decorated bike.

Annalise and Miss Diane. Miss Diane lives in our subdivision, so we will see her at the pool a lot this summer.

Annalise and Miss Sandy. They were both so wonderful to Annalise and we will miss them this summer. Mom will miss the kid free trips to the grocery store the most.

End of Kindergarten

2010-05-27T21:57:00.004-04:00

Evie is done with Kindergarten! Her class celebrated with cupcakes and juice boxes on the second to last day of school.

There was a lot of frosting on this cake. I'm glad that they ate it in the middle of the day to wear off some sugar before they came home.

Evie and her classmates. It has been a great year.

All the kids get to make a goofy face.

Mrs. Johnson, Evie and Miss Street. They are great teachers and Evie is really going to miss them!

Our Day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

2010-05-27T21:32:00.004-04:00

Wednesday was community day at IMS. Last year, we took the Volvo for a spin around the speedway. It was thrilling. This year, I decided that we needed to take the Honda for a ride so we could have a complete set of prints.

On the way to pick Jim up from work, Annalise fell asleep in the sunny, hot car. She was pretty disoriented when she woke up in Jim's car at IMS.

Jim had the honor of driving around the track this year. He said it was much faster than running it.

Evie had to be threatened within an inch of her life if she didn't keep that flag off my head. She was full of questions and pretty much didn't stop talking the whole time.

Here's our view from the car coming out of turn four.

The finish line! (Actually, we learned from the Cliff Claven in the timing area that the official finish line is the middle of the yard of bricks, but there are transponders located 33 inches from the nose of the cars. So this line shows who's transponder crosses first).

Perfect for the Accord. Honda racing. Sign us up. Maybe we could get a more distinguishing paint job so we stop getting into the wrong gray Honda at Menards.

There was alot of stuff for kids. I didn't want to spend my very limited time at the track watching kids in bounce houses, so we made them look at car stuff. Check out Annalise's new favorite hiding spot. Nothing like a sweaty head kid scratching her fiberglass cast against your leg when it is 90 degrees out.

They raced hot wheel cars several times. There were real cars made to look like Hot Wheels cars, but we forgot to take pictures of them. One had 2 engines and 1400 horsepower, but it's top speed was only 25 mph because of the body.

Evie in a race car. Annalise didn't want to get it. She still preferred to stay entwined in my legs.

Winner's circle and look closely at the driver!

Mom and 2 very disinterested kids on the bricks in pit row.

This was Evie's idea. Love it. I'm saving this picture for when she becomes a 500 princess.

That's a big tire.

And some smaller ones.

On the way out, evie continued to beg to go on more bouncers. We refused, but we did let her cross the rope bridge that the boy scouts set up. She didn't fall at all.

The weekend summer started

2010-05-24T21:15:00.005-04:00

We started our weekend with a trip to the farmer's market and a soccer game. It was a perfect spring morning that wasn't too hot or too cold. We bought some annuals to plant in front of the house.

After chasing some kids around the soccer field and running a couple of miles, Jim needed a nap before he cut the lawn.

As soon as he woke up, Evie cornered him. Evie has a book called "101 cool science experiments for kids" and reads it often. Mom is not into creating salt volcanos and such, but Dad is much more willing to set up an experiment or two on the weekends. This weekend's experiment was to see if we could cook a hot dog by harnessing the power of the sun.

The hot dog in it's oven. After about 2 hours in the sun, it's internal temp was up to 130 degrees and we deemed it safe to eat.

Evie enjoys her solar powered hot dog. Annalise had half, but we can't remember why she is grumpy in this picture.

After a delicious dinner of cedar planked salmon and grill asparagus, Jim asked the girls if they would like to camp out. So we had a campfire complete with smores and then everyone had a bath because everyone was stinky from soccer and campfire smoke. They found their lanterns and headed for the great outdoors. By the time the fly was zipped up, it was 9:15

Jim reports that Annalise was pretty tired and fell asleep almost immediately. She is still an early riser but managed to sleep in until 7:30!

Evie said the birds woke her up. Jim said that the ground is still hard and the traffic on 31 is still loud in the middle of the night. They all had fun and went out for donuts after they got up.

Summer arrived on Sunday. We tossed around the idea of going to the track for the second day of qualifications, but it was 90% humidity at 9 am so we decided to stay home and putz around. We finished planting the rest of the squash and cucumber and trimmed a few more bushes. The girls begged for the slip and slide, but since we have one broken arm already, they had to make due with the baby pool and a couple of squirt guns.

Later, Evie decided to catch up on some reading inside the 100 degree tent. Hot.

Parker came for a play date and was bossed around and entertained by the girls.

They all had a snack of a nice Popsicle to cool off.

And for dinner on Sunday, we ate from the garden! fresh broccoli and a salad with radishes. Yum.

Another budding artist

2010-05-20T08:07:00.002-04:00

While I was going through my morning ritual of eating, reading the paper, cleaning out the dishwasher and checking the FB, Annalise was busy drawing a picture.

This is a farmer (center, dark red) standing on a bale of hay in his pink barn. Pretty good. Now if we can just get her to write her name.

Race Day--the Kindy 500

2010-05-19T21:12:00.005-04:00

Today was the day of the big Kindy 500. The kids were all excited. During class time, they made t-shirts with checkered flags on them and their names. It was pretty special.

The event started with the Kindy Mini--a nod to the Mini Marathon. All the kids ran around the "rocket" that is in the parking lot. Evie is second from the left in the pigtails and jeans.

Here they come with Evie in the lead!

Look how fast she moves! Nothing between her and the finish line!

And there she goes while her teacher waits to wave the checkered flag.

While the other classes ran their foot races, I took some pictures of the other cars in the race. Before the race events, the kindergarteners all paraded around the school through the halls so the other classes could see them. Evie thought this was great fun as she got to walk through the lunchroom while the 3rd grade was eating.

We stood near the start/finish line and snapped some pics of individual racers and their cars.

Lighting McQueen for my Henro.

The lady in the pink boa and crown is the principal. Does she get to dress like that everyday?

And now for the main event--Evie's race! She was lined up against some serious contenders. Rainbows and butterflies mean business.

Unfortunately, in the back straightaway, she blew a front tire and went down.

Damage to the race car was pretty severe but emergency services (Mrs. Johnson) was there to assess the damage.

Evie pulled it together and finished out the race. She wasn't the only one to fall, but of course, she took the fall the hardest. She said that she was in first place when she crashed and she could have won (sounds like a grumpy Andretti to me).

When the kids finished, they received a checkered flag to cheer on their classmates.

The pit crew comes in to haul the car home. For the next kindy 500, we definitely have some adjustments to make. Annalise's car will be high,tight, and light. We have 3 years to prepare.

Annalise had fun even if the car was blown apart.

Team Taller Racing

2010-05-19T20:51:00.002-04:00

In May, we here in Indiana are consumed with all things Indy 500. There is a month long festival, the newspaper features speeds at the track, and the local kindergartens hold their annual "KIndy 500"

For a Kindy 500, you have to construct a "car" out of a box that will be carried around a race track. We here in the Taller house take these challenges very seriously and our team of engineers went to work constructing the body of the car. The engine is a rare 2004 edition. Our driver is not above helping on gasoline alley and works on prepping the finish of the car (she and Jim also constructed the car together out of 2 boxes and about 25 sticks of hot glue).

Other members of the pit crew (who are caped to protect their cast) stepped up to paint. The color is unique and can also be found on our bathroom walls. I guess that leftover paint can be good for something. This red was a much better color for a race car than "Summer Suede" beige.

After the thrill of working with paint wore off, a senior member of the crew had to step in and do some detail work.

When the red dried, Evie customized her ride with some fast looking stripes.

She chose number 77 for reasons unknown. I think that she said that 7 was a lucky number so two 7's would be doubly lucky.

I'm sure this is how Danica Patrick started. Already celebrating with a gallon of milk.

The team goofs around.

And this is the rear view complete with fire coming out of the tail pipe. Awesome.

Our first fire

2010-05-16T20:58:00.003-04:00

Since the hot tub died last fall when it sprang a major leak, we have been trying to decide what to do on our giant red deck. Hot tub replacement really isn't an option since we are going to have to pay for college someday (Sorry Evie, you can't go to Harvard. We bought a hot tub in 2010. You will have to go to cake decorating school at Michael's Craft store instead.)

So we patched up the hole in the deck last fall and this spring, we bought a much less expensive fire pit to use this summer.

After a few tries with the wet logs, Jim managed to get the fire going. He can still earn his firestarting badge.

We had dessert over the fire. Guess we aren't going to leave dad in charge of the marshmallows.

This little girl is shaped like a marshmallow--and she is eating a tasty smore.

After a few tries, he managed to make a perfectly toasted and tasty marshmallow.

It's best to eat them straight from the fire. Tastes like Pokagon.

Grandma gives the girls a few more before bedtime.

Grandma and Annalise share a cuddle before bedtime.

Evie catches her marshmallow before it hits the deck.

What a dirty face!!! But a great way to spend the evening.

Annalise Update

2010-05-15T21:01:00.002-04:00

Annalise is doing ok with her broken elbow. She doesn't like it when people ask about it or make a big deal out of it--she rushes behind our legs to avoid them. So if you see her, don't make a big deal of it.

Here's a better shot of her cast. I think by the end of the day it gets pretty heavy and she requests to put her sling back on.

She did go without her sling to school on Thursday. It was Popsicles with Pop day. She took dad to school and they shared a fresh fruit popsicle and then she and her classmates sang a song. Jim reports was cute.

Annalise and I picked this beautiful bouquet from our yard. She is the prettiest flower.

Annalise's broken elbow

2010-05-12T20:07:00.002-04:00

Call the parenting police. I allowed my kid to jump on a trampoline. That's exactly what all doctors and insurance companies tell you not to do. Well, it looked like fun and safe, but Annalise didn't land right and ended up fracturing her elbow. Jim took her to the ER last night and I had the pleasure of taking her to the pediatric orthopedic doctor this morning. He judged it to be a minor break and casted her up for three weeks. She got to pick what color she wanted her cast.

Fortunately, with all the advances in medical science, they now put a cast on a kid that allows you to get it wet. This means she still will take regular baths and still gets to participate in swimming lessons. We may need to inflate a water wing around that arm so she doesn't sink.

We even got to bring home her X-ray. Cousin Henry, this is what the inside of Annalise's arm looks like. If you zoom in you can see the arrows where the break is. I can't make it out, but I never attended medical school.

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T21:51:00.004-04:00

After a delightful morning of sleeping in, scones, a non-offensive homily at church, and bidding the Seibert family farewell, we headed off to Connor Prairie with a couple of things in mind.

First in our mind was to visit Marin who is an official volunteer. We have missed her on our previous visits so we were so excited that she was there today and working in our favorite place, the barn! Here she is holding a sweet baby goat.

Our other mission was to ride the balloon. Well, just me and Evie as Annalise refuses to go anywhere near it. We got our tickets and then headed back to the barn to wait until our boarding time.

Back at the barn, the baby goats were nibbling Jim's shoes. they ate all of our shoes and tried to eat Evie's hair. Goat spit. Gross.

Our second most favorite place is the candle dipping station.

We spent lots of time adding beeswax to the candles. Next time we go to Connor Prairie, we are going to the barn on the way out instead of the way in. We have to see something different one of these times.

Mom and Evie waiting on our flight.

As the balloon descends, the anticipation grows.

Evie can barely contain her excitement.

We boarded and then bid farewell to Aunt Kathy, Uncle Jay, Dad and Annalise hiding under the walkway

and we were off. it was a bumpy take off, but a smooth flight. It was very windy at the top.

We were lucky to have such a clear day. If you look closely at the horizon, you can see bumps that make up downtown Indy.

After our trip to the sky, we went out for dinner (and a giant margarita!) Evie took this picture. she is getting pretty good at taking pictures. And showing teeth doesn't mean you are smiling, Jim.

Now those are some cute smiles.

When we came home, I got to open my Mother's Day gift. A food dehydrator! The gift that keeps on giving. Dried cherries for everyone.

Mini Marathon

2010-05-09T21:39:00.002-04:00

The Seiberts were in town for a reason other than Bouncer Town. Uncle Kevin and Jim ran the Indy 500 Festival Mini Marathon (13.1miles) on Saturday. Here's their picture:

Well, a picture of them and 35000 of their closest friends. Kevin started near the front based off his previous race times. Jim didn't have any official times to submit when he registered so he was stuck 3 blocks behind Kevin and it took him 30 minutes just to cross the start line. It was pretty frustrating for Jim at the beginning since he had to run around a lot of walkers that were holding hands, singing songs, and wearing track suits. The worst was at mile 2 when he finally past a lady that was doing it on crutches, firemen in full gear, and policemen in SWAT gear. They did finish without injury within their hopeful times. Kevin finished his personal best in a half marathon and Jim came in well under his goal of 2 hours. Yeah Dads.

They rode downtown with some of our neighbors. Heather was awfully excited to be up so early. I really wanted to post this picture so you could see the horrible weather. it never rained, but was cold and 25 Mph winds for the whole race. Yuck. Elizabeth and I stayed in our jammies all morning with the kids.

It started to get a little squirrely around here before the runners returned home so we sent them all outside.

They did make it back and brought Longs Donuts with them! That's a pretty big donut for a guy who just ran so long.

After everyone got cleaned and rested, we had a victory party at our neighbors house. It was a great day!

Bouncer Town

2010-05-09T21:28:00.003-04:00

When the Seiberts rolled into town on Friday, we were expecting rain, so I promised the kids I would treat and take them all to Bouncer town. Our local indoor inflatable bouncer room. It's a racket. I wish I would have thought of the idea to fill an empty room with inflatables and then charge $8 a kid. What a gold mine. They also do birthday parties too which I think cost around $150. Gold. Mine.

Evie has been to bouncer town for a couple of birthday parties of her classmates. She knew the lay of the land and took off right away.

annalise has never been to bouncer town other than to pick up Evie from parties. She had a great time climbing everything. By the end of the hour, she was a sweaty mess.

Here's a Seibert Family traffic jam up the slide. Tessa did make it to the top and rode down with Evie. Once. That was enough for her.

Annalise couldn't slow down. Like I said, she had a great time.

There was even a small bouncer for kids three and under. Annalise checked it out with Tessa, who also had a great time.

Tessa is 18 months and absolutely adorable and fun. We could have kept her all week if Uncle Kevin would have just packed her more clothes.

Muffins with Mom

2010-05-09T21:11:00.004-04:00

Since this was mother's day week, I was treated to 2 Muffins with Mom breakfasts.

Here's me and Evie at her school with the rest of the mini van driving crowd. It was a whole school event and the dads of the PTO organized the whole thing down to the guy playing and singing at the piano. At one point, I thought he was playing " you are so beautiful...to me", but it turns out he was playing "Desperato" by the Eagles. Made my day, Aunt Becky.

I also had the opportunity to go to Annalise's classroom for Muffins with Mom.

Here's Annalise and her buddy, Chloe

We had a great time. She made me a corsage out of a coffee filter. I wore it to church on Mother's day.

And the class all got up and sang a song

The great Seed starting adventure continues

2010-05-09T20:18:00.004-04:00

Ok, it's been a while. The kids played outside last weekend while Jim and I finished up the landscape and moved the plants around.

We think that Evie inherited the 4 leaf clover finding gene from Great Grandpa Wagner. She found 3 4-leaf clovers and 2 5-leaf clovers in the backyard under the swing set. I personally have never found a single one, so I guess it skips a couple of generations.

While Evie and Jim were at soccer, Annalise and I brought the plants upstairs and started to harden them off outside. It was a drizzly day so she needed her umbrella.

My little seedlings. The stuff in the egg cartons are zinnias that the girls planted. From left to right, we have broccoli and basil, tomatoes and cilantro, tomatoes, zinnias, and then the flat of squash that I am growing for master gardener's vegetable plot demo bed.

To give you an idea of my lack of skill, on the left are my 2 month old broccoli plants and on the right are 6 broccoli plants that I bought at Menards for 50 cents. Hmmm, was my experiment worth it for the lamps, time, seed, and energy? time will tell. I planted the Menard's broccoli in the garden and it already has broccoli heads. My plants will probably be ready to plant in the fall. I guess we will have an extended season. I hope the tomatoes do better. Since they have been outside, they are growing faster. Fertilizing every week helps too. They still don't measure up to Menard's plants, but I'm not losing my faith in my 52 tomatoes.

The Blue Devils.

2010-05-02T21:23:00.002-04:00

Evie kicked off another season of soccer this spring on a team they named the Blue Devils

Jim is assistant coaching Evie's team. She is number 7. They have a short practice before the games start.

Look at how fast she moves.

She did great this game. She hardly spent any time on the ground.

And she scored 3 goals!!! Way to go Evie.

Shlee wanted to go to the game and she sat still for a while, but got bored.

These are pictures that Annalise took. She is getting better at following her subject.

She did a little better following the action down the field.

And took at lot of pictures of grass.

This is probably my favorite picture because it probably shows what Annalise sees when she goes to the games.

Catch up

2010-05-02T20:58:00.004-04:00

A little busy here this week. In a few pictures, you can see what we are up to. But first, we decided it was high time to head to a park after school.

Annalise went down the slide.

As did Evie. We met up with our friends, Mike and Andy at the park that day.

Aren' t these cuties? Can't believe how fast they are growing up.

On Friday, we finally got back to work on the landscaping project. After I rounded up a bunch of plants, I started to get busy planting. The girls were largely ignored so they had to occupy themselves.

They found a bunch of pecans that we got from the goat farm in SC and some walnuts from their Christmas stockings. They decided to crack them with mallets on the garage floor.

This kept them busy for a good 20 minutes. The shelled nuts made a nice addition to our granola this week.

Eventually, I gave in and let them help. After all, children should learn the value of hard work, right?

Evie took all the tags off the plants.

Later in the evening, they just gave up. Evie read to Annalise in the yard. What cuties.

And here are some pictures of the finished project (taken at dusk, so that's why they are dark)

Walking up the sidewalk.

The real labor force behind all the landscaping.

Grandpa Taller,this picture is for you. Jim went out and bought those gutter guards that you have on your house. When the helicopters fell from the maple trees, they landed seed side down in the holes and all lined up. Makes for a pretty picture, but someone still has to get up there and clean those gutters.

Again, Jim busy getting the plants in. We still have some hostas and coral bells to plant, but we need to get hopping because the mulch comes on Wednesday!

Heidi and Woody's Wedding

2010-04-25T09:56:00.002-04:00

On Saturday, we attended my cousin's, Heidi's, wedding in Angola, IN. It was a beautiful wedding and reception. We wish we could share pictures with you, but we forgot the camera so you will have to take our word for it. The bride and groom did provide entertainment for us by the way of a photo booth.

We all went in and made some wacky pictures. It was fun! The kids went in several times with Grandma and Grandpa. Maybe Uncle Kevin will even post some pics of the wedding.

Up on my soapbox

2010-04-19T20:50:00.002-04:00

There is a movie on PBS this week that I think all of you should watch. It's called Food Inc, and it will be shown on a program called POV (point of view). Here in Indy, it is shown on Wed at 10 pm. Check your local listings

I think you should watch this movie if you eat. This movie shows how our food has become incredibly industrialized. Is this good or bad? Please watch this moving and decide for yourself. I have seen this movie a couple of times with friends and we have all walked away making some change in our family's diets. For more information, check the website www.foodincmovie.com

What's missing???

2010-04-18T21:34:00.003-04:00

Look closely to see what we did this weekend......If you guess removed all the overgrown square shrubs from the front of the house, you win!! The prize is coming and helping us plant new landscaping over the next couple of weeks.
According to Jim, the shrubs were easy to take out. I was sceptical and had already hired an excavator to come out and remove them. A weekends worth of digging and pruning saved us the job. Now we get to go pick out the new plants. And with the money we saved (haha) we can get some proper planters for the front stoop. It's like we are grown ups.

While the work was being done, the girls played outside all day. They found some sticks and practiced their batton twirling skills.

A likely future Golden Girl or maybe the Girl in Black to march with the Purdue All American Band in 2026?

And then the monkeys climbed the tree (the little one got help from Dad). They spent a good part of the afternoon up there./

Our pretty redbud with our pretty girls.

Mulch

2010-04-13T21:08:00.003-04:00

I love spring, but there is one job associated with spring that I do not enjoy. That job is the loading, hauling, and spreading of the mulch. Mulch is stinky, dusty, dirty and takes up a big space in my driveway. It makes my back hurt and gets dirt in my contacts. I do not like it at all.

Fortunately for me, there were two little girls who were very happy to see the mulch truck arrive. As soon as it was dumped, they grabbed their shovels and got straight to work. There was a lot of dumping shovels of mulch on each other until they both started working on their own wheelbarrows (ps--Paige, I stole your wheelbarrow from your garage)

You guys aren't going to get a lot done standing around. Get moving.

Queens of the Mulch pile. They did a pretty good job of filling the wheelbarrows. We probably got half of it moved tonight. Tomorrow will be another filthy night. They were so dirty, we ate outside on the deck when Jim got home.

The best caption for the picture is "Dirt. Ball." You should have seen the bathtub tonight after bathtime and I know that I didn't get all the dirt out of her hair. I figure they are just going to get dirty again tomorrow and I will change their sheets on Thursday.

Goof Ball. She gets to go to the Children's Museum for a field trip tomorrow and then a play date after school. Lucky Duck.

They practiced playing catch with a ball that dad hung up from a tree limb while we finished along the back of the yard. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow.... sigh....

The last day of spring break

2010-04-11T19:51:00.003-04:00

Spring break came to a close today and the weather was more like summer. The spring flowers are out and the trees are in full bloom. It is too nice to be inside. We took the kids to Connor Prairie. It's a historical village, a la Sauder's, but way way better. Sauder's has it's merits--like the ice cream shop and the general store, but Connor Prairie is way more authentic. I can't believe I have been driving past it on a weekly basis for 3 years and this was our first trip!

They have an animal encounter area (barn) where the animals just come out. They are so used to people, they will just walk right by you. There were 2 sets of baby goats (kids) and we loved on them all. Don't Jim and the girls look like they would make great goat farmers?????

And the momma needed milked. After the kids tried, I got to try. I need to practice because I was not very good at it.

Our other livestock venture will be chickens (someday....). Annalise practiced holding a baby chick.

Outside of one of the homes, there were toys of the time. The iron hoop and stick. Evie took it for a roll down the hill.

Evie taught Annalise how to do it too!

Outside of the potter's shed and kiln, there was a "clay box" for the kids to play in. After they finished playing, they had to dump out their shoes. We will have to come back to Connor Prairie soon because we only saw half of the grounds and pretty much nothing on the inside. We also want to take a trip up in the balloon this year. So much to do!

It is a long standing Seibert family tradition to have pizza on Sunday nights. We don't always have pizza because sometimes Jim does the cooking. On a beautiful day like today, no one wanted to be in the house, but I started some dough with the idea that it would be something I could make up quickly and we could eat outside. Then we decided to try baking it on the grill instead of the oven. I was in charge of preparing the dough and Jim watched over it while it baked. (Also, you can see our cherry trees behind Jim. they didn't get bit by the frost. Cross your fingers that there are enough bees to get them pollinated!)

The finished pizza. It tasted good too. I have a feeling that we will be eating a lot of grilled pizza this summer.

And we finally hauled out the furniture so we dined on the deck for the first time this season! It was a great spring break. Summer is just around the corner!

Spring break in Ney

2010-04-08T22:47:00.003-04:00

The girls and I decided to give Jim a little time to catch up on his work so we drove up to Ney to visit Grandma and Grandpa Seibert. Grandma decided to take us to the famous Spangler Candy Company for a tour!!
While we waited for our turn, we checked out the museum and store. There were lots of suckers there. We even got to try the newest flavor--blueberry. It wasn't bad, but don't wear a white shirt when you eat it.

Since we were going into a candy factory, we had to wear hairnets. I think these two are ready for working on the candy cane line.

Here's a picture of us with the Trolley. The only things we really got to see on the tour was the warehouse and some of the packaging lines. We didn't get to see the candy cane line at all, but we did see a nice movie and had a very colorful tour guide that told us much more than we wanted to know, like the factory gossip.

After Grandpa got home and we ate dinner, it was time for Grandpa's workout at the pool. We got to go with him. Annalise and Evie are all ready for swim season.

this is just cute. Annalise is wearing Evie's old goggles which are on her face upsidedown and far too loose. Evie has new goggles this season and needs a new suit. When she finished swimming, she had red marks where her suit was digging in on her shoulders. I guess we better start looking for a new suit for swim team.

Basketball in my life this week.

2010-04-08T21:20:00.004-04:00

Blog fans, you knew that I couldn't go without commenting on the business that happened in Indy this week. My FAVORITE team played the hometown favorite (and some would call America's team). It was a win-win situation, but ultimately, I was with the rest of America and would have really liked to see the Butler Bulldogs win. Duke and their mastermind of a coach proved too much for the Dawgs. Way to go, Coach K. You and I have a date for the next time Duke plays at Clemson. Please don't bring Singler,I don't want to have bad dreams.

But I read some good news about the hometown team. Old Man Stevens here signed a 12 year contract with Butler. (He's 33 and been to the Final Four!). Coach Stevens, you and I also have a date next season. I'm going to make the 8 mile drive and meet you a Hinkle Fieldhouse. Please bring your Babyfaced Assasin, Gordon Hayward, with you for next season. So way to go Bulldogs for playing for all the small schools that never made it that far. And thanks to all the Indy media who made constant reference to the movie, Hoosiers. What a way to end my season. Norman Dale, Jimmy Chitwood, Coach Stevens, Butler, Coach K and Duke. Love it. I can hardly wait for next season. But please, CBS, make your One Shining Moment worth staying up for. This year's was REALLY bad (if you don't believe me, youtube it--it was horrible.)

We went downtown a couple of days after all the action for a Pacers game. The Pacers are pretty miserable, but they still try to get the crowd into the game. Jim caught a t-shirt from a cannon!!! Wow!!!

The Pacers also employ one of my favorite former Duke players--Mike Dunleavy. I think I may have been the only Dunleavy groupie there.

And to top off my week of basketball madness, I had a sighting of Indiana's favorite son, Larry Bird. Here he is picking his nose. During time outs, he signed stuff for fans. He's great. We love Larry in Indiana.

Happy Easter

2010-04-05T20:35:00.005-04:00

We loaded up the station wagon and headed up to Cleveland for Easter. While we were there, Grandma and Grandpa Taller took us to the Cleveland zoo. It's a great big zoo and we still haven't seen all of it. This trip, we visited the Australia exhibit and the Rainforest Exhibit. We were impressed.

Evie tried to jump as far as a kangaroo.

After a trip to the local ice cream and candy store, the girls thought it would be fun to fly a kite. So dad and grandma went and found one at Walgreens. They did a great job of sharing and taking turns.

the wind was gusty so there were lots of chances to help one another get the kite up in the air.

Easter morning, they were both excited to start hunting Eggs.

Grandma set the girls up with some Easter baskets.

Annalise was excited get started.

They found the hidden eggs in the basement.

They counted their loot before we went to church.

After church, we got a cute shot of them out by grandma's Egg tree.

Thanks for having us Grandma and Grandpa!

Of course,what is Easter without presents? Thanks for the books and the chocolate bunnies.

Grandma also got Grandpa a book about squirrels eating fromthe bird feeder. They have that problem. Grandpa read it to the girls.

then it was time to eat some bunnies!

Evie ate all the way down to the neck. On our way back to Indiana, she complained of a belly ache. Gee,I wonder why.

Butterfly Cuties

2010-04-01T20:40:00.002-04:00

Annalise's preschool teacher sent a bunch of pictures to us today of things that the kids did in class this week. This picture was too cute not to share Annalise's buddy is Chloe--she is the only other girl. Chloe is from Korea and doesn't speak much English, but she and Annalise play together all the time. Fun is universal.

Egg Coloring

2010-03-28T15:16:00.002-04:00

Today we had a messy house and two kids who wanted to color eggs. I boiled the eggs up and told them that the eggs were ready whenever the toys and books were picked up. That was the fastest the house has ever been cleaned. We even vacuumed all three floors in the same day--well, Jim vacuumed. I am still nursing the sore back and don't need to have anything else to aggrevate it. The egg coloring started. Annalise wanted to make a pink egg. Here she watches it closely.
We also got the white crayon out to make designs on the eggs before they were colored.

Evie checks on the progress of her egg.

The girls and the final product. Aunt Becky, this smocked dress is coming your way soon. It seems like something Juner needs.

And our lovely eggs. I made the Butler one (go bulldogs!). We had eggs for lunch and will probably enjoy egg salad all week.

Odds and ends.

2010-03-28T15:08:00.002-04:00

We have just been hanging around. Annalise thought it would be funny to surprise dad with stickers all over her face. Goofball.
At religion last week, Evie got a "Mass Kit". She played a long time with it. I'm happy to see that she is showing some interest in church especially with only 2 years until First Communion.

A nice lady at Uncle Kevin's church made these hats for the girls. They are perfect for spring!

The seedling project

2010-03-28T14:52:00.002-04:00

Now that I am offical Master Gardener Intern, I felt the need to stretch my green thumb and for the first time since grad school, start some plants from seeds. Growing corn and oats are pretty forgiving. You just slap some dirt on them and they pretty much grow without worry of sterilizing anything. I also had an undergrad who was in charge of watering so I didn't even have to worry about that. Here in the real world, I am my own undergrad--at least until my kids make it out of kindergarten. So for this grand experiment, I decided to plant some tomatoes (grape, yellow pear and romas), broccoli, basil (because mine never grows well from seed here in IN) and cilantro. I also had a bunch of ten cent zinnia seeds so I also planted a flat of those to fill in around the house with color. I allowed my undermost undergrad to plant some of the zinnia seeds. Or I should say over plant some zinnia seeds because there was an accident with the first batch.
Annalise takes her work very seriously. She told us that she wants to be a farmer when she grows up. She wants to have 12 chickens, 5 cows, 4 goats, 100 calves, and 1 rooster. Jim will be in charge of milking the cows, Evie is in charge of feed the chickens every morning, mommy will drive the tractor to plant seeds, and Annalise is in charge of the calves. she will need a lot of pastures and barns. We are starting small. Mom isn't exactly driving the tractor to plant these seeds.

The accident. I was bringing in the four flats of seeds when I tripped. Fortunately, the flat that went flying was the zinnia seeds. I ended up with a sore back again, a bruised up knee and a lot of dirt to vacuum up. We swept up the dirt and dumped it back in the flat. Annalise then randomly planted seeds. Surprisingly, they are doing pretty well!

The result as of Saturday,March 27. Jim humored me by setting up some shop lights over a table in the basement storage area. These are tomatoes. I thinned them out to a single plant per cell and they are doing pretty well. I will be adding to my seedlings when I plant two more flats of zucchini and summer squash for the Master Gardener plant sale. They only let the Interns grow the easy stuff. I hope I don't drop them.

Annalise's Ballet recital

2010-03-23T20:41:00.003-04:00

Annalise has been attending Ballet classes at the local community center. She started in early February and Monday was her last class. The children go in alone while the parents sit in the hall and watch on a screen. There is less distraction that way. On the last class, we all went into the room to observe.Of course, the teacher positioned them to be looking away from their parents, but I had a nice spot where I could watch her in the mirror as well as from behind.

Speaking of behind, check out those shapely legs.

The girls did a number of exercises individually. The rest of them waited so patiently.

And the best part of class is where they get their stickers.

Annalise and her teacher.

Here's a video of her dance--the flight of the bluebirds from the Sleeping Beauty Ballet.

Our weekend.

2010-03-23T20:20:00.004-04:00

Big fun this past weekend for the Taller family. I packed up my bag and jetted off to Washington DC to help my friend, Erica, move into her new apartment. I wouldn't go out of town on the opening weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament for just anyone. Erica and her husband, Clay, are expecting their first little pink bundle of joy over Race weekend, I mean Memorial Day weekend. Man, if she thinks that she is going to plan some life changing event for the OSU v. Michigan game or the Rose Bowl, she is on her own. :)

While I was gone, Jim worked from home with the help of our neighbors and friends to take care of Annalise so he could get some stuff done. On Saturday, he and the girls got up and went for Donuts and then hit the zoo for the first time this spring. The Rhinos were out and very close to the fence. Maybe they missed us.
They went to the dolphin show and sat up in the stands instead of the "splash zone". That way they could see the dolphins jump up and do their tricks.

A ride is always neccessary at the zoo. Today was the merry go round.

Two happy girls.

They wondered over to White River Gardens to see the orchid exhibit and to check out all the new butterflies. Here is a Blue Morpho that just came out of it's cocoon.

Annalise was pretty tired when they got home. She fell asleep in her cocoon.

Meanwhile, Erica and I enjoyed the beautiful weather and went to the National Botanical Gardens which is located near the Capitol Building.

After some shopping, we went to an excellent frozen custard place for dinner (yep, that's what you do when you are with a pregnant lady and there are no kids around.) It was only on our second visit did we see that our fine President also came out for custard with his children.

I returned home on Sunday with intentions of watching some basketball. Some little girls missed me and wanted to cuddle all afternoon.

St Patrick's Day

2010-03-23T20:12:00.002-04:00

To celebrate St. Patrick's day, we did a couple of things.Annalise's class made these cute hats and the teacher took pictures to send to the parents. Cute.

AFter school, Evie decided to fly kites despite the fact that there wasn't more than a light breeze.
We decided to go down to the pool parking lot where there weren't any trees to eat the kites. They ran all the way there with limited success of the kites getting into the air.

Evie managed to get hers flying, a little.

And then they worked together after Annalise's kite got stepped on and tore. This is about as high as the kite would go because of the lack of wind. We are patiently waiting on a nice windy day to really get them up in the air.

Annalise is bummed about her kite, but ran around a lot anyway.

Big Ten Championship game

2010-03-14T19:25:00.003-04:00

We love the Big Ten. We love Men's Basketball in the Big Ten. I also love the Buckeyes. It was like the perfect storm over Indianapolis today. The Buckeyes played in the Big Ten Championship against Minnesota (It was supposed to be Purdue, but they blew it yesterday by only scoring about 14 points the whole game and lost to the Gophers). We still have great interest in Minnesota and always like to see them improving, just as long as they don't get better than Purdue again. During the Semifinals yesterday, Jim and I decided it was high time to see a game. We didn't make it up to Mackey, down to Assembly Hall or over to Hinkle Fieldhouse this season so Conseco it was (I LOVE Conseco for games!!!!!)

After church, we got all fired up for the gameAnnalise has grown into the next size Cheerleading uniform. I thought I had one for Evie, but no such luck. Evie has also grown out of her Purdue stuff so she has no affiliations at all!
Monster future cheerleader--maybe we can get her to wear a giant hairbow then.

The 2 Buckeyes. I got another chance to wear my buckeye earrings. I also got my hair cut this weekend and it is too short in my opinion, but I guess it will grow.

When we got to Conseco, there was a bunch of stuff about a documentary that will appear on the Big Ten Network about the 50 Icons of the Big Ten. One of Indiana's favorite sons is an offical icon.

Steve Alford was immortalize with a life size bobble head. What an honor. As an extra bonus, our seating section won some offical bobble heads from our choice of Big Ten schools. We brought home the pride of Indiana (as shown, but much smaller) and a teeny tiny Drew Brees. I think we will have an Indiana shrine and add these to my Indy 500 stuff.

Famous people of normal size, Jim Nantz (the voice of the Masters) and Clark Kellogg (the voice of the obvious) were the CBS commentators. I didn't miss hearing their lively banter until I started wonder what Evan Turner's free throw percentages on the season were (by the way, Aunt Becky, wouldn't it be nice if you named your baby after the Big Ten player of the year? He's pretty awesome.)

Yeah! Tipoff. The game was pretty close well into the second half and then the Buckeyes got on a streak and never looked back. Poor Gophers. In addition to having only 45 fans in attendence, they lost by a large margin. We did have the pleasure of seeing Goldy spin his head around and hearing the world's slowest fight song. We will always be Gophers deep down inside.

Jim was a Gopher on the outside. He was the only one in our section rooting for Minnesota. His teams had it rough this weekend.

Big Ten Champs. Wonder if they can keep this up into the Big Dance. Thanks to Uncle Jay who held down the fort while we were at the game. We missed out on Wii fun and cookie making. The girls had much more fun at home than sitting at a boring basketball game.

In non basketball related news, Annalise has been providing us with some entertainment.

Here she is doing her chipmunk impression with Cherry tomatoes in her checks.

And one morning, she had breakfast, Grandpa Taller style. She used 3 bowls, 2 spoons and a cup. I cut her off when she asked for tea with lemon.

Evie breaks in her roller skates

2010-03-10T20:03:00.002-05:00

The weather has finally warmed up here. This allowed all the snow to melt and gave Evie a chance to try out her new roller skates It was not a good start. She hit the dirt almost right away.
Fortunately, two older neighbor girls were out skating and decided to teach Evie. Evie had some experience from ice skating that I think helped her to get the hang of it a little faster.

And then she was off. She proudly told the dr. at her annual appt today that skating was her most fun thing to do besides ride the bus. I'm not sure if it is going to get embarassing for her, but she weighed in at 44 lbs and is 47 inches tall. (That's just for the grandmas and grandpas out there). While we were at the dr., he noticed that the last time we were in prior to this appt was for her 5 year check up. A whole year without a dr. visit. Wow. To celebrate, we went to the DQ and had ice cream cones before dinner (hey, it was a really nice day here!)

Annalise decided that she wanted to make sure there was nothing in Evie's way during skating.

She "swept" the drive way and side walk to get rid of all that winter yuckyness. These pictures were taken Monday. Today, we reached 72 degrees and the kids played outside in t-shirts until dinner time. They were so tired, we got them cleaned up and put them to bed by 7:45.

The 14th Anniversary of Jim's 21st Birthday

2010-02-28T20:34:00.005-05:00

The morning started a little later than normal for us. Jim and I were out pretty late with all the other grade school parents whooping it up while the grandmas and grandpas of Carmel tucked the kiddos into bed. We did bid on and "won" the basket that Evie's class created. It was called Spring Break in Indiana. There were lots of gift cards for fun things to do in the area.

After we recovered from the previous evening, we went to church and then went out for lunch at Buca's.
We stuffed ourselves silly with lots of delicous food but still had room for dessert of a giant cupcake and some tiramisu.

Annalise also visited both the men's and women's bathrooms. Mom and Dad ate cold food.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for taking us out to lunch (and see how well my Salon Hair held up over night? I wonder if I can get one more day out of it)

After lunch, we walked to the Soldiers and Sailors monument in downtown. It's the one that is smack downtown with the big roundabout in it.

Inside the monument is the Col. Eli Lilly Civil war museum complete with cannons and a place to take ye olde timey picture.

We learned that we could climb to the top of the monument for free, but everyone in our group decided to take the elevator instead.

Here we are at the top overlooking the home of the Colts and the Pacers and a bunch of other buildings south of Downtown.

If you look really closely, you can see our house, 13 miles north of this site. The girls said they could see Canada.

Evie signed her name to the board of people who made it to the top of Indiana.

Evie's Birthday Party

2010-02-28T20:06:00.003-05:00

Evie has been invited to several birthday parties this school year. So when her birthday rolled around she also wanted to have a party. We wanted to do it on a budget so we decided to have her party at the house. We started with a guest list of 6 which grew up to 12. I figured that some kids wouldn't be able to come. They all came so we had a nice loud party.I had lots of games planned. In all, they took about 15 minutes. the kids mostly ran around, wrestled and yelled. They had fun, so it didn't really matter. It was fun to watch them interact with each other. They all have matured so much during the course of this school year. This game here was called shrinking Island. It was kind of like musical chairs but the "island" kept getting smaller and smaller. It was fun to watch them all crowd on.
We also played a game of Hot Potato. This is the only picture that we got of most of the kids. The rest was a blur.

We did the toliet paper roll too. That took about 5 minutes and they had more fun busting out of the toliet paper and throwing it around.

Instead of pin the tail on the donkey, we pinned the bird in the nest of Evie's tree. She also made the nest and colored 14 birds.

A lot of the birds in the nest.

Before cake, we had one last game, moving the cotton ball without using your hands or feet.

They came upstairs and we had cake, fruit and lemonade. We squeezed 14 kids into the kitchen.

then it was presnet time. Everyone wanted to see what Evie received. She got a lot of nice presents and a lot of crafts.

You'd think a few days of this birthday business and Annalise would figure out that she wasn't getting anything.

A few more presents to open.

The kids were all so fun and good. When the parents came, I think everyone was ready for a break and a nap. A fun time, but we are glad it's 365 days until the next birthday party.

After a nap and a shower, Jim and I got all dressed up to go to the school PTO fundraiser dinner. I just wanted to show Aunt Becky my "Salon Hair"

Happy 6th Birthday Evie!

2010-02-25T21:11:00.004-05:00

Our sweet Evelyn turned 6 today. The days went by slow, but the years have gone so fast. Evie woke up to the customary birthday car wash and then came down to a stack of presents at the table.
We asked her if she wanted to wait until after dinner, but she decided to open them before school. She was thrilled to get a box of Legos that weren't flat and space like.

She also got skates,but it is still snowing here so they will have to wait for a warmer day.

And for breakfast, we had birthday pancakes. It took Jim a couple of tries to get the six just right.

After school, Evie didn't waste any time getting into the Legos. Of course, she opened them up right in the middle of the walkway. She and Annalise had lots of fun playing with them.

Jim came home from work and we opened the rest of the presents. Grandma and Grandpa Taller are here too. Evie starts in on a package from them first.

Annalise is having a hard time with this birthday. She doesn't get that she doesn't get any presents or packages.

Evie checks out a work book from G and G Taller

Annalise still didn't get a present so she hid under a blanket until the painful present opening was over.

Evie got a latch hook kit from G and G Seibert. Thanks!

Aunt Becky and Uncle Bran's package came. Lots of air!

the girls had fun popping all the big bubbles.

And she opened up her cards! Thanks Great Grandma Koch and Bray family!

Annalise makes sure that all the air bladders are popped.

For dinner, we had squid dogs. The adults had spaghetti and meatballs. Then dessert. Evie designed her cake and I was just in charge of getting the frosting in the right places. The sun is upper left, then Haley's comet is the streak. The big yellow spot is supposed to be the moon. Evie made a Lego rocket to put on top of the cake. It tasted as good as it looks.

Happy Birthday to our beautiful 6 year old girl. We love you!

Fat Tuesday

2010-02-16T20:36:00.002-05:00

Well, I am still battling a bad back. I finally went to the dr. and got some muscle relaxers. In addition to having the best night sleep ever, I am feeling better. But, I still needed a little more laying around on the heating pad. This morning, Annalise had a date with Aunt Kathy. When they returned from their date, they brought a King Cake. Aunt Becky, I'm sure it wasn't as good as yours, but it was pretty. Annalise and Evie try to guess where the baby is hidden
Evie tried to listen for the baby

So did Annalise. We haven't found it yet. Our running joke is "don't eat the baby!"

This past weekend

2010-02-16T20:23:00.002-05:00

Evie had her last official skating lesson this weekend. She does pretty well considering she is wearing heavy rental skates and really doesn't know what she is doing. She mastered skating backwards and turning. (she's in the green coat)
She's still pretty choppy and hasn't gotten to the point of gliding on the ice. The Olympics are very inspirational to her. Maybe she will try again next winter. Next up is spring soccer--if we ever thaw out of the snow.

On Sunday, we went to an action packed volleyball game featuring Marin and some of her classmates.

These two must have the same forehead in their genes.

Marin and Evie. It was fun to watch and even more fun to have some fresh popped corn and hear the squeak of a wood gym floor.

Just another Wednesday

2010-02-10T18:13:00.005-05:00

Uncle Kevin and his herd of kids are still hanging around. They are pretty fun and Uncle Kevin proved to be useful. Today, he fixed my lazy susan that has only spinned in one direction. After 3 years, it finally spins in both directions without getting stuck! That's awesome.

There was no school yesterday, but thankfully, there was only a 2 hour delay today. That gave the kids enough time to play together and then get some time apart. During the delay, Natalie, Evie and Tessa made valentines. Oliver and Annalise were too busy picking fights with one another to participate.
Evie worked hard on her valentine.

Tessa even got in on the action with some stickers and lots of marker lid removal.

She is clearly confused as to wear the stickers go.

And by the looks of this purple streak and red dot on her lip, she is also confused about where the markers belong.

Later, the kids went outside and played. OF course, when they came in, they needed hot chocolate. I thought it would be fun to float some frothed milk in their cups.

I gave Tessa a cup of just frothed milk to see what she would do. She tried to drink it and succeeded in looking adorable.

REminds me of the time that Evie played in froth milk. It scarred Aunt Becky and Uncle Bran forever.

Tessa, meanwhile, had fun spreading the milk around

and she got some on her hand,

It felt kind of funny

and she had to show it to me.

Uncle JIm was going to break these boxes down, but the kids had other ideas.

Tessa wanted to play hide and seek.

Oliver shows off his pipe cleaner front loader and Natalie was just goofy.

While half dressed Tessa played in the Barbie house.

Thanks for coming to visit! We will miss you!

And here's the dance party this afternoon with three of the most talented dancers in the house.

Snow fun with the Seibert Kids

2010-02-08T14:10:00.002-05:00

Uncle Kevin and the kids decided to come to our house for a winter vacation. There is lots of snow, so all the kids got bundled up to play outside. Tessa didn't want to wear her real winter coat, so she had to be bundled up in extra layers. This cute face really brightened up our day. Thanks for sending all of them down, Aunt Elizabeth!
Uncle Kevin and Evie built a sled run off the steps on the deck. That's the only kind of hill we have in Indiana.

Natalie and Oliver check out the snowman and the fort.

Uncle Kevin takes Tessa for a spin down the hill.

The three girls go for a crash. Oliver must have thought they were crazy.

Out of all the kids, Tessa enjoyed being outside the most. NO tears out of this one.

Evie takes a break from sledding down the giant hill.

Annalise finds an icicle. Don't lick it, youdon't know what animal has crawled over it!

Oliver tolerated being outside, but was happy to come in and drink hot chocolate.

Two updates:

1. Mice. We haven't caught any more mice, so we hope we got them all. We never found the one that got away with the glue trap, but we are starting to smell it. Yuck.

2. My back. I got up this mornign feeling pretty good, but one trip around Meijer sent me back to the floor clutching my bottle of Ibuprofen. It's going to be a long recovery.

Super Cute Superbowl Movie

2010-02-08T13:57:00.002-05:00

I'm sure that all of you attended a Super Bowl XLIV party and did your part to cheer on the Colts. But since Jim and Aunt Becky neglected to buy blue Jello, the Colts lost in a heartbreaker. Fortunately, when the kids were awake, the Colts were still ahead. It was only after bedtime that they sunk into the abyss of turnovers. Anyway, we had the cutest Colts party on the block complete with tiny cheerleaders.

Snow Day

2010-02-06T19:15:00.004-05:00

The second storm of the decade rolled in on Friday. It came around noon so the kids still made it to school and mom still made it to yoga. The other fortunate thing was that Jim was able to catch a flight out of Boston a day early so he wouldn't get stuck if the storm hit there as well. We just hunkered down for a quiet day at home. It was actually quite nice because the sky cleared and most of the neighbors were out clearing driveways, so we did a fair amount of visiting. We decided to walk over to a friends' house while Jim took the snowblower on a second pass over the driveway and sidewalks. Annalise decided she wanted to slide and Evie pulled her half way there.
I love this picture of Annalise. I think she looks a lot like Evie at this age. Probably because she is wearing all of Evie's old stuff. The snow was up to her knees and she kept losing her mittens,but she stayed outside a lot longer than I thought she would.

The snow was wet and heavy. Perfect for the snowblower. I don't think we lost too many branches. We were going to clean off the shrubs,but since they are being removed for new landscaping this spring, we decided that mother nature may help us remove some branches. The snowman was made by Jim and Evie on Friday night. When we woke on Saturday morning, all of their tracks, as well as the snowball tracks were covered with more snow. I think we probably got around 6-7 inches.

Annalise was excited that she is growing and is almost as tall as the snowman.

It was windy too and we got this big drift off the garage roof. Yes, those are our Christmas lights still up there along the roofline. The official word on that is "we are waiting for it to warm up"

Evie always has a good time in the snow. She normally comes in covered head to toe, and her pant legs and shirt sleeves are wet too.

Annalise plays with our neighbor/future babysitter. Be nice to Amy!

When we visited our friends this morning, I was trying to help her out by shoveling out the snow that was in front of her mailbox. I felt a little twinge in my back, but didn't think much of it. When we were at the Dells,my back was a little sore, but I thought it was because of riding in the car and hauling Annalise in and out of tubes. Anyway, I was a little sore this morning, but it didn't stop me from going outside. On our walk home, though, each step got more and more painful. It was all I could do to drop my coat at the door and then lay down on the family room floor. I put a call into Aunt Becky and she confirmed that was I was feeling was probably a back spasm and I should lay flat for the rest of the day.

So this is how I spent the rest of a beautiful, sunny Saturday. The girls came in and kept me company while I watched TV and made phone calls to keep busy. While I am stuck on my back, I reflected that when you put junk in your body, you feel bad. Last weekend, I had lots of junk and now I can't walk. So no more Pringles or little chocolate donuts from here on out. Lentils and porriage fromher on out. Hopefully,all this laying around will make my back feel better before my sweet Seibert kin come into town tomorrow, because it's sure not helping to get the bathrooms clean.

Winter Break Vacation

2010-02-02T20:31:00.013-05:00

Our winter vacation time finally arrived. I decided that it wouldn't hurt Evie much to miss 2 days of school. She has a pretty good grasp on letters, colors, and math, so she won't be too far behind. Her biggest worry was that she would forget her friends' names before she came back to school.

So we loaded up the car with our swimsuits and bags of junk food and set out for the Wisconsin Dells. On our way up, we stopped to visit our friends, Pat, Rebecca, Peter and Jameson in Mt. Horeb, WI. They used to live in MN with us and we did lots of bike riding before all the kids were born. Their town is known for troll statues. Just walking distance from their house, we saw three! It was wonderful to be outside breathing the fresh Wisconsin air (smells like Wisconsin). Evie needed to be reminded that she wasn't wearing snow boots because she was everywhere. Our own little grumpy troll, Annalise, did not like the trolls, cold, or snow. Click on this picture to see her expression.

Peter and Jameson are just 5 months younger than Evie. They had fun showing us another troll. And in true kindergartener fashion, they found that this troll had a booger.

Annalise refused to get up next to the troll, so here she is with her own booger. Aunt Becky, we think we will send Annalise with you because since we moved to IN, she does not like the snow or cold. She cried and whined this whole 4 block trip into the downtown.

Do you know what is wonderful about WI? You can buy beer on Sunday in Walmart! We stocked up on all the beers that we can't buy in IN. Plus some cheese curds and some spreadable cheese product. I really let my standards go because I also caved in and bought fruit flavored yogart, brown and serve sausages, Pringles, and the creme de la creme of the week, little chocolate donuts. I really let my hair down and now my stomach is paying for it. We'll probably have lentils tonight to reset our bodies.

Jim enjoys a very delicous New Glarus Spotted Cow. Wonderfully refreshing.

And, as always, the kids jump on the hotel room beds. They had to be careful in here because if they jumped too close to the bunk, they clunked their heads.

Annalise also jumped on the bed. Both kids got a chance to sleep up in the top bunk. We also used the Dells strategy of wearing the kids down to the point of exhaustion so they slept pretty well. They actually slept in until 9 am the second morning--that's a first for those kids.

We applied their all access wrist bands and told them to get ready for some fun!

These two are so excited about hitting the waterparks!

Annalise channels Natalie when it comes to putting her shoes on her feet.

The next morning, the girls got up and had a deluxe pancake breakfast. After breakfast, we had some school time so Evie wouldn't get so far behind. Actually, we were just waiting for the waterparks to open, but getting some practice writing in never hurt.

Jim took charge in the kitchen. We were lucky enough to have brand new pots and pans to use, but a lot of pancakes were sacraficed in the seasoning process. Plus, there were no scrubbies. Manual labor for Jim. Hopefully he didn't hurt his mouse finger.

And we made it down to the water park! First stop was the lazy river which suited Annalise just fine.

Evie and Laura also had fun getting reacquainted during several laps.

We took a break for lunch, but the grown ups were too busy visiting for the kids' taste. They were excited to get some more playing in!

We cleaned up our lunch and Annalise read all the letters on this trash can. Then she read the words (her interpretation) "Don't get your hand stuck in here"

We moved over to the wild water dome with the giant wave pool and Evie channels LaBron James.

She did stop moving long enough for us to take a picture. In this dome, there is a family waterslide that Annalise went on with us. I figured she wouldn't like it because as it started, she put her head down into my lap. Then at the end, she said"That was fun, let's go again!"

Post waterpark and pre dinner, the kids chilled out by watching some PBS kids on the bed. What a treat (and a treat for the parents too since we had happy hour and ate some spreadable cheese on
Triscuts).

Annalise and I shared a cuddle after dinner. We are looking tired, but not done for the day yet!

What is the Dells without some sort of celebration? We are smack in the middle of Laura and Evie's birthdays so we celebrated them both with a little gift exchange and some ice cream treats

They both liked their gifts.

Then we went down to the big indoor playstructure. Annalise played with the "floating" balls.

I was even feeling adventurous enough to climb in. I normally don't do these things because I hate climbing through those tubes like at the Mc Donald's Playland, but this was mostly nets so I was ok. Annalise needed help getting in some spots. I"m not going to lie, it was pretty fun to crawl around in.

But what goes up must come down. Annalise wanted to go down this spiral red slide. I sucked it up and tried it. It was fast, twisty and I built up a lot of static cling in there. By the time I hit the bottom, I was dizzy and done with the play structure. Probably didn't help that I had one of those great New Glarus beers before we went to the play structure.

Ice cream and dinner didn't slow Evie down. She and Laura ran around until they were drenched in sweat. Gross.

And when we got back to the room, she was so exhausted that she passed out on the bar stools.

The next morning, I was awoken by the most unique sound. A sound I haven't heard since moving to Indiana. The sound of a plow scraping across asphalt. Music to my ears. Especially since this particular plow didn't have a back up beeper.

We packed up our stuff and headed back to the waterpark for a little more fun before we had to go home. Annalise gives Jim a "tow" across the wave pool.

Evie and Laura claim their tube for the waves

Annalise is still lazy, but had a lot more fun than we thought she would. She wasn't too afraid of stuff and wanted to do whatever the big girls did. She even wanted to go down the family waterslide with Evie, Laura, and Laura's Dad, Mike, instead of me and Jim. What is happening to my BFF??

All three girls head out to catch some waves.

And the three big girls. Nate, Laura's brother didn't hit the water that day. He was too busy making girlfriends to get to other peoples' stashes of Pringles.

Me and Michele. We had a great time catching up. Thanks to our husbands for taking time off work and watching the kiddos so we could enjoy our Margaritas and chat.

Unfortunately, all good vacations come to an end. You know it's a successful vacation when it ends with a tantrum. Annalise was so worn out that she couldn't even make up her mind which bathroom stall to use before we left. It was tough. We threw her in the car and gave them a movie and some lunch. Vacation wasn't over yet and we still had some stops to make.

The Cheese Chalet! What used to be something we drove past every time we drove south was now our destination! I walked inside and asked the lady if she had fresh curds and she said "you betcha". Aunt Becky, these are your people. They miss you.

Inside, Jim found a sommersausage shaped like a football. I told him to get it for the superbowl this weekend, but he didn't. So if the Colts loose, it's because we didn't eat this football.

Evie Milked the cow.

And Annalise found a baby cow to love. We weren't sure it it's name is Buttermilk or if it has a momma named Cheeseburger.

Evie has lost all of her Northern instinct. We had to school her on how to click your feet together before getting in the car. Although, she doesn't care how much snow she drags in. She doesn't get the chance to clean it up.

The rest of our drive home was pretty boring. We ate our way through the rest of the Twizzlers and some cheese curds. Jim talked me into trying White Castle for dinner. It was the first and last time I will ever eat there. After a weekend of junk food indulgence, my stomach really hurt by the time we got home.

And in a related story, about 16 hours before we left for the Dells, we discovered that a mouse had taken residence in our pantry. This particular mouse climbed up the wire shelving that is mounted on the inside of the door and got into food that was 5 feet off the ground. So, we had to do a lot of cleaning and a trip to Menards to buy traps.

The good news is that when we got home, he checked into a mouse hotel and didn't check out. Jim put traps in the basement before we left and caught another one. And the third trap was missing. He tore apart the basement looking for it, but the mouse must have drug it somewhere we can't see. Hopefully it doesn't smell too bad when it dies. Anyway, two and half mice were trapped. I returned to Menards this morning for more glue traps and we haven't caught any more mice. Hopefully that's the end of them. I would love to borrow a kitty or two for the next week just to make sure.

Squid Dogs

2010-01-28T19:12:00.004-05:00

It was a long afternoon of being in the car. We had to drive to Jim's work to pick him up and then go to the tire place to retrieve the Grocery Getter (which eventually had all 4 wheels removed at the price of breaking several tools and us having to buy 20 new lugs--ugh..) So when we finally got home, we need a quick dinner. We were inspired by Aunt Becky's post about what they had for dinner so we busted out the Family Fun magazine and made our own Squid Dogs. Recipe for Squid Dogs: First cut up a hot dog. Then stick uncooked spaghetti noodles through it. Boil and Enjoy
Annalise worked very hard creating her dinner.

Even Jim got in on the action.

According to Evie "This is a good dad and daughter activity" All that and mom didn't even have to make dinner.

A steaming plate of Squid Dogs.

The kid who normally only eats the bun of a hot dog even ate the hotdog part (only after all the noodles were gone). You may have noticed that she is still in her Jammies. It was Jammie day at school. These were clean this morning, but she has informed us that she is wearing them to bed.

Evie also enjoyed eating the squid dogs. Uncle Kevin, we are looking forward to your future post on squid dogs. We know you get Family Fun.

Princess Saucy and the Chicken Farmer

2010-01-27T20:15:00.003-05:00

Well, the good news today is that the sun finally came out. We opened all the blinds and curtains to let the sun in the house because there was no way that Annalise would agree to going outside. The sun came out just in time too because I was about ready to jump in the Honda (with it's bad tires and all) and drive south until I saw the sun. I was hoping to make it to the Keys. Anyway, Annalise and I played the morning away. This afternoon, one of the neighbor girls came to play with Annalise so I could take a break. It was a break for her mom too. A win-win situation. Annalise and Ella (the neighbor) dressed up and played princesses and fairies. The difference was that Ella put her regular clothes back on, but Annalise stayed in this very lightweight skirt until bathtime. I bet she was cold.
Aunt Becky, this one is for you. When do you want her?

Meanwhile, Evie decided to construct chickens out of paper plates as she saw in a book. It kept her busy for a long time.

She did this all herself. What an artist.

Sewing and stuff

2010-01-23T21:01:00.004-05:00

Quiet day here today. The girls and I hung close to home while Jim tried to get new tires put on the grocery getter. Seems that the last people to rotate the tires tightened the bolts so tight that no one can get them off. What was supposed to take 45 minutes will now take all week. Hurmpf.... Anyway, after Annalise got up from her nap, we decided to get some sewing done, just like Mary and Laura would have done on a winter afternoon. Evie is sewing a tooth pillow for her friend Laura.
This is Annalise's first shot at sewing. She did a pretty good job of making it all away around this piece of plastic canvas. This is another skill we didn't know that she had.

We are also getting ready for a trip up to the Dells next weekend. I had to make sure that we have swimsuits that still fit so I dug them out and made the girls try them on.

Here they are pretending to lay on the sandy beach. We had some painting done on Friday. This is the color that the guest room, foyer, hallway, kitchen, stairway, and back hallway are. NO more butter yellow color that doesn't go with anything. We have only the RED bathroom to paint and then all the filth on the walls will be all ours.

Aren't they so cute?

Annalise decided to stay in her swimsuit until bedtime. This is how she stayed warm.

Blue Friday

2010-01-22T09:07:00.002-05:00

It's official. We have one foot on the Colts bandwagon. We aren't planning any Superbowl parties or anything, but we are starting to get interested in this whole NFL thing. I do maintain that NFL games are almost as boring to watch as televised golf, but I can do other things while the game is on--like blog, crochet, take naps, spring clean the basement, etc. It's not like college basketball which requires my full attention. (Did you see that IU has won 9 games this season?? And UNC has lost 3 games in a row?? I heart NCAA basketball) Anyway, the world seems to be getting the #18 train. Even Evie decided to wear the jersey that is in the bottom of her drawer (I know, she's not a football player nor is she going to the game,but at least it's not pink) I guess the school has a competition of which class can show the most Colts spirit. I'm all for team spirit so we even busted out some blue ribbons to put in her pigtails.
When Annalise saw the ribbons,she waivered on her usual ban of pigtails (or anything) in her hair so she could have ribbons too. See, she finally has more than 10 hairs!

And here she is giving her best Colts snarl. Watch out Jets.

(For the record, Dad is wearing an old man plaid work shirt and mom is wearing a purple monochromatic sweat suit--the price of being a stay home mom)

Sweet Georgia Brown

2010-01-18T20:51:00.003-05:00

Jim has long wanted to see the Harlem Globetrotters. It was one of his childhood dreams much like getting a fridge with water that comes out of the door. So last November, we had an opportunity to get some tickets for today's game of the Globetrotters v. The Generals. The exhibition wasn't much of a game, but it was spectacular. Not to mention, on the way in to the Fieldhouse (the best basketball venue ever), we got to look in on the Pacers practice and saw my favorite player, Mike Dunlevy, and my least favorite player, former UNC Tyler Hansborogh.
Annalise was pretty antsy. She wasn't really into the show except when the mascot was out playing around.

We were in the fancy Club seats (thanks to Jim's work) and the front row of the balcony. The glass partition was clean when we arrived, but then had lots of grubby face prints on it by the time we left.

Us at the game with a goofball. Mom is too busy looking at the crowd and wondering what possesses grown adults to wear Colts jerseys to a Harlem Globetrotters game on a Monday. It's not like Peyton and crew were going to show up and practice. What makes these people wake up and look in their closets and say "Today, I feel like wearing a jersey." In my book, there are only 2 times appropriate to wear a jersey, if you are actually a football player and for the non football players, to a game. Otherwise, keep them in the closet. Don't even get me started on those pink jerseys.

(By the way, Aunt Becky, have you considered naming your baby Peyton if it is a boy and Payton if it is a girl???)

A spectacular slam dunk. These guys were fun to watch. The Generals had 2 Olympic gymnasts on their team, but 4 foot girls don't slam dunk the basketball, so the Generals lost, again.

We did buy the bottomless bucket of popcorn ( I have a weakness for the smell of gym floor wax and freshly popped corn. Takes me back to FHS and how I spent my Friday and Saturday nights for 6 years. Go Apaches) Anyway, Annnalise could see the cotton candy vendor walking around and she kept asking for some. The last time she had it she didn't like it. She responded by saying that she likes it now that she is 3. So we got a bag and she ate exactly one bite and announced she still didn't like it. Fortunately, Evie was able to step in and eat a good part of the bag.

And I ate some too. I'm sure that the sugar used to make this cotton candy was organically grown, sustainably harvested, fair trade and was colored using only natural ingredients.

We tried to trick Annalise into eating some, but it didn't work.

Toward the end of the game, one act of entertainment was sending the mascot down the floor to knock down soup cans

When asked, this was Evie's favorite part of the "game".

By the way, it was also 12 years ago today that Jim proposed to me. What a way to celebrate. I'm glad I said yes.

Contraption

2010-01-18T20:46:00.003-05:00

Evie is into inventing things. She works on a plan and then constructs it out of Legos with her assistant, Annalise the destroyer. This invention involved making a horse escalator. I guess there is a market for that.
Here comes the horse up the slide.

And it makes it to the top.

Here she is with her detailed plans. We are signing her up for Civil Engineering Day camp at Purdue for the summer. Right between Bible School and Swim Team.

Interpreting Art

2010-01-12T12:58:00.001-05:00

Evie goes to religon on Mondays after school. I have to drive past the Kroger to drop her off and pick her up. Sometimes I stop to pick up fruit or milk. I have learned that Kroger discounts their flowers on Mondays so I always check the Manager's Specials when I'm there. This week, I picked up a boquet for $2 because I needed to see some green in my world of white, gray and brown. Evie took a picture of the flowers.
And here, she drew her interpretation of the flowers. But the real suprise was Annalise. She sat down and drew the flowers too.

This may not look like a big deal to you, but this is the first picture that Annalise has drawn that we can tell what it is. She worked really hard on it and we were so proud of her. Annalise suffers from 2nd child syndrome. When Evie was this age, she could write her name and draw pictures of people. Annalise hasn't shown much interest in those types of things (because she is too busy tending to her baby farm animals??) so we were surprised that she could put her mind to something and do it! Now I will have to start working on letters with her.

Legomania and other stuff

2010-01-10T19:36:00.003-05:00

It's been a quiet week here in Carmel, out there on the edge of suburbia. We had our first big snow. Snow, the kind that floats down in big flakes but isn't severe enough to cancel school, which all the parents love. But, we were stuck inside because Annalise doesn't care to go out and get bundled up in boots and snowpants. Jim was also out of town this week so we retreated to the basement like any other good midwesterner would do during the winter (how a person can go without a basement is beyond me--what do they do in January when its cold outside or when tornados strike?) We got out Jim's childhood legos. His legos were mostly space legos that aren't good for building houses because they are all flat and are teeny tiny. They make good vacuum cleaner bait if you know what I mean. We did get creative and make this moonscape complete with misson control and rocket launchers.
I have to say, I get really into legos. Good childhood memory for me. I sat and made lots of vehicles.

Annalise was the lego durablity tester. If your rocket car didn't make it down the slide, it needed to go back for reinforcements.

Evie constructed this car and was working on a second.

Uncle Kevin, this is our collection of rocket cars. What can you and your kids make this week?

And since every time the kids go out and play in the snow, they think they need hot chocolate. We have been eating (and playing with) a lot of marshmallows this week.

Annalise, as much as Aunt Becky would like, Klements Sausage doesn't stick to your nose.

And finally, Aunt Becky and Uncle Bran, we know you are hurting this weekend from the Bengals 2nd loss in a row to the Jets. Look at it this way, if the Bengals would have won, you would have just been delaying the eventual defeat by the future super bowl champs and their 4 time MVP quarter back with his laser rocket arm. Anyway, you may think you had a lot invested in this season, but clearly not as much as this guy. That's something else. Custom. One of a kind. Can you do this to the mini van for next season? (Bray family--we spotted this in Oakmont!! I thought you lived in the classy part of town)

Measurable amounts of Snow.

2010-01-07T18:34:00.002-05:00

The biggest storm of the decade hit today. Fortunately, the kids both had school and we didn't stray from our normal routine too much. Jim had the pleasure of firing up the snowblower (which we use about once a winter) and blowing out the 4 inches on the driveway. Evie piled up this snow and she and Annalise made a tunnel. And yes, we still have our lights on. We are "those" people.
They had great fun crawling through it. I was just happy that Annalise decided to go outside because someone left her whine switch on high.

Evie appears to be stuck, but made it back inside when she heard about hot chocolate.

Those are some rosy cheeks. That's what happens when you face plant into a snow pile.

Annalise is rosy, and chocolately.

OH NO!

2010-01-02T19:35:00.002-05:00

Update on the camp out. After a potty run at 9:15, things settled down for the night. Jim said that they fell asleep around 9:30. He also said that he woke up around 3:00 am and was feeling pretty sore from sleeping on the floor. Guess he is getting old. They came up around 7:45 am and went for donuts. This camp out thing may happen again if Jim gets an air mattress for his birthday.

In completely unrelated news, we took down the Christmas decorations today. When that was finished, we were contimplating how hard it will be to take the wall paper in the foyer down. I reached up and pulled.

As they say, the rest was history.
Evie and the neighbor girl help out too.

The noise of the tearing woke Annalise up from her nap and she was very distressed that the girls were pulling paper off the wall until we told her it was ok. In the end, all the decorative stuff came off pretty easy, it's that paper backing that is sticking hard in some places. This isn't a project that is going to be completed this weekend, but we will take our time with so we don't damage all the woodwork. So watch out if you come to visit, you may get put to work.

New Year's Camp Out

2010-01-01T20:44:00.004-05:00

The kids have been asking Jim to take them camping in the back yard. The game plan for 2009 was to wait until fall when it was cooler and got darker earlier. But, with soccer, over night guests, school, and football games, it just never panned out. So Jim told the girls that he would camp with them on New Year's Day. Could this be a new tradition starting here? We'll see how tonight goes. They were eager to get out the tent and set it up, but the mean parents that we are, we made them clean up their toys first. And then they had to wait until Halftime of the Rose Bowl so mom could take pictures (this is the Rose Bowl, Friends, I wasn't going to miss a second of the Buckeyes!)
Annalise holds her corner in place while dad gets the poles ready.

And here it comes up!

But then the game started back up and we all got comfy for the second half.

Finally, it was time to crawl into their sleeping bags. You can see that our house is a little dry right now.

Three happy campers all tucked in for the night. There was lots of giggling when I went upstairs to blog this. My next chore is to go put sheets on the girls' beds so they will be ready when dad kicks them out of the tent later on tonight (again, we'll see)

It's really dark in the basement, but there were flashlights for everyone. They quieted down around 8:45 and here it is 9:00 and I hear chatter again. I'll update the status in the morning. They said they are going to get donuts in the morning. I wonder how long they will sleep in. As for me, I'm sleeping in my nice, soft bed and plan to wake up to donuts and coffee..

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T20:32:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year Blog Friends!We celebrated New Year's Eve with the Lupkes and Littigs. We didn't stay up until midnight, but we did ring the New Year in loudly.
At 7:00 pm, we had the big countdown. There were noise makers, hats, and those little poppers that confetti flies out of. All these kids popped all that bubble wrap.

And they made a tremendous amount of noise. Poor Sweet Baby Amanda was woke up from her nap under the Christmas Tree.

Instead of shrimp rings and champange, we had cupcakes and milk to ring in the new year.

Andy takes a big bite, but leaves most of the cake on the kitchen floor.

Annalise only ate the frosting off her cookie. She is still jonesing for some sugar.

Parker was a little messy so we had to clean her up.

It was a great way to ring in the New Year! Thanks for coming Friends!

The Aftermath

2009-12-31T22:11:00.002-05:00

It was a tough reentry back to Grandparent free life. We had to do laundry,make our own food and the children had to find ways to entertain themselves. It was ok until Annalise started following me around begging for marshmellows to take care of her sugar crashes. So I told them to find one of their many Christmas presents. I didn't mean all of them,but the girls took it that they had to do every craft within the last two days. Annalise made this pretty bag that Tinkerbell also fits in. There are lots of modes of transport for that goat.
Evie busted out the Candy Jewelry maker. Think along the lines of Easy Bake Oven, but melting candy instead of baking cakes.

We popped the finished product out of the mold.

Annalise models her candy earrings.

Evie has candy earring and a necklace.

annalise did do some work today. She folded these towels. Perfect.

And the paper from the paper recycling kit. It was ok,but mom did most of the work and it took all night for the paper to dry. Aunt Becky, your thank you note is on the way. Treasure it because it might be the last paper recycled for a while.

And Evie works on her Cross stitch butterfly. So that completes most of the Christmas crafts. Now they will go back to fighting over pillows and blankets and hanging off the chairs.

The Doug Seibert Christmas recap

2009-12-31T21:57:00.004-05:00

We stayed at Grandma and Grandpa Seibert's house to celebrate another Christmas. I don't have any pictures of the bedlam that ensued while the presents were being opened because June was in the same bedroom as our camera. Aunt Becky says never wake a sleeping Juner. So, hopefully Aunt Becky posts some stuff soon. We gave everyone else remote control helocopters. Uncle Kevin only crashed it into the Christmas tree once.
The kids were getting bored so Aunt Becky took them outside to run off some energy.

Annalise tries out her new sleeping bag as Aunt Elizabeth tries to take a nap.

The guys were pretty involved with playing with the Ipod Touches. They played air hockey against one another and downloaded a bunch of apps.

Juner woke up and had fun playing in the sleeping bag too.

Mom has lots of fun with all the kiddos.

Wagner Christmas Party recap

2009-12-31T21:49:00.002-05:00

We loaded up the station wagon and headed up to NWO for a few more Christmas parties. First stop was in Paulding,OH for the Wagner family Christmas. Great Aunt Mary and Great Aunt Linda are going to make awesome Grandmas someday. They each gave presents to all the kids.
There were coloring books, bracelets and a bag that can carry "Tinkerbell" the baby goat perfectly.

Tessa hammed it up in her super cute dress and fuzzy boots.

Annalise and Dad take a break for a cuddle.

We all had a great time visiting, drinking, and eating. It was great to see everyone!

Christmas Day recap

2009-12-31T21:29:00.004-05:00

Santa found us while we were sleeping. The kids slept until 7:15 am. That's pretty good in this house. They even waited patiently for all the grown ups to get up and get dressed or robed up. Here they are checking out the presents under the tree. The girls ran into a problem that some of the presents weren't labeled.
So they dug into their stockings. Hey, the wrapping paper in their stockings matched some of the presents! That Santa is clever.

Evie had lots of fun opening her stocking stuffers.

Grandpa and Grandma got presents in their stockings too!

And Santa came through for Annalise with a baby goat. Unforunately, it wasn't a live baby goat, but Santa must know that we can't have livestock in the subdivision.

Grandma and Grandpa opened up some more presents.

Evie and Annalise gave mom a present of yarn. So I can knit them hats. Lucky me.

And they tore into some presents from their cousins in TX.

And then they settled down to play with the Barbie house. For about 30 seconds. Then Evie took off to play Wii and Annalise stacked all her baby goats on the sundeck of the Barbie house.