You have GOT to be kidding me!!!!!

Yes, our warranty is up at 60,000.
Yes, I took the van to the dealership 2 days (20 miles) ago to get it checked out.
Yes, it had a clean a bill of health.

This has to be some kind of joke. Some sick kind of joke.

New work digs

If you happen to come through my office area very often, you know that things and people are always moving around. It is amazing to me how much shifting takes place in this office. Some of my co-workers were talking about it last week and I am currently sitting in my 10th location in the 10 year I have worked in this building (including the adoption agency I worked at prior to working here). I am not complaining at all. I don't mind change at all and am kind of used to it. (I did have 13 roommates in my 4.5 years in college.)

In this final most recent wave of shifting, I simply moved next door. I don't have any pictures of it before the mess, but here is what I walked into Monday morning.

My desk (which you see to the right of this picture) was located where the left door is when I left work on Thursday. The desk has a hutch, which was located in the hallway. All the contents were emptied and placed on the desk I am moving to...which was left full of my co-workers stuff.

Here is a view from the new doorway. (see the hutch?)

After some help from co-workers and a relatively short amount of time,
here is what my work space looks like now.

I feel blessed to work in this place and especially since I only work 15 hours a week, I don't think I have any right to complain about where I am sitting (my 8th location was the cubical you see in the "before" picture with the maroon chair.). I love my co-workers and don't mind my day to day tasks, so it doesn't make sense to be grippy about the "view".

Bren's last Princess Tea Party

Imagine if I liked the holiday!!

I'm sure I would even be able to stand myself!

For my Valentine

go HERE for more NPR Valentines.

Ok, so I'm working on a theory that if I post my snow days pics we will get to go back to school....

Everyone near us knows we have missed 8 school days because of snow. And 7 of them have been in the last 2 weeks. At first I documented every fun project we did, was truly creative, energized and dreaded the snow melting. 8 snow days later, I am ready to get back to normal. Oh, one thing that some may NOT know is that on one of those two school days this week, Piper was home sick. Now that I have had one day in two weeks of normalcy I completely relate to my dear friend who said she is just ignoring her kids at this point.
I'm sure she meant the same thing I mean in that I am no longer concerned about messes and really who cares if the fort stays out for 3 days straight.
And getting dressed and teeth brushing are overrated.
And they might be eating a snack of peanut butter on a spoon as speak.
And I haven't taken a picture in 3 days.

ahhh..isn't it lovely? I truly do love snow and winter!!

Fort in living room

We baked muffins and cookies.

We played on the computer.

We played outside in short spurts.

We had game night with friends

We had a princess hot chocolate tea party with cakepops and cookies in the aforementioned fort.

Brenna made a paperclip chain and strung it around her room. It totaled 650+ paper clips and she and Josh did some scientific stuff measuring it with standard and non-standard measurement.

We read. A.LOT.

We had cousins night before round 2 of the snow rolled in.

We made some jewelry.

There. That is the summary of our last two weeks. I'm really hoping now that I have posted this, we will be back in school on Monday!! :)

Maybe next month will be better...

Since the world is ending tomorrow with the snow storm coming in, I thought I'd let you know what is filling our days now. Life is good...ordinary, and good. I'm thankful that I have not major illness to report, no monumental heartbreaks or devastation in our world. Ordinary and good.

Since the approaching storm is all we hear about right now, I wanted to show ONE of the things I love most about our great state.I'm sure there are amazing sunsets elsewhere, but can this one be topped? I just don't see how.

We are getting a new park in our neighborhood. While this is causing pain and grief for some (and not just short people in my family), I am excited about it. That merry-go-round groaned loudly when even the smallest child was on it. Let's not talk about it's complaints when I got on it! B has decided she is going to write the Mayor that she wants swings at the park since there are not any at school. I'll let you know how that goes. For now, this is how our park looks.


Brenna is helping Josh with new cake pop ideas. Here is zombie pop.

So, there you go. That is what is up with us these days. I have a feeling my next post will include snow.

Opposites

Before we get to opposites, I want to share with you that Piper has learned air quotes. Or has at least learned the action of air quotes. I have no idea where she picked this up since neither Josh nor I really use them. And in spite of her Joey Tribiani style of air quoting, to my knowledge she has never seen Friends.

The first time she did it she came running in the kitchen to see what I was working on. When I showed her dinner she said, "That is "awesome". I absolutely cracked up. And maybe it was an appropriate use of the motion, because dinner was not really awesome at all. Then on the day she stayed home sick she found me scrubbing toilets and said "When you finish "cleaning" the bathroom, can we watch a movie?" Just for the record, I was really cleaning the bathroom!!! I know I should help her figure it out, but it is too funny the way she is doing it. I figure she's got "years" to get the subtle nuances of the English language mastered.

On to opposites...
Yesterday afternoon, Brenna and I were summonsed into the living room for a Webkinz pet fashion show, complete with red carpet and rocking music. Somehow the fashion show segued into a quiz show (this is not uncommon in our house). Piper explained that the theme for THIS "quiz" was opposites. Brenna and I had already been a bit of an unruly audience for the fashion show, so I should have known this was not going to really go as Piper planned.

Piper said the answer begins with the letter L, then she got distracted (I think) and started asking me something for clarity. She said something about "when you can't go to the bathroom..." and then it went downhill.
Brenna yells "Constipation!" Piper looks at her with sassiest, sister-venum look I've seen in a while and is prepared to rip her sister a new one. I decide to save the game and say in a very enthusiastic, quiz show participant voice "The opposite of constipation is diarrhea!!!"
Piper then directs her venum at me and says "No, Ma-om, it has to start with an L!" And my oldest doesn't miss beat and jumps up and yells "LEAKING!!!!"
Piper rolls her eyes back towards Brenna and in a nanosecond decides to run with her hijacked games and says "We have a winner!"
Needless to say, the game was over because this contestant was laughing too hard to go on.

Not a strong start for the ole blog...

Sorry for the three of you who check this regularly. I have no excuse for not updated more often; it just isn't as pressing as some other things right now.

Life has been going great in our little world lately. Even the bad could be so much worse.
Last Saturday we went back to our favorite museum to learn how to make yarn dolls. This actually was a lot of fun. Daddy helped Piper and I helped Brenna.

Brenna was really surprised to find out that pioneer children had to play with yarn dolls if they wanted dolls. She can't fathom a world without American Girl ('USA Girl') dolls and Barbies, but really who of us can. Brenna named her doll Hailey the Hula dancer from Hawaii. Piper's doll gets a new name each day, depending on Piper's mood. It most often is called Sandy or Miranda.

After creating our dolls we enjoyed the museum again.

They experienced jail.

(Did you know there are still some small towns in our state that use these types of jails? This was before welding, so a blacksmith riveted the bars together. Crazy that some places haven't advanced beyond this. But I guess it works!! If my hometown had had a jail, it would have been like this, I'm pretty sure.)

Then we went to church. Just felt like we needed a little repentin' of our ways.

Sweet daddy/daughter moment.

I really do love our community and all it has to offer. And I know there is so much more for us to experience!!

On a different note: Both the girls have missed school this week due to "illness". I use quotes because I'm not sure it really is illness. Piper threw up 2 times on Tuesday morning in a 1/2 hour window (in the potty both times!) so she had to stay home from school. She was perfectly normal after that. We had a great day at home just us. Wednesday, Brenna got sent home from school at 9:30 with pink eye. I should say she came home with pink eyeS! The cafeteria lady thought she had pink eye so she sent B to the office. The office sent her home. She felt fine and we had a great day on Wednesday at home. See, even our bad could be so much worse!!!

Days gone by...

Josh found this video on our computer last night.

The more I watch it, the sweeter it gets.

Favorite quotes of the year

Late May, Josh to Sarah: "You look weird with a tan. Like something just isn't right."

Early June: Sitting in green chair, Piper on the right side of my lap. About 5 minutes after Brenna crawls up on the left side of my lap, Piper turns around, sees Bren and says, "I didn't know you were here!"

Mid June: Sitting on Piper's bed discussing random things. The conversation turned to having babies. Piper tapped my on my arm and asked; "How did you feed me when I was in your tummy?" I said that our very smart God designed a way for that to happen, then I explained about belly buttons. While Bren and I continued to discuss babies, I could tell Piper was still thinking. Then she tapped my arm again and said "Did I like chips?"

Mid June: Piper comes running naked into the kitchen needing assistance with her swimsuit. Josh says "You have such a cute bottom" and gave it a little pinch. Piper turns her bottom toward Josh, pats it twice and says "This is my tissues".

Mid June: Brenna was telling company about our family watching Dancing With the Stars. After telling what she likes about it, she said "My mom sure is sensitive about what they wear."

Mid June: While listening to "Evermore" (scroll down the link until you find the title, then click LISTEN) written by Sandra Boynton, performed by Allison Krause, Brenna says "Mom, when I get an apartment, we can listen to this song." The tears spilled over and I cried while listening to it two more times.

Mid July: Piper says from the backseat of the van, "Mom, when I get a daughter, I'm going to let her get a dog."

Mid July": Piper said first thing in the morning, "When I am a mom I'm going to let me kids wear long pants and shirts after swimming." I wonder what she was dreaming about?

Late July: "It's a skill I have at being gross." - Brenna

September: "Syrup even takes good on skin!" -Piper

September: Josh was talking to the girls about singing harmony vs. melody and explaining the difference. He said that he usually sings bass and I sing alto and those are both harmony, but Mr. Scott sings lead, which is the melody. Brenna said "Yes, I sing melody with Scott, but I sing sparrow."

So, there are these cats...

...that were born and raised in our back yard.

We found them as itty bitty kitty's in March of this year. And I took pity on them (and still do) and fed them. Twice a day. Better food than most beloved house pets would get.

We still call them wild cats even though they pretty much live on our back porch. We don't pet them. We don't let them in. We do, however, call them by their names (Sam and Sophie) and may or may not have made a bed for them so they won't get cold in the cold windy winters we have in these parts.

Sophie (whom I now think is a boy) hisses as us every time we go outside. S/he no longer runs across the yard from us, but keeps our distance. I think the hissing is her/his way of letting us know he is owned by no man.

Sam (whom appears to be a girl) is actually quite friendly (as all the Sam's in our life are). He (she) has let me pet him (her) a few times and will eat out of our hand. He (she) has gotten in the house twice when I am taking food out, but both us panicked immediately and the cat ran out. Overall, Sam is a great backyard adopted stray wild cat to have around.

Here's the problem. Sam is brave. Sam might possibly want to be an inside loved and cuddled house cat, which ain't gonna happen for many reasons. In his (her) bravery, he (she) runs in our garage as soon as the door opens. Very stealthfully (huh-that isn't a word). Twice now, Sam has spent the night in the garage. This is bad. Really, really bad. 1) I don't know how to and won't potty train a stray cat. 2) Sam is a stray cat that doesn't live in our house in any way. 3) Josh is allergic and I'd sure hate for him to have to give up lawn mowing and garage cleaning because of cat hair in the garage. Plus it makes Sophie even more cranky in the morning because s/he is even colder alone and misses her brother/sister.

So, all this to say, I need your help. I need some suggestions on how to keep the cat out of the garage. Most of the time he runs out scared when the door is going down, but twice now, he has not. And he is really sneaky about getting in. Do you know how may hiding places there are in our garage? Well, not enough room for a vehicle to hide, but plenty for a cold stray cat.

I welcome any suggestion that isn't telling me how to get dispose of cats or recipes for cats. I just wanna keep them out of my garage. I appreciate your help in this matter.

~Sarah

PS: I could also either a spay/neuter fund set up for us or the name of a really generous vet clinic who might help us keep from having lots of itty bitty kittys this spring.

Piper's first birthday (party)

Our baby turns 5 the day after Christmas, which is a pretty terrible birthday. Maybe not as bad as the day before, but pretty bad. We try to make it a special day for her by taking down all our Christmas decorations either Christmas night or the morning of the 26th. We also have a special birthday tree in her room with non-Christmas ornaments. She loves this tree so much and looks forward to decorating it like us non-christmas birthday people look forward to the Christmas tree.


Because of the timing, she has never had a friend party. (Not that B has had very many in her life either.) But we decided for the big 5 she should have one. And party we did! Piper invited her bestees from school and church for a Rock Star party. We bought blow up guitars and made a mixed tape for Piper and the Rockers to enjoy. We played a few games and had a ton of fun!! I think Piper felt it was worth the wait for her first birthday party. And I think it is worth the wait for another 5 years for a birthday party. :)

One happy birthday girl

Piper and the Rockers!!

the cake

Merry Christmas

Now these girls will make you smile!

I mentioned earlier that we let the girls do most of the decorating of the tree this year. I loved doing it together and them taking ownership of it really. Below is one of my favorite branches on our tree. Good thing I'm not "type A"! :)

Christmas lights

Last Monday night we started putting up our Christmas lights.


Josh got sick that night and we put everything on hold until he felt better. It took until Saturday before Josh felt 100% again. Saturday afternoon, we put up our tree and put a few other decorations out during the weekend.

I love decorating for Christmas. This year I really enjoyed telling the girls about the ornaments, where we got them, what we were doing, etc. They liked hearing about the ones we purchased on various vacations, ones family members bought them and on and on.

We are still not finished, and we still have Piper's Birthday Tree to put up, but that will happen through out the week.

Good bye, friend

On Thursday, we said good bye to our first family pet, Nemo. Our sweet friend, Molly, gave Bren a Betta fish for her 5th birthday, July 2008 and he lasted until December 2010. I feel that is a pretty good life for a Betta fish, but B was heartbroken. She sobbed on her bed for a long time, breaking all our hearts.

We had a little ceremony for him in the back yard. (Bren decided against flushing him.)

Bren wrote on a box "I will miss you, Nemo. Brenna"

Putting the box in the hole Daddy dug.

A moment of silence. (Bren didn't want her picture taken.)

He was a good fish and we will miss him. If anyone knows fish age, we'd like to know how old he was when he died. We are assuming he was about 2 1/2 human years when he died.