Random Fun...

Assorted fun from the last two weeks...

Play rehearsal...

Just having fun...

Dane passed out from exhaustion...

Google created a panorama from a series of pictures I took... Apparently we have more than 1 Dane around here...

Working Together...

Often Gavin and Dane come up with games and stories to play and act out. I enjoy listening to the stories they come up with as they play so sweetly (because it often eventually ends up as we type of crazy, running through the house and/or wrestling match at some point with at least one, if not both of them hurt). This morning they set their bean bag chairs up, grabbed a few toys and were playing by the front door. After a while it turned into Gavin making a TV and remote out of paper, so they could relax and then take a nap as part of their pretend world. It was very cute and always a nice reminder that they do generally like each other despite the sibling bickering that can drive anyone to madness!

Goofball Dane!

Dane keeps us entertained and laughing. He has lots of crazy faces, stories, and jokes to tell. He loves to pose for pictures. Our goofball for sure!

Brotherly Love...

Dane needed a nap but didn't want to stop playing because he was enjoying Gavin being home from school for the second day, so Gavin said that he would go in and get Dane down for a nap. It was sweet to see them laying in bed together. Gavin told him a story and then just snuggled with him for a bit.

It was a sweet thought and nice attempt by Gavin. Dane didn't end up napping but did rest for a bit in his room and was in a better mood after. A good thing for sure.

Blizzard 2017!

Last year we had hardly any snow, even though we had a late in season (early spring) snow that killed lots of flowers and the flowers on lots of trees. This year we haven't had much more, the two snow days and few delays used were over very small amounts of snow because it was more the timing that made bus transportation dangerous more than the amount of precipitation. Now that is no longer the case. After basically every other big storm missing us the last two years we were right in the middle of the blizzard. It was fun to have snowed in, Gavin enjoyed having two days off. Even though the snow ended yesterday, two feet of snow was too much for them to manage to clean up enough to have school today. We enjoyed several trips out to play before the snow had actually accumulated to two feet. We had fun playing and helping Scott as he ran the snow blower. The kids were thrilled to come in and warm up with hot chocolate. It was fun, until the reality of how long it will take two feet of snow to melt (and that you don't want it to melt too quickly or everyone will end up with flooding issues, even those of us that don't usually have flooding issues) and how the end of winter was in sight and now who knows when it might warm up and everything might continue to grow. The trees were already budding, flowers starting to grow, and the grass was looking more green and less dull.

Hopefully, it won't take too long for spring to show up, since the first day of spring is next week, but who knows. Until then, it was fun to be snowed in and we are grateful that we didn't lose power. 

Morning Fun!

Gavin and Dane often spend the morning before Gavin goes to school playing, sometimes nicely, sometimes bickering. This morning they were playing somsweetly with am assortment of toys Dane had been collecting and storing in his room because they were special. I love when our days start this way!

How is this Kindergarten?

I am constantly amazed at then work Gavin does at school and how much he has grown and learned since September. I knew that the requirements were much higher than they used to be and that they are now expected to be reading when they are leaving kindergarten but I guess I am shocked they Gavin has been reading for a couple months now and clearly advancing in the level of his ability. The higher expectations were one of the ma y reasons we decided it was best to not enroll him until the year it was required (the year he turned 6 before the December 1st cutoff). I was also not prepared for how advanced his writing would also be, he apparently loves the writing center in class and spends a lot of now free time there writing new stories and drawing illustrations. The packet we got before Thanksgiving was impressive to me because they don't receive help, they are expected to use the various site word boards in the class, their abilities to sound out words, and their journal pages for help. The stories he brings home now are multiple pages and sentences. The makes sense they would be developing writing skills as their reading skills improve but it is still amazing to me that Gavin now spends time wanting to sit at home reading and writing on his own. He still loves to run around playing, riding his bike, and all the fun parts of being a kid but he now has an appreciation of sitting in his room or even outside when it is nice and writing and reading. That is amazing and certainly not something I was prepared for! I very much enjoy the stories he brings home and while he is still working on spelling, it is often fairly easy to read because he is using the sounds he hears in the words to spell them. Today he brought home a stack of writing from February and I found this sweet story about his friends coming over to play a few weeks ago. He was so excited because we had not seen them in months. Between Gavin's school schedule and their schedule it just hadn't worked out. It was such a huge thing and they had so much fun! When he went back to school the next week, he wrote about it. Such a fun way for both him and us to remember the important moments of his first year in grade school!

My Helper...

Dane was helping me start dinner and make some granola. He loves to help and taste everything. He loves the finished granola so I let him try the ingredients as we put them in (oatmeal, coconut, nuts, honey, coconut oil). I know he loves all sorts of nuts so no surprise there, but he had not previous tried coconut not mixed in something, he loved it. He has had honey as well and insisted on trying the coconut oil. I gave him a little on a spoon and figured he would ask to spit it out. I was shocked when he swallowed it and calmly said he didn't really like it. He then wanted to kick the spoon we used to mix the granola. He carefully licked it all, then asked for more. Crazy kid. I am grateful for how much he likes food though, it is nice to have one child that isn't crazy picky about food!

Why is it Always Water?!?!

Another exciting weekend with crazy water issues. It seems ridiculous that this is the third major water issue in the basement in 6 years. While I am glad we have not gutted the basement yet, I am not sure I want to because it feels like it would be a ticking time bomb before something else happens! We don't have what I consider normal basement flooding issues either, we don't have issue switch water flooding because if rain/snow/nature issues. We have issues like the main water line to the hour breaking under the concrete basement floor, or the septic tank being directly connected to the toilet downstairs and since it had never previously been pumped/tended to (had nomidea it needed to be), we didnt know every time we used the tub upstairs it was draining out of the toilet downstairs because the tank was blocked (gross), or when pipes from the kitchen sink are leaking into the basement bathroom. I am sure other people have water issues but it just seems like we have outnof the ordinary types of water flooding our basement.

The sentiment water filter that is in our laundry room cracked and was spraying water everywhere. It couldn't have been going for more than 5-15 minutes. I had been downstairs not long before and there was no issue. I am glad we were home and I heard the sound of what I thought was the washer filing but that was odd since I hadn't put any laundry in. I asked Scott and he said he hadn't, so we went down to investigate and found lots of water. Flooded the laundry room, into the entryway, in the main room, the bathroom was flooded and the whole wall from the laundry dry room to the bathroom was flooded. It was pushing into the room as we quickly worked to clean it up. Scott was able to shut the main water off to the house immediately and we grabbed the two shop vacs, emptied them and pulled the filters out. We each took one and tried to get the water up as fast as we could. Even with two of us it still took hours to get it cleaned, Scott had to get a new filter and do some plumbing, his least favorite job around the house, and I tried to prevent he water from damaging anything else we had stored downstairs.

Thankfully the kids played fairly well upstairs and the only trouble they found was getting into the last of the brownies. Unfortunately, Scott had a lot of work ahead of him upstairs as well because before the water issue he had pulled apart the whole entertainment center to clean up the cords, equipment, etc. Since we got the new TV a couple weeks ago, he has been wanting to clean it all up now that far fewer cords are needed, and we had managed to get the TV fully anchored finally, so he still had more cleaned and setting up before he was done for the night.


So, now we have fans set up to finish drying out the basement. I am hoping a couple of warmish days pan out to air out the basement as it dries, and I need to get our carpet cleaner in to be fixed so I can scrub the carpets and hope that it helps to be sure they are as clean as they can be under the circumstances. We also called the plumber because we want to have him come look at Scott's filter job to be sure it is ok and to get some information and advice on our plans for the basement. So, we will wait and see what the plumber says, we are not ready to tackle our plans for remodeling the basement yet, but we also need to be sure that once we do, water will not be an issue and the basement won't flood again!

Signs of a Delicious Muffin....

Both kids go crazy over these muffins and I don't feel bad at all since it is healthy as far as muffins go... Wheat flour, bananas, honey, coconut oil, and a little cocoa powder.