Enough Snow Already!

Lets see, this week was just another normal week, right? NOT! But it was filled with a lot of joy!

We had more snow, and more snow, and more snow! The picture of Meghan is with our tribute to the Eiffel tower, the closest we could get to a snowman. The snow on top was wet enough to pack, but everything under that was pure powder. One thing in abundance this week was community spirit. Most of the neighbors helped each other dig out after the repeated snow falls. The picture on the right was from today - Mark from the end of the street (his wife has my old job) using his tractor to help scoop snow, Mark and Jenna helping Mr. Holmes dig out. Randy also had a tractor out once in a while to dig out. Hamilton doesn't have anything capable of clearing heavy snow, so I wasn't expecting town assistance. Mayor Tim surprised me with a large backhoe with a blade that cleared the street with one trip down and back. Unfortunately, it pushed the snow across the driveways, so everyone was helping to dig out from that. It definitely helped make the street drivable again for the people without 4 wheel drive.

Jenna's birthday was relaxed - that's her licking the bowl. She wanted a confetti cake. The girl's had a great Christmas, opening everything in a very short period of time! Our neighbor joined us for Christmas dinner. We made it into Mount Vernon for speech Sat, snagged some after-holiday stuff at Home Depot and came home again. We've managed to get out every 3-4 days so the cabin fever isn't too bad. Mark officially has work tomorrow. They don't work if it snows, and he doesn't get paid if they don't work, so we're glad he's working again. It was nice to have him home though.

Winter Wonderland

Well, another 2 weeks have gone by, and I took almost 250 pictures in 14 days! That took a bit of sorting through! We went to the Lights of Christmas, Lucas' party at Jungle Playland, the kids played at Kendra's since they didn't have Christmas teas at school, Jenna's party at the Children's Museum and SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!!! We have had 4-5 times as much snow as we usually get all winter in just the past week, and they are still calling for more. Mark worked Tuesday last week, hasn't worked since - that's also the last day the kids had school! They're scheduled off this week anyway, but missed 4 out of 5 days the last week. Mark doesn't get paid if they don't work, so thank goodness he hadn't taken vacation yet - he's using that up, but it's only 8 hours instead of the usual 10-12 he normally works. The poor van gets unburied just to get covered again. We've had strong winds that created drifts, especially since it was so cold the snow is powder. The wood stove has been going constantly for almost 2 weeks - it's a balmy (if slightly staticy) 72-80 inside the house, while outside it's been into the single digits. The forecast is lower 40's around Christmas - then more snow! The top picture is Meghan trying to walk across the front yard - it's gotten deeper since then. Next is one of her rock star positions - she's really into air guitar. Jenna's pic is from her party (Thanks, Sue), blowing out candles that Mark eventually helped her with. It seems impossible that Jenna turns 4 tomorrow - they are both growing so quickly. I'm really trying to slow down and savor every moment with them. I especially love their laughter - it's the best thing in the world for anything that ails you!

Tis the Season

Well, the tree is up and decorated, the lights are up for outside, the boxes to be shipped are ready to go, and the Christmas cards are almost done! Now I get to get caught up on the chores which have not gotten done, and get ready for Jenna's birthday party.

The Boy Scout popcorn is pretty much over now (thank goodness!). I made the last trip to Everett to "close out" Thursday. As I'm going down the road, I can hear the window cracking! We had a nice circular crack from a rock hit, and it was really cold that morning - the thermal shock from cold outside and hot inside (Mark had turned on the defroster full blast for me) did it in. Fortunately it just split sideways, not enough to impair vision. We got it replaced on Friday. The picture of Jenna is from the 2 hours we spent at McDonald's waiting for the van. We did get a car to use, but I really didn't have many errands to run, and there they could play while I got things done, like cut apart all the school pictures!

The picture of Meghan is from today. We were watching Kung Fu Panda, and she decided to spear her french fries. She used a paint brush handle to do the spearing - I think it was a chop stick thing.

Time Flies Again

Children's Museum, drum room

So, another 2 weeks went by! We all had a stomach bug. Mark thinks it was some bananas I bought, so the remainder promptly got composted. He was the last afflicted, and less so than the rest of us. Meghan missed the 2 days of school she would have gone last week.

Thanksgiving was none eventful, since we all had tender bellies. I got a ham, since Mark gets a turkey for Christmas from the company - why buy one when I'll be getting one? I made a little stuffing, some potatoes from the garden, and that was it. Black Friday I went shopping, something I haven't done in a very, very long time. The girls came with me, and we all did very well! I got some great deals on clothing and coats, and the girls got stuffed puppies that they waited in line almost an hour to pay for! We hit 8 stops before Mark got off work and picked them up. Usually I have most of my shipping done by now, but I didn't this year. Now I am just a few things shy of shipping! We made a list of what to get people, and that made it a lot easier.

I took the girls to the Children's Museum one day, and their friends Carson and Evan came after a bit. They had so much fun playing there! Meghan's discovered the crane has a working microphone, so she loves to talk into the mic. I've book their party room for Jenna's birthday party the Sat before Christmas. The next day they were invited to a party at a place called Jungle Playland. The party was cancelled due to illness, but the girls stayed and played anyway. It has a huge play structure with 3 different slides, and a ball pit that you can send balls up to a barrel above the pit, and periodically it dumps the balls back down. Meghan and Jenna were literally swimming in the balls.

Some of the neighbors have lights up, and ours will probably go up this week. This Christmas season may actually be less busy than the months before it, which would be a nice change of pace so we can enjoy it.

Santa Sighting

We went to Sears Sunday for one of their "friends and family" nights - they have extra discounts, and the store is open later than normal. Mark took the girls to the "kids corner" they had set up - face painting (Meghan has a smiley face, Jenna a heart), some other things, and pictures with Santa. Last year we tried to get pictures at the hardware store in Woolley - Jenna was fine, but Meghan got scared when we wanted her to sit in his lap. We'd been talking about it lately, just to get her used to the idea for this year. We weren't expecting to have pictures taken, but what the heck! Apparently both girls had a blast. I was looking for something for Jenna to wear to have her school picture taken today, but didn't find anything better than what was already in her closet. I gave her 4 choices this morning - she picked the black velveteen dress. Her pictures are going to be so cute! I went to help her teacher since I knew it would be a little more crazy than normal, so I got to see them take her picture. She's such a ham!

Other things that happened this week - Tuesday was council night; the latest flood watch was in effect, everyone was preparing for a possible evacuation! I went to Everett Wed to get popcorn from the BSA office that would be needed Thursday, Thursday we sorted and delivered $25k of popcorn in 4.5 hours (while the river crested about 10 feet below the level of the warehouse)- I had help doing the deliveries this year, and it went great! I took both the girls out of school early since we couldn't get them at normal times, and they helped cart the smaller boxes around. Friday I kept Meghan home since she's got a cold, didn't get much sleep; Jasmine from down the street came for the afternoon so they could get wood in. Meghan's school was having a movie night - Kung Foo Panda, which the girls have wanted to see - but we didn't go since Meghan wasn't feeling so hot (so we bought it Sat, watched it at dinner - it's pretty good). Sat we went to speech, ran around dropping off more popcorn (the council had made our order short, so they had 6 cases of popping corn shipped to our house!), and stopped at a flooring store that was having a grand opening sale - ended up coming home with the laminate to do the living room! So there goes another room of icky grey carpet! I also moved my craft desk out to the living room, so we have room to open the wall and fix the leaky pipe in our shower, and replace some drywall under the window that I got wet watering seedlings. It's not ideal having it out where the kids can get to my stuff, but it may help me get more done in the evenings instead of spending all my time on the computer!

Other than dealing with some last popcorn issues (another trip to Everett tomorrow), this week should be fairly quiet! Hah! Meghan's still not 100% from the cold, and Jenna now has it - she coughed half of last night, still coughing tonight. It's just a question of when for me to get it, Mark has a scratchy throat already (he's lucky; 2-3 days of sore throat, a couple of coughs, some NyQuil and he's fine!). But there again, that's normal for us, so it's what we're used to!

Was it really my birthday?

It's been another busy week, and this one looks almost as bad! Tuesday we got the girls off to school and headed south to get firewood (our main/only source of heat is our wood stove). You see, the Dept of Natural Resources hands out firewood permits occasionally. We've been trying to snag one, but they didn't have any. Finally, they said,"Come on Monday." I showed up at 10am and snagged the very last one. The bad part is it is outside of Monroe, 1.5 hours away. Mark made a trip by himself, to see what kind and where it was. We rented a trailer Tuesday, thinking we could haul home a lot of wood. We ran out of time, since we needed to be back in time to get the girls off of buses. I called a friend to get Jenna, since we wouldn't make it in time for her. That also gave us time to stop and have lunch! So, pick up Jenna, go home and unload and split and stack what we got (big logs!), and return the trailer to Mount Vernon. Then we went to Sears and got the camera I've been drooling over for a few months - a Canon A590. We stopped at Fred Meyer to get dinner, and cupcakes and ice cream for dessert. What a day!

Wednesday was calm, a nice change from the day before. Thursday Mark and I went to breakfast after the girls went to school. Then I had dinner with Sue and Kendra - we were there for 2 hours, talking about all kinds of stuff! Friday was parent class, a meeting with Kay to discuss problems with Meghan's afternoon class, and Jenna's IEP meeting. Saturday Meghan was assessed for speech therapy before Jenna's session - the kid who was coming in before Jenna stopped, so we can slide Meghan in that slot, have the session's back-to-back. I'm confident that private speech will help Meghan much more than the school district is doing.

Today all of us went for firewood. We loaded the truck, which handled better than Mark thought it would. The girls had fun helping roll the pieces down the hill to the truck, and just being outside. We thought it would take another trip to finish filling our woodpile, but we can't fit another row on the pallet, so we're done! Our woodpile is up on pallets, it's 2 pallets wide, 1 pallet high and 4 pallets long - about 3.5 cord total. We've never used it all in one winter, so we alternate which end we take it from every year to make sure it doesn't sit forever. The picture of the rainbow is just one of about six we saw on the way home!

The preview for this week is council meeting, law and justice council meeting, $25k of popcorn to sort and deliver, PDA town meeting, and Kung Fu Panda movie night at Meghan's school. At least some of it is fun!

The pictures are from the new camera - they are probably much bigger in file size. If you have trouble seeing them, let me know, and if enough people have problems I'll save them as smaller files before uploading them.

Post-Halloween Crash

It's funny face season!

The one thing I didn't get for Halloween is a shot of the girls dressed up as pirates! So I'm going to wait til the clothes make it through the wash and then we'll dress up again!

Halloween is crazy for us - I made 3 pinatas, one for each girl's teacher and one for us. We had a party Thur afternoon with 11 kids and 7 adults! It rained a little, but the kids didn't care, played outside if they wanted. We made necklaces, had coloring pages, eat goodies and broke the pinata. Most of the families were here for about 2.5 hours - all in all, very good! All but 1 of the kids (and he's older -10) went/is going to Good Beginnings. Jesse, the older one, got to keep the pinata - it looks like an alien chicken. He's creative enough to create a body to go with it!

We've had lost going on these last 2 weeks - new mattress for Jenna, new love seat in Meghan's room, teacher conferences (I could/might write a whole post about that!), flu shots (they were troopers!), popcorn orders and of course Halloween!

Swimming

This week, I volunteered in the classrooms Tuesday, had Hamilton that night, Wed I went to Friday Harbor to meet Robin Atkins, bead artist and author, Thur night was open house at Jenna's school and Sat all of us went swimming in the afternoon. Swimming was a blast - we were there for 2.5 hours, and by the end of that time Jenna was starting to swim without her life jacket! Usually the girls are decked out in life jackets, arm bands and one of them (usually Meghan) has an inflatable ring. Jenna usually gets cold after an hour (she did this time too), and doesn't want to put everything back on to get into the water again. She dunked her head a couple times, and decided to put the arm bands on, and then realized she could maneuver very well in the water like that. She didn't get cold again, she was swimming too much! It was the first time that Mark got to come swimming with us, and everyone had a blast!

Another Crazy Week

Mom and Dad Snyder left Tuesday, the same night I had a government meeting in Burlington. Wed was another Hamilton meeting, in town. Friday was parent meeting, dentist visits, deliver some popcorn, get really sick. Sat was try to recover while Mark took the girls to town for speech, etc. Now Meghan's sick. It's some viral bug, a mild sore throat, groggy like a cold's coming, then WHAM - fever that can't be controlled, minor nausea, mental fog, very sleepy - takes a few days to get over it - Meghan will not be going to school tomorrow (she actually threw up - a rarity for her, and the only one of us that did that). Meghan's picture was taken today - she's flushed. Jenna had been oddly quiet during dinner Tuesday, and slept most of Wed after school - she had this first.

The whole dentist thing went well - it was Jenna's first, and Meghan's second (first was bad, really bad). I took them to the only pediatric dentist office in the area, covered by insurance. They were great! The girls got to go in the room together, watch each other and then got balloons when they were done. Jenna had a fun time, went first, and Meghan quickly decided it was going to be fun. They managed to get x-rays of Meghan's front top and bottom teeth, she gagged on the side one so they'll try that next time. The hygienist told me about Meghan's special tongue - I had no idea she is officially "tongue-tied". The tissue connecting her tongue to the bottom of her mouth is short - she can't stick out her tongue past her lip. Apparently they can do some procedure to correct it when she's older. She can't curl her tongue around to fish things out from her teeth.

Puddles!

This week Mark's folks are here, so we're having fun going places. The first picture is Jenna with an outfit she put together - skirt, dress, jacket, and swimming goggles, which are fogging up as she wore them - it was warm that day, but she wanted the jacket any way. We went to a Boy Scout camp Sat, walked around and the girls loved playing in the puddles, as usual! And of course, the girls still love their baths!

Where Did the Week Go?

This evening Mark fixed the brakes on the tractor, so he took the girls for a ride to test them out - they always love that!

This is Jenna after eating blackberries while we waited for Meghan's bus! She still wants to eat more, but the vines are pretty much done.

This week Wed and Thur I was dealing with Boy Scout popcorn all day. Sat we went to Burlington's pumpkin pitch - teams build trebuchets, medieval catapults, and throw pumpkins. Burlington has had to change from going for distance to accuracy, the larger ones are starting to hit houses! This year they landed one right in front of the cart the surveyors (they measure the distance from the targets) were in! Next Sat is a pumpkin pitch in Snohomish - that's where they'll go for distance. We've seen one of them break the world record in Burlington!

Oh, and currently I'm the acting Mayor - Tim left town, didn't tell anyone, so I have no idea when he'll be back, and I'm mayor pro tem - therefore, I'm in charge! Yikes! Thank goodness I have some great people on council with me.

Jenna starts school, kittens

Jenna and I had to hurry to catch her first bus, so this is the picture I snapped as we went. She loves school so much! When she realized there wasn't a bus for her on Friday, while Meghan was at school, she cried. She was so psyched to go today. "Bus" is a fairly clear word for her!
We're officially trying to find homes for the kittens. I put up a flyer at the pet store, and posted them on Craig's list. We haven't seen momma cat for a couple weeks. They are (in order) Joey, Shadow and Tortie (or Lito). Shadow has moire lines in her black, very subtle.

Meghan's First Day

Meghan and I went to orientation Monday, and she started school Tuesday. She has school 8:30-11:00 and 12:00 to 2:30 - an hour to eat and play! Tomorrow she rides the bus for the first time this year - she'll be with all the Evergreen kids - up to 6th grade. She gets on about 7:15. Jenna starts Wed this week, just get on the bus and go - she knows where she's going. Jenna led Mark to Meghan's classroom Thur when he took her - it's a maze to get back there. I'm looking forward to having some time to actually clean the house!

Meghan's school collects box tops for a fundraiser, so if anyone wants to send'em this way, go for it. They also can get points from Target credit cards, Haggen grocery stores and searchandgive.com (?)

We have our Halloween costumes almost done - we're pirates this year, so I went to a thrift store and got white shirts, vests, jackets for Meghan and me, pirate hats, belts, a cool orange batik scarf for Jenna's head. I have burgundy fabric to make sashes, and all of this will last for some time, so lots of pirate play will be had - Aaarghh! I got out the Halloween stuff today - they were playing with gloves, cat's ears, funny glasses, butterfly wings, wigs. Meghan was bending the wings around her to be a caterpillar in a chrysalis! Now to get cracking on 3 pinatas!

Busy Week!

This week was busy! Wed we had a meeting with Jenna's teacher for the annual paperwork and then the girls got their first professional haircuts. Thur we went to a birthday party, Fri we went for a pony ride! This week will be just as busy, with Meghan having KG orientation tomorrow, first day of school Tues and council, girls night out for me Thur.

The haircuts went really well. I was worried they wouldn't sit still, but they did great. Meghan's hair is slightly layered to help bring out her curl, and we are going to try and grow out some of Jenna's bangs. Yes, Jenna has a band aid on her face. She has a little cut that she keeps picking at since it's right where her finger is when she sucks her fingers. I keep trimming her nails, and it's almost healed now.

The pony ride was something I really wanted to do with the girls, and since most of the kids are all back in school, it was perfect timing. We went with Sue and Carson, and each adult led a pony. Meghan rode Huckleberry and Jenna had Princess Amy. Meghan grinned like a Cheshire cat the whole time. Jenna was apprehensive sometimes, but Tiger helped her get through it. A guide took us on the trail in the woods for a 30 minute ride. The kids didn't want to leave when we were done!

Mommy's Day Off

We went swimming again Wednesday with Sue and Carson. Meghan and Jenna are both starting to feel more comfortable in the water. Sat. I went with Sue to Guemes Island. She had a craft show there and since she hurt her back, I went to do the grunt work. I got to sit in a corner and do beadwork, read a book, sit in the sun outside (it rained at home, but not there!) and enjoy some alone time. I may help her at a show on Lopez Island in Nov. We have a meeting this week for Jenna's school, and Meghan starts next week - orientation Monday, class Tuesday. Jenna starts on the 17th. I'll be sorry to see the relaxed schedule of summer leave.

The Beach

We didn't do much this week, recooperated from being sick. Sat we went to Camano Beach, a new place for us. Most of it is really rocky, but we found a place with smaller pebbles and some sand to play in. Mark and Meghan went for a walk while Jenna and I walked in the water. The girls and Mark dug a hole, Meghan planted "seeds" and they filled in the hole, Meghan tamping it down when it was done. Both girls seem to think the proper way to dig is to throw what's on the shovel over their head.

The other picture is Jenna stirring walnut shell soup. Meghan wanted pretend eggs, but was upset when the walnuts wouldn't crack. I shelled some, and she made soup. She didn't want rocks, so I was trying to come up with something that I wouldn't care if it got wet.

I got a new rock tumbler at a yard sale. It's actually a really good one, and bigger than the other one that stopped working rather quickly, and there was no way to open it up (this one can be). Everything I had to be tumbled is currently in it, fairly quietly grinding away. Aunt Jan sent me a bag of stuff, and it's all in there (aside from the glass leaf bead that was in there too). It sounds like the washer's running when you walk in the bedroom - the tumbler is in our bathroom - that's how quiet it is, fully loaded with coarse rocks!

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Swimming!

Wednesday we went swimming at the KOA campground with Sue and Carson. Carson swims well, having spent 2 weeks in his aunt's pool in Tennesee. Meghan and Jenna haven't really been in a pool before to swim. We loaded them up with their life jackets, and Meghan wanted to little inflated ring, and arm bands. With all that bouyancy, she floated like a bobber. She's learning to kick, and to paddle with her arms. She went all over the pool, saying "Excuse me please" to people in her way. Once she got the hang of it, she swam for over an hour. Jenna had fun with Sue, while I was swimming next to Meghan. Sue took Jenna for swims on her back, and she's definitely comfortable in the water. I need to get some more inflatable stuff! Jenna got cold after a while, so she would watch from the bench wrapped in a towel until she got warmed up enough to come back in. We were there for 2 hours, and the girls had a blast. Then we all went to Friday Creek for lunch and splashed around the creek. Meghan still won't walk in the water, but Jenna goes in and soaks her clothes without a thought! The pictures of the girls swimming reflected the flash in their fogged-up goggles (Meghan had a mask).

Saturday we were going to go somewhere, but Mark kept falling asleep, and then Meghan got sick. Jenna soon followed. My bug waited until evening to show up. So Sunday was spent watching TV in bed for everyone. Not a fun way to spend a weekend, but now we are recooperating.

Kittens and Bikes

These are the kittens living on our porch. One grey tabby, one black, one tortoiseshell. The black one has ghost black stripes, I call her Shadow. The tortoiseshell looks like her Mommy, we call the mom Pudding (choc and butterscotch swirl). Both of them have that color split down the face. The grey tabby is a boy, and likes to bully the girls, who don't take it. Still looking for homes.

Wed Carson and Sue came over to make sock puppets. The girls played hard, and later Jenna conked out mid-snack - that's a carrot under her cheek. Meghan shows off her smile.

The girls went riding this evening, so I got some action shots. Jenna comes barreling down the street, pedalling like mad, Meghan tends to be more sedate, but she is improving greatly in balance and strength.