Crockpot Crayons

I have become a huge fan of this website

www.crockpot365.blogspot.com

This lady decided that she was going to use her crockpot every day of 2008 and blogged her efforts. It has lots of great recipes that I am slowly trying. One of our friends up in WI also uses this website a lot and on her blog (The Cullen Family), they tried making the crayons. It looked pretty easy and since we have a box full of crayon nubs, we gave it a try.

The girls had to break the bigger pieces into smaller pieces so they would melt faster. Some of the fat crayons took a lot of muscle to break.We sorted the crayons by color and turned the crockpot on high for about 1.5 hours.
The somewhat melted crayons. This experiment is best done when the crayons are one step away from the trashcan. When you melt the generic crayons, the filler wax floats to the top and you get a frosting effect. It wasn't enough of a hinderence to prevent the kids from playing with them. But they are kind of crumbly, and will probably find their way to the trashcan when the kids are gone next week. ("I don't know what happened to your crayons....") It was a fun experiment that cleaned out the art box and gave them something to do while I was making lunches.

No more babies in this house

We knew this day has been coming for a while. Last night at dinner, Annalise crawled up into Jim's lap and said "Daddy, can I PLEASE have a big girl bed?" We have been talking about it and started looking for mattresses about a week ago. This morning, we were out at the library and had to run to the bank. On the way home from the bank, I stopped at a mattress store on a whim. Turns out, they are going out of business and had slashed their prices. I bought Annalise a big girl bed today and Jim picked it up when he got home from work.

After lunch, Annalise took one last nap in her baby bed. She wasn't really out growing it and she wasn't crawling out. It was just time and she was ready. I worry that this may be her last nap ever because when Evie got out of the crib, she quit napping. We will see.

Here's the sleeping beauty waking up from nap.
The last time we will see Annalise though bars...we hope.

She was still a little groggy.

But then she woke up and remembered that she was getting a big bed!

We never even lowered the mattress to the lowest point and she never crawled out.

Here's the new mattress. Jim brought it upstairs and the first thing they did was jump on it. We had to put a stop to that right away. Jumping on the bed is only ok at hotels.

And then we put the Dora Sheets and a new blanket on and she was ready to go. When she went to bed for the night, she layered her blankie, sheet, blue blanket, flower blanket, and doggie blanket. She is going to be a hot kid, but hopefully all that weight keeps her in bed. So far so good. We did hear her talking to herself after bedtime saying "it's not nighttime. It's still light out. It's just rest time." It's going to be a hard summer.

What a big girl! Not a baby anymore. The crib got listed on Craigslist after mom shed a few tears of no more baby. On the plus side, that means fewer and fewer nights of interrupted sleep!

The Show

Angelina Ballerina came into our lives over the winter. It started innocently enough with some books from the library. Even though there are a million different titles in the Angelina series, they all seem to follow the same basic story line: Angelina loves ballet. Angelina encounters some sort of conflict and collapses into a pile of tears. Angelina then stars in the show and is praised for her skill.

The show in Angelina books can be the town New Year's Eve party, the school show or a performance at the Mouseland palace (did I forget to mention that Angelina is a mouse?). So now, Evie and Annalise are all into Angelina, ballet, and "shows".

This show is called the fairy island Ballet. Enjoy. If you come to our house, there is a good chance that you will get a "show".

Wildlife

Armed with SPF 50, the kids spent the weekend outside.

They mostly hung around.

Spring has Sprung

I returned from the cruise and all the crocuses had started to bloom. Shortly after, Annalise picked me a lovely bouquet. here are some that survived the 2 year old's harvest.

It was a gorgeous weekend here. Despite the fact that it was the opening weekend of the Mens' NCAA tourney, we spent some time outside. But wait, before I start getting in trouble with Uncle Brandon about being outside, I did manage to log no less than 16 hours of basketball before I caved into the great outdoors and the 65 degree temps.

One of our projects this spring is to put in a raised bed garden. Uncle Kevin put one in last fall and we were inspired. We have discussed and planned for several weeks. Finally, the weather and our schedules agreed and we (well, Jim mostly) got to work. Our bed is inspired by Uncle Kevin's except ours probably isn't tornado rated.

Evie and Jim level the first timbers on a bed of 2 inches of gravel. We decided that if Roger Cook from the This Old House hour was here, there would have been power equipment (maybe a bobcat) and it would have been done in 10 minutes because of the magic of TV.

Jim pounds the rebar in for stability. Evie looks on. Annalise is lying in a lump somewhere. She had a tough day. Woke up thristy and then puked everywhere (we think she was trying to get out of church). She also had problems at the other end all day too. The poor kid spent so much time in the bathroom because we were pumping her full of fluids. To her credit, she didn't have one single accident. By bedtime, she did finally eat some yogart. We hope that tomorrow is better.

Here is the progress. We are the proud owners of a large wood rectangle. The girls were pretending it was a pool (no way!). Now we are waiting for the grass to die (Thanks Monsanto and your miracle vegetation killer) and for the dirt to be shoveled in. Maybe we will have something planted shortly after Easter! Yeah! Now Jim can get working on that leaf blower....

update

Aunt Becky was out of town and busy. And she must be particularly cheerful as of late because it was only today, Thursday, that she asked for a blog update. Well, it has been over a week so I guess we were due. In my defense, I was gone over the weekend and it has been nice outside, so I haven't been too up on the blog. By the way, it's March Madness this weekend. So don't expect any pictures to be taken or blogs to be updated. I have some basketball to watch. Does anyone know how I can get the CBS basketball ringtone on my phone??

Jim kept the kiddos busy making signs for mom.
Evie was invited to a princess birthday party. Annalise couldn't understand why she didn't get to go even though she got all dressed up too.

Our little princess of the kingdom of Shlee.

We had a nice rain shower on Wed so they wanted to get out their boots and umbrellas and stomp in the puddles.

They mostly stayed dry, but only lasted outside for about 15 minutes.

Now, I have to get back to the basketball. Unfortunately, I was banking on the Butler Bulldogs to be the Cinderella of the Tourney and they lost. My bracket is Busted. I can only hope that someone beats North Carolina.

Pretty Ladies Cruise

No matter where you live, winter can get long and dreary. Some of my dear friends from MN decided that it was high time we all got out of the north and found some sun at sea. Kym, me, Rebecca and Erin in Port of Miami getting ready to set sail. Here's something funny. It was cloudy most of the time, we were outside for about 45 minutes of sun and I managed to get a farmer's sunburn on one arm. It looked particulary wonderful with my strappy sundress.
We docked in Nassau, Bahamas for a day with about 8000 of our closest friends.

Pretty ladies on the beach. We received the "pretty Ladies" nickname on our first cruise together when we were shopping and people would try to get you to buy something. It actually worked once on this trip when someone called me pretty lady and I was suckered into buying a fake Coach wallet. I call it my Couch.

On the second full day, we tendered into the cruise line's private island. Here's our hotel on the ocean.

We shared the beach,which was nice,warm, sandy and clear with about 1000 people. It really didn't bother us much and provided a lot of interesting people watching.


When we got back on the ship that evening, the captain announced that we would be having a nice clear evening as we headed back to FL. And, as an unexpected extra bonus, we would be able to see the Space Shuttle launch that evening. So, all the nerds gathered up on deck to see it take off.

See that little streak? That's the space shuttle. All my life, it was something I wanted to see. And now I can cross that off the list. We could even see the solid rocket boosters blow off the sides (with a little flash in the sky). Despite the fact that we were probably 100 miles away, everyone watching applauded and cheered when it took off.

It was a great cruise and fun to catch up with all my friends. Perhaps the best part was coming home to a clean house and clean kids. What a treat.

Our weekend.

We went to Ohio this past weekend. Mostly to eat the greatest fish fry on the planet--Archbold K of C. You heard it here first. Get there early on Friday. There's going to be a line, and it's worth it.

When we weren't gorging ourselves on fish, we spent some time with the extended family. On Saturday, we all went over to the Seibert construction zone (check the Seibert Family blog) for playing with the cousins. Even the Turners came to Ohio--but missed the fish fry--to hang out and celebrate birthdays.The girls spent a good hour making a sleeping nest in Natalie's fort.
Natalie and Annalise, and a furry friend, take a "nap"

Meanwhile, I grabbed all the babies that wouldn't run away from me. My sweet baby neices, Tessa and June. I even got to hold Tessa during church and she fell asleep in my arms--too bad Aunt Becky was too busy wrestling June. I had to keep her all to myself. Darn.

June has discovered the joys of walking. She spent most of Saturday afternoon walking around with this walker thing. She was pretty pleased with herself and pretty tired by the end of the night.

Here's all the kids with Great Grandma Wagner. Well, all of the kids, and half of Tessa's head.

We stopped in Hicksville on the way home to visit some friends and left town before the tornados hit. Annalise was so exhausted that she folded her hands and fell asleep before Harlan.

Doesn't look very comfortable.

Back at home, the goofball show was in full force.

Later, Daddy asked her to help clean up the toys and books. This was her response:

Something tells me we are going to have a very uncooperative teenage someday.

Jim is 34!

Saturday was JIm's birthday. He awoke to a fancy pancake breakfast complete with custom pancakes. Well, we let him eat other pancakes too.
Annalise reserected the doggie jammers one last time. The are getting so small, you can hardly button them. Here she is doing her best pirate face.We took dad to swimming lessons. His present was that mom went into the pool and he didn't have to take the girls into the family dressing room.

Jim's company had a winter skating party down town at the Pan Am Plaza (home of the 1987 Pan Am games--it's looking a little rough 22 years later)

Everyone got out on the ice. Evie is moving so fast you can hardly see her.

A couple of times around the rink, she started to get the hang of it. She did have her share of spills and her pants were completely wet by the end of the hour that we skated.

The whole family out on the ice. People who haven't been on skates in13 years probably shouldn't be skating with a 2 year old, but more on that later.

The "rink monitor" was impressed by Annalise's skill.

Mom and Dad take a spin without the kids. We were there a whole hour before we had to pack it up and go home. Evie took a spill that resulted on a big knot on the back of her head. Annalise and I were skating "pairs". She started to get tired and her skate tangled with mine and we fell (that cost us the gold). I landed squarely on my elbow. It must of looked pretty bad because a 10 year old hockey player skated up and asked if I needed help off the ice. I managed to get us off, but my elbow was killing me. We headed home and then to the ER per Grandma Taller's advice. Fortunately, nothing was broken, just badly bruised. The ER nurse said that Old People, such as myself, should stay off the ice. That hurt more than anything.

They sent me home in a sling and an RX for some pain killers. I'm doing much better today, but if I use it too much, it starts to hurt. So after this post, I'm icing my elbow again.

Also wanted to say a quick Thanks for the Body experiments from Uncle Jeff. Both girls love it and Annalise also has fun identifing body parts.