Still Snowy

The sun is back out!  In fact, my face got sunburned yesterday while I was out shoveling snow off the driveway!  And the wind, too (boooo)  Although it's still super cold outside, a lot of our 20+ inches of snow has melted and the roads are mostly dry. but let's be honest here, I really haven't left the house in days, so I have no idea what the roads look like outside our culdesac.

We have little A with us today and she is an outside kind of girl.  She gets all giggly and pumps her legs at the sight of the door opening, and she spends a lot of her time here holding herself up by a window and looking outside.  So, today I busted out Jayden's old fleece camo onesie, complete with foot and hand coverings (so much easier than fighting gloves, removable hats, and getting this girls feet in shoes!) and we headed outside.  Jayden and Willow both took turns pushing A up and down the street in our car.

But don't worry, there is still lots of snow to play in - granted it's kind of crunchy, icy snow now, but still snow!
Jayden's fort has melted quite a bit.

But there are other piles to go jumping in!

Snow Days

We've finally had an awesome snow storm!  And it's even more awesome that there has been hardly any wind!  Usually it snows and the wind blows it down the street before it has a chance to collect anywhere, leaving nothing but icy roads and disappointed kids.

Yesterday, it started snowing around 8am and didn't stop all day.  Jayden was so excited to get out in it!  He was running around, jumping, and throwing himself down in the snow.

 Then he started getting brave.  And this :

usually ended in this :

He built me a snowman.

And even started shoveling the walkway, all his own idea, I swear!  I have the best son ever!

Willow refused to go outside, because it required way too many clothes.  "I have to wear gloves????? I'm not doing it".  And she pranced around inside wearing swim caps, and capri pants, and short sleeve shirts.  She tried to get a bathing suit on, but I put the kabosh on that!  Once Royal got home, I told her we were all going outside and she was going to have to stay inside by herself if she wouldn't get her snow clothes on.  She still refused, until we told her that her best friend, Emery, was outside.  "Oh Emery?  Ok!  Hurry Up! I need gloves!"

It continued to snow all night.  We even had a thunder and lightning storm while it was snowing in the middle of the night, otherwise known as Thunder Snow.  Totally cool.

This morning, we woke up to about a foot of snow and it still snowing outside.  While everyone else in the district got a snow day, we did a couple hours of school before we went outside and played and shoveled off the driveway.
Willow and Emery were too exhausted from trying to walk in the deep snow, they laid down in some tire tracks in the middle of the street!

And since Kansas is so flat, we built our own hills for the kids to sled down.

Our neighbors built a ramp right down their front steps.

We had so much snow in the backyard, the swings sat right on top of it.

For being a German dog, Sam really wasn't a fan of the snow.  He pretty much tried to stay out of the deep stuff, and he's pretty much refusing to go to the bathroom unless it is absolutely necessary.

School has already been cancelled for tomorrow, and WSU's campus is closed as well, which means Royal gets to stay home one more day and make it a 4 day weekend! 

Heart Paintings

Royal has mentioned to Jayden and few times that he needs some updated Jayden-art in his office.  I happened to have a couple smaller canvases in my art stash, so we decided to paint Royal his Valentine present.

I painted big red hearts on the canvases and told them they could do whatever they wanted.  Paint over them, paint around them, paint in them.

And they did!

Willow loves paint.  Loves it.  She didn't dip her paintbrush in paint, she uses it to scoop it up and put it on the canvas.  Hers is very textured and layered.  :)

In the end, Willow had me repaint the red heart over her finished painting because her's had "somehow disappeared".

Jayden and A

Jayden seems to have another girlfriend.  We watch a little girl, A, about once a week, while her mamma works.  Little A is a bit of a turkey.  She is stubborn, knows exactly what she likes and doesn't like and will let me know when I'm not doing what she wants, and is not very free with her smiles and laughs, most of the time she is looking at me like 'You are NOT my mother!'  (Unless Royal is around, and then I'm her most favorite person!) 
However, she LOVES Jayden.  From the very beginning, she has followed Jayden with her eyes.  Then once she got mobile, she would quietly sneak up behind him and grab a handful of hair.  And for the most part, she only really likes to smile at him and laugh at the funny things he does.  Jayden is really good with her.  Always getting in her face to make her laugh, keeping her out of the dog water, away from the stairs, and carrying her around and jumping her up and down to entertain her.

Then, if you combine both Jayden and her other love, food, you have a magic combination.

I seem to remember Jayden having this effect on Willow too...  :)

Grandma's Bad Day

I was walking past Willow's doll house when something caught my eye.

Feeling quite disturbed about this, I find Willow and ask her what was going on with Grandma.  She replies, 'Oh, Grandma needed to get to the top floor.  That is the elevator."  Which, I guess that makes sense, since the lights are on a little pulley, so you pull down on one and the other goes up, but still.....  I feel a bit better about Willow's mental state, but have since removed Grandma from her "elevator".  :)

Kid Quote :: 24

After a long day of answering some demanding "Hey Moms!?!"....

Willow : Hey Mom?  Mom!  Hey Mom!?!

Me : Willow, I just can't do any more 'Hey Moms' right now.

Willow : Hey Rachel?

I Have Started the Garden!

I will fully admit it.  I am a total stalker of Mavis Butterfield.  Her couponing and on-line deals are great, but it's her garden I totally covet.  And the fact she lives in Washington.  I kinda covet that too.  And she has chickens.  I want some of those too.  So, it's pretty much out there now.  I am a sinner and totally want things that other people have.

Last week, she did a post on making newspaper pots for your seedlings, and she used this awesome pot maker.  And me, wanting to be like Mavis, could see no other option than getting my hands on one of those, so I could have newspaper pots, just. like. her!  I just couldn't take it anymore, after weeks and weeks of staring at all the seeds on my wish list, this morning after a run with my friends, I purposefully drove home in a way so that I drove by a particular store.  A particular store I knew sold Botanical Interests seeds.  Now, I know Mavis' garden is sponsored by Botanical Interests, but that's not why I wanted them.  I grew all of my garden last year from Botanical Interests seeds and I couldn't believe the difference in the plant.  The baby plants that the kids and I grew were so much bigger and healthier than when we grew them from Burpee seeds or whatever kind they sold at Home Depot.  So I knew this year, I was totally getting those seeds again!  And they have lots of organic and heirloom and non-GMO seeds.  So you see, I am slightly my own person, just slightly....  While at the garden store I asked if they had one of those wooden newspaper pot maker thingys, and turns out, they did not.  So, I left dejected with my bag of seeds, wondering how in the world I was ever going to live up to Mavis Butterfield standards.
But. Oh. My. Gosh!  Look what I did leave with.  All these seeds!  Such potential in tiny little packets!

I totally didn't mean to buy all of these, but once in front of the seed display, it was like I was possessed, I couldn't stop.  I was a junky and these seeds were my fix.  And now with all these seeds, I am totally going to need a garden expansion.  Well, I guess I could choose to not plant the whole packet of seeds, but that just feels wrong.  How do you chose which seed is the best?  You must plant them all in order to determine their worth, right???  And you know what I'm most excited to try this year?  Quinoa!  It's real pretty and should be delicious!  Let's just hope I can keep a certain animal from nibbling on it...  And let's hope my garden survives while I'm gone half the summer again.  I heard that it is, yet again, going to be an exceptionally hot summer here...

So, once home and my hopes of actually being Mavis Butterfield with my super awesome wooden newspaper pot maker thingy dashed, my brain finally kicked into gear and of course there had to be another way to make them!  So, I googled it and came across these instructions.  And I made some! 

I used a can of RoTel to wrap them around because it was a skinnier can.  And I'm thinking of trying to make a smaller version for some other seeds.  But I really wanted to just do a few and test it out and see how well the newspaper holds up over the next couple months.  Because the theory is that you just open the bottom of the pot and plant your baby plant and the newspaper pot directly in the garden and the newspaper then breaks down.  I've tried those compostable pots before and they just never worked out, they never quite break down once in the garden.  But newspaper seems far more wimpy, it will just be whether or not it keeps it's shape and doesn't completely collapse on me before it's time to transplant out to the garden!  Let's hope not, because I filled them up with dirt and then stuck some tomato seeds in there.

Grow little seeds, grow!

Girly Play-Doh

Playing Play-doh with a girl is SOOOOO much different than a boy.  Jayden and I used to make so many different animals and zoos and dinosaurs and worms and someone was always getting eaten.  Willow has come into possession of a couple girly play-doh creation stations, which has brought play-doh up a whole notch in her book.

We create lots of ice cream!  Willow's special today was Cotton Candy Ice Cream.  I got oodles of bowls and cones full of the stuff.

Jayden boys it up by making Mud flavored Ice Cream.  :)

And then there are the princesses.  Princess dresses to make and Princes to create for them.

And hair, hair, hair,  The longer the better!

Willow is a little bit of a tricky pickle these days.  Her mood can swing from one extreme to the other.  One minute she's playing happily like this :

And the next, we have this :

Preview for the teenage years???? Eeeek!  We are really working on not swinging so far to the angry side and using appropriate behaviors when all the sudden things aren't going her way....

Jayden, in his boy fashion, playing with girly things doesn't faze him, he just keeps it real.  And uses the prince mold to create zombies.

Zombies that split in half and continue to hop/limp after the princesses to try and steal their pretty hair, while saying, "Ohhhh, come here pretty laaaadies"  (I kid you not)

And also some pet alligators that like to be scratched between the ears.

Pet alligators that also like to eat people, one leg at a time....