Why?

Why oh why does my child decide to get up at 6 am on the only day that I can sleep in?? She even went to bed at 10:30 last night. During the week she goes to bed at about 8:30 and is a bear when I try to wake her up in the mornings. She must have the same "disease" as Eric. He sets his alarm on the weekends to get up early so he feels like his weekends are longer. Why? I love my sleep! To me that is what the weekend is all about :)

Our Weekend

We had a blast this weekend with Chris, Jess, and Claire. They got here Friday evening and we got the guitar hero battle going. Saturday me, Jess and the girls went shopping at the outlet mall in Williamsburg and then came back to Cedar Rapids to do some more while the guys went to the casino in Iowa City. It worked out pretty good. They guys won a little playing blackjack and me and Jess spent the little that they won shopping :) While we were out Jessica bought the guitar hero rock band and since we were all pretty exhausted from shopping and gambling all day we decided to try it out. We were up until 2 am every night playing. It was so much fun! So if anyone that is getting tired of the regular guitar hero world tour I recommend getting the rock band. It is awesome! And while the guys were hogging the guitars Jess taught me how to crochet. I was very excited to learn how. I have started my first blanket for one of Jaiden's baby dolls. It is going okay but you can definitely tell it is my first blanket. I am pretty sure they aren't supposed to fan out as you go up :) but hopefully with practice I will get better.

One of the days they were here it got up to 27 so we let the girls go play in the snow for a little bit. Jaiden loved having someone to play with and I think Claire really enjoyed the snow. She kept plopping down in it and just laughed.

Jaiden acting silly-


Claire enjoying sitting in the snow-

The girls were a little grouchy at the end of shopping so that is when we decided we would head back to Cedar Rapids. If your a mom you know the feeling of getting the bags, the strollers, the grouchy kids, and yourself all in the car as it is freezing and blowing outside, that when you get in shut your door you take a deep breath and sigh as letting it out composing yourself for the ride home. Since Williamsburg is about 50 miles, we were hoping the girls would nap on the way home since we had more shopping to do when we got back, but of course they didn't. We pull in the mall parking lot and get out to get the girls out and Jessica is laughing so hard. So I take a peek at what she is laughing at and here it is-

That is Claire's boot hanging out of the Tahoe. She kicked it off as Jess was shutting the door. The roads were pretty crappy on the way home so I was driving kind of slow and I kept thinking why do these people keep staring at me. I know I am going slower but gee wiz. Well now I know. We drove this way for the whole 50 miles home :)

Then they had to cut their visit a little short. Early Monday morning Jess got a call that her grandma from Florida had an aneurysm and it didn't sound good. They found a flight out of Chicago that got them there that evening. So pray for Jess and her family that they make it through this difficult time.

Brrrrrr.....

WOW! Is it cold out. This morning it is a whopping -24 degrees and with wind chill it is -51 outside. You know it's cold when your walking into work and one, your nose freezes shut and two, you get an instant ice cream headache just from breathing in the air. On days like this I really appreciate the hat and gloves mom got me for Christmas.

This Weekend

Jess- Do not read the previous post :)

Chris, Jess, and Claire are supposed to come up and see us this weekend. Hopefully they still want to come to the icebox. We love having visitors. If they are having doubts maybe I can bribe Chris with my homemade biscuits and gravy and bribe Jess with a little shopping. If it warms up a little in the next couple days maybe Claire can bring her snowsuit and the girls can play in the snow. We always have a good time when they come visit. They girls play so well together while me and Jess get "caught up" and the guys always get their fill of their "guy gossip" you know cars, tools, etc.

Hopefully we will see them Friday afternoon!

The Snow Doubled!

Check out the picture I posted a couple of days ago of the snow. When we woke up this morning it had doubled. I took the same picture to compare.

My usual 20 minute drive to work took 45 minutes this morning. What sucks is we can't even play in it since the actual temperature below zero. Way too cold!

You can kind of tell in the background of this picture but all this snow made our hot tub cover collapse. Looks like we are going to have to invest in a new one this spring.

Got Milk?

She says she needed a "quick swig" Luckily the jug was almost empty :)

Holy Snow!

About 6 last night it started snowing.... again. But when it started we could see grass. All the snow was melted from before except for all the big piles that the snow plow piles up at the end of the roads and parking lots. This is what we woke up to this morning...

They were calling for 1-4 inches but we got 8. This is the biggest snow fall so far!

Nickname's

For some reason I always use nickname's for peoples names. Like I call Jaiden- Jage, Jagers ? I call my niece Reagan- Reaggie etc. I know they are made up names but again for some reason I do this. Well the cat's name is Bat. A few of the names I call him are Batty Bat, Kit Kat, and the one that just got me in trouble is batsters. Well Jaiden also likes to call the cat the names that I call him and the other night she was going through the house trying to catch the cat and saying "Come here little batsterd". Now everyone reading this say that out loud. Yep sounded just like the word. I know she was not meaning to say it so I said lets not call him batsters anymore. She asked why and I told her that I didn't think he liked being called that. She went with it. Now I just wonder how many stories she has told about the cat or how many people (at her pre-school) have asked what the cat's name is and she says "batsterd: :)

Busy! Busy!

I know it has been a while since I have posted but with the traveling and the holidays I haven't had time to even sit in front of the computer or get any of the pictures off the camera. Hoping everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope to post some Christmas pictures this week and catch up on everyone's blog.