Family Reading Night

Family Reading Night was last week at Kali's school. They searved pizza, salad, cookies, and lemonade and had lots of games available for the kids. The favorite was the book walk (naturally I have no pictures of that). The same concept as a cake walk but in the center of the room is a giant pile of books and when your number or letter is called you may choose a book. Corey was satisfied with his first book - a book about Planet Earth (he's my science kid) but Kali played for about a half hour and came home with an armful of new books. The kids also enjoyed the fishing pond and bowling. At the end of the night there was a poetry presentation by a visiting librarian. She was great and really got the kids excited about poetry...you can see Corey there in the front row. I was practicing more with not using my flash so the pictures are a bit soft...but I was really happy to be able to take pictures during the reading without being disruptive with my flash and have them come out as clear as they did.

Practice.

I recently purchased a new lens for my camera. There is a bit more of a learning curve than I was anticipating but I've been working with it in my limited free time...all of these above were taken in automatic without flash. I'm not a fan of flash and am hoping to learn more about setting the ISO, aperature, and shutter speed to further reduce the blur/fuzzy edges. I'm really looking forward to an upcoming vacation and of course summer - to practice even more in better natural light. Ours is really "white" because of all the snow!

*edited: after looking over the photos again I do believe the flash was on for the second to last photo...her shirt is just a bit too bright.

Kali lost a tooth!

Kali was SO thrilled when she discovered that she had a loose tooth! Her friends have been loosing them for awhile now and she's been anxious to "be included." She worked and worked and soon it was loose enough that with a little tug from dad it came right out! And the first visit from the tooth fairy went without a hitch which suprised me a bit since we have a bit of an issue with strangers coming into our home at night, i.e. the Easter Bunny and Santa. Of course Kali and Corey think the tooth fairy is tiny, about the size of a bug, so maybe that makes her less threatening!

Sledding

We love the groomed sledding hill by the grade school!

Playing at the Ice Caves

We snowshoed out to the ice caves a few Saturdays ago and had a great time playing on the ice! The surface we're laying on is so smooth the kids would lay down and we'd push them around - Kyle really enjoyed this. The kids were all a bit cold by the time we got back to the car but what an Adventure!

Happy New Year!

We had a low-key New Year's Eve like usual. Hanging out with family and watching the local fireworks followed by sparklers for the kids. It was very cold so we didn't stay out long. After the kids went to bed Dave and I put in a movie and counted our change - this may sound funny but we inherited a giant glass water jug from a friend and we use it to collect loose change. Once a year we like to count it to see how we did for the year we figured this night was as good as any! We're up $100 from last year - not too bad!

Christmas Day!

We start with gifts and breakfast at our house Christmas morning and then go to Grandma and Grandpa's house for more gifts and a relaxing afternoon playing with new toys and being with family. I never did get a picture of Kyle with his things because he was in bed by the time I took the others - but he really had a lot of fun this year!

Christmas Eve

I'm hoping for those interested, that when you click on the collage it gets bigger and you're better able to see all the pictures. Christmas Eve was very relaxing - we had our prime rib/king crab dinner and then the kids opened their pjs and their present from their great grandpa and grandma Dahlstrom. They LOVE the monkey game and played several rounds...the goal was to beat uncle Cody. We usually go for a walk and look at lights on Christmas Eve, but this year the roads were so icy we stayed inside...we didn't want any concussions! After we got home from grandpa and grandma's the kids set out the cookies and milk for Santa, carrots for his reindeer, and hung their stockings. Then we read the Christmas story in Luke before bed. We also had to have a discussion with Corey about how it's okay to get up to go potty in the night because Santa does not want to be seen so if he hears you getting up - he'll hurry out of the house! My kids are so funny about strangers (even Santa and the Easter Bunny) being in their house at night! ;)

Making Cookies with Grandma

The kids had a lot of fun making cookies with grandma! Even Kyle got in on the action - he was so proud when he put that little red cookie cutter on the pile of dough!

December 15, 2009

These are the apartments we manage and this is what happens when snow falls five inches an hour for a night...the roof shed is amazingly efficient (which is good - I for one do not want to be shoveling roofs) but that means 5 inches an hour times the square footage of the roof was shedding in front of the buildings. It was about 1 AM when I saw the snow fall and cover up the last sliver of exposed window (we live in a lower-level unit).

The first two photos and the last were from the night the major storm hit. The rest were the next day. The top right photo is the one single story building we have. The first and Last photos are from inside the entry door looking out. And the last is a mini-van that was not moved during the whole storm. When we finally received word that the loaders were coming to move snow from the parking lot and in front/back of the buildings we knew the van needed to move but the owner was not able...it took Dave and I working together, 2 HOURS to clear around the van and the van itself. I worked with the shovel knocking down the snow so he could get to it with the tractor.

It's times like these we question if we're still up for apartment management but then a few days go by and everything has been cleaned up and we settle back into our routine and things are going well.

My Little Gamers

Corey LOVES Mariokart and Kyle loves sitting next to him pointing at the screen thinking he's the one playing. Neither Dave or I were ever much into video games but we've really enjoyed the Wii. I'm a mean mom- they only get a half hour a day and have to choose between Wii, computer, or DS and no games on Sundays...they don't complain though.

Decorating our "perfect" tree!

Getting our Christmas tree

According to Corey we foung "the most perfect tree in the forest."

Kyle

Playing with Dad's safety glasses...crazy kid!

Kali's Christmas Concert

I didn't get any good shots of the actual program due to poor gym lighting but did get this one of her in her classroom before the show. This was cropped out of a picture of her and one of her classmates that had the same dress...figured I better not post the whole thing without permission from her mom. The concert was cute - it's always entertaining when the kintergarden classes perform. We pulled her out of the group after they sang and left early since Kyle stayed home sick with my dad.

Corey's Birthday

I was informed today that I needed to update my blog...it's true, I'm way behind...I've wanted to update for awhile now but the thought of how long it was going to take to upload all our pictures was a bit overwhelming. I've decided on a new approach thanks to my new friend Picasa - I'll be trying collages to see if that speeds up the process!

We planned on celebrating Corey's birthday at Chuck E. Cheese when we went to Anchorage for Thanksgiving...but since he's old enough to know when his actual birthday is it was important for him to open a few gifts that night. Dave and I gave him this awesome Dinosaur pop-up book we found at our local health food store of all places - it was and still is a big hit; and Moon Sand. Kali gave him Sea Monkeys and Kyle a Hex bug.

The next week we partied at Chuck E. Cheese! Our good friends the Leishmans and Banners were able to join us and all the kids (young and old) had a great time! Everyone 'donated' their tickets to Corey so he could choose a prize from the 'store' at the end of the night. He chose the stuffed snake, of course!

Happy Winter Solstice!

Yay! Hopefully we'll be seeing more and more of this each day (this is a sunny day for us right now - I almost caught it before it dipped back behind the mountain at 2:30ish PM).

Anxious

Corey: Tomorrow is it time to open those presents under the Christmas Tree?

Me: Nope, Christmas is in 18 more days.

Corey: Is it 18 more days tomorrow?

Me: Nope it's in 18 days.

Corey: So 18 more days is the same as regular Christmas?

Me: Yes.

Corey: Is tomorrow regular Christmas?

Halloween!

We didn't do Halloween very wholeheartedly around here this year. Kali was a super cute witch for her class party/costume parade at school. Corey chose to reuse an old costume and go to her party as a pirate (I don't know why I don't have any pictures). We did trick or treating to the businesses after school that Friday. For about 20 minutes - the wind was blowing between 50-75 mph. The weather is insane. I can't remember a time that we didn't have snow on the ground for Halloween. Halloween day I cleaned out the kid's room and Dave worked on the shed he's expanding for the property we manage. We carved pumpkins and watched 'Race to Witch Mountain' that night and all turned in early.

Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara was as beautiful and relaxing as ever. I very much enjoyed reading at the beach and lounging by the pool while Dave was in his meetings. We enjoyed the shopping and yummy food at our favorite Italian resteraunt in the evenings. I'm glad to have these few days for just 'us' every year.