Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

 Late Wednesday we had 8 inches of snow accumulate.  In the late afternoon we went outside to enjoy the powdery snow.  The kids and I did some sled riding.  Since Jesse was home, it was daylight, I am not pregnant, and they did not lay cinders/sand on the road yet, I was able to cross country ski for the first time since we moved here 4 years ago!  It was a lot of fun.  The next day, I was reminded that I had not skied for a while :) Then, it rained.  Then, it snowed 2 more inches overnight.  When we went to shovel in the morning, the snow blower would not start.  Boo.  That was really heavy snow to shovel by hand on two driveways! Fast forward to today (Saturday).  We got 6 more inches of snow this morning.  Again, we were shoveling.  At least it was nice fluffy snow this time.  A nice neighbor let us borrow a snow blower for the one driveway.  More sledding and snow fun ensued.  When A...

It was a white Christmas! A family picture by our Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  Natalee wanted to get dressed into her Christmas shirt.  Brady wanted to stay in his new jams. Amie was thrilled with this book that makes noises. Brady loves his Nerf gun.  Of course, he had it confiscated later in the day because he was sticking the darts onto the TV!  We've already had to warn him about sticking them up his nose, too.  While it is funny to see him coming into the room with two darts up his nose, it isn't exactly the best thing to do! Brady chose a pink sparkly Santa hat for Natalee.  She wore it for two straight days! My favorite Christmas gift was not the actual gift.  I LOVE the wrapping paper design Natalee made to wrap my gift in.  She drew an angel looking over baby Jesus in the manger.  I think I need to somehow frame it.  Isn't it lovely? My wrapped present The kids decorated the rootbeer we got...

Jesse was fortunate to have Christmas Eve off, so we spent the day at my parents house.  In the afternoon, some family members went on our annual hike.  Because of snow/ice we were unable to hike to Stone Valley Vista.  We just walked for a ways on Flat Road. Amie got a ride.  I think she slept a lot of the time. Almost as soon as we returned to the house, it started to snow!

Here is our Christmas card picture for this year.  After we took this photo, I realized that Natalee had a temp of over 101.  That would be why she did not completely cooperate!  She tried to be happy. Here is the write up that I sent with our picture: Hello Family and Friends!   In the past year, we had a new addition to our family and we also lost a family member.   On February 20 th , Amie Belle joined our family.   Amie is now very active and on the verge of taking steps.   She loves mashed potatoes and anything on our plates.   She also was very fond of our dog, Meg.   On December 8 th , we had to say goodbye to our loving, faithful dog friend.   She was 13 ½ years old.   We miss her presence a lot and have had many reminders of her.   Amie really misses Meg’s water dish!   We took our Christmas picture before she passed, and decided to use it anyway.   As Natalee said when she saw the card, “Meg is i...

This year, we asked the kids if they wanted to cut a live Christmas tree or if we wanted to buy a Christmas tree that we could plant after the season is over (it has the root ball in a burlap sack with a wire cage around it to hold it together). Of course, Natalee does not ever want to throw anything away, so she chose the tree with the root ball. Then, we set to make our salt dough ornaments.   Mix, mix, mix. Roll out and cut out the ornaments.  Yes, look who is into trouble!  She kept trying to grab Brady's ornaments.  After the ornaments baked and cooled, we painted them. She's into a lot of trouble.  I caught her in the dishwasher the other night.   We thought that we could plant the Christmas tree in our yard or up at camp and then in several years maybe we could cut it and use it again. However, you get a small tree with a very heavy and odd shaped root ball. After realizing we did n ot have a bucket/bin/tub big enou...

This activity happened Friday, December 7th, about two weeks ago.  I just haven't been able to write about it.   I was having a difficult time, particularly since the weekend before Thanksgiving.  That's when Meg stopped eating her dry dog food.  She lost her interest in eating.  If you know Meg, you know that's not normal!  We were forcing her to eat by bribing her with wet dog food.  She was still coughing, showing signs of congestive heart failure.  Plus, she was starting to fall a lot and quite easily.  Her back legs lost all of their strength.  One morning on her way out to the bathroom, she lost her footing and fell three different times on the way to the door.  Of course, I had to help her get back up. Then, she could not jump up one step to get back to the driveway.  Her risk of falling and injuring herself was extremely high.   Her one back leg was obviously in pain. In the middle of the night before ...

  Last year , Kelly and I held a happy birthday Jesus party for the kids to enjoy.  Apparently, it made an impression because they asked us when we were going to do that again!  So, while the dads were out for the evening, we held our party.  I made pumpkin cupcakes and Kelly made some icing for the kids to decorate.  They each decorated 3 cupcakes. Such concentration. Brady put on a lot of icing and a few decorations (mostly mini M&M's).  Natalee and Will put on a little bit of icing and a LOT of sprinkles.  Apparently Will couldn't fit any more on his, so he resorted to eating them :) Ta-da!  Then, we set up our picnic by the Christmas tree.  Of course, we had to have pigs in a blanket, apples, clementines, and pretzels again to go with our cupcakes. Amie enjoyed this whole picnic thing, too.  She really wanted some of those pigs in a blanket. After the picnic, we lit our candle and sang happy birthday. Onc...

We spent "Deer" Lonely Ladies Day decorating our trees for Christmas.  The kids have wanted to do this for months !  While they were away from home Saturday afternoon, I dug the trees out from under the steps.  Note:  When I put my trees away, I leave the lights on.  Then, we put all of the kid-friendly ornaments into one box.  Another box contains the kid's nativity set.  So, when I need to pull out the Christmas decorations, I simply pull out the trees and the boxes. Easy. Natalee is in charge of this tree.  Note: this is how we eliminate the fight over who turns on the Christmas lights! Brady's tree Meg was excited about the tree encroaching on her space.  All of these trees were our wedding decorations-- 10 whole years ago.  Wow. Amie found a bell! Next, I'd like to bring up some of our wedding garland.  The lights and decorations are already on those, too.  I hang those on the beams downstairs so that ...

We had a nice Thanksgiving day of eating with a few extended family members.  We enjoyed the nice weather by taking all of the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood.   Following the meal, we used the Nerf gun to "shoot" the hand print turkeys we made earlier in the week.  It was a lot of fun! Meg was right in the middle of the action The kids wore their turkey hats that we made last week. They both had a good shot. Here, Brady knocked down two turkeys with one shot!  He was pleased. Of course, I had to get in on the fun of shooting turkeys, too! Happy Thanksgiving !  And n o, I am not heading out to Walm art this evening.