55 degrees?!

55 degrees in Iowa on December 30? And there's snow on the ground? Why sure, we'll go outside to play in the soggy mess for an hour even though the girls just got out of the bathtub!

What did we do for an hour, you ask? Why, we...

...played on the snowpile by our house

...threw snowballs by the bank (Note: Laura threw it. It's headed away from her, not toward her.) 

...made little snowpiles on the sidewalk "so there's enough for everybody" 

...looked ornery 

...threw snowballs at Daddy's office (and marvelled at how green the grass is)

...played on the snowpile across from our house 

...enjoyed the sunshine 

...each did our own thing 

...made footprints 

...threw more snowballs (Note: Laura threw this one also. She's not trying to catch it.) 

...smiled a lot 

...undid the face part of those baths that had just happened 

...tobogganned on our tummies, face first

...tobogganned on our tummies, feet first 

...played so very happily while Mommy played with her new camera for an hour 

...thanked God for the blessing of such a wonderfully warm day to play outside.

Merry KissMoose

On our ride to Chad's parents' house for Christmas, things were going awry with sleepiness and (lack of) contentedness with being in the van so long. So we pulled off at a rest area so I could talk to Laura and give her a hug and kiss. Kendra said she wanted a hug and kiss also. She then remembered that if she puckers her lips as soon as I give her a kiss, then I can't resist giving her another one. This went on for probably 2 minutes with her re-puckering every time I gave her a kiss. I told her that we'd never get there if she kept making kiss faces at me. Somehow, the kiss face turned into a reindeer kiss face. And, thus, the face in the first picture came into being -- for several, several miles. But that face didn't end once we reached our destination. Instead, it became contagious, and therefore the second picture. I couldn't help but smile, laugh, and of course kiss my reindeers every time they did this. I even still got a reindeer kiss at bedtime tonight, 3 days later.

Merry KissMoose (or, rather, Reindeer)!

Licensed character everything

While shopping for Christmas presents, I noticed that nearly everything out there has a licensed character on it. And most of them are Disney.

But, really, Disney Breathe Right strips? This seems to be taking things way too far.

No, wait. Those aren't Breathe Right strips.

Those are sock stickers and goofy kids.

Phew. At least it's just their socks (and toys and books and jammies and underwear and plates and vitamins) that are licensed by Disney now.

Baby (chair) feet

When we had our floors finished, we tried felt feet on the bottom of our dining room chairs. Those didn't seem to be like a good option for our floor, so we tried the plastic gliders. They work pretty well, but they were starting to scratch some as they got crumbs stuck underneath them.

A few months ago, I saw that my aunt had chair socks for their dining room chairs. They were like little old men socks, dark brown socks for their chair feet. Fun idea, but rather spendy in my opinion.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I decided that chair socks were looking like a good option for our chairs. I looked online at chair socks and still thought they were expensive. I looked at crochet patterns for making my own, but I figured they'd just join the ever-growing pile of unfinished projects. So I looked for a less expensive, less time-consuming option. And ... voila!

Baby socks!
$3.14 for three pair, not $1 per sock.

5 minutes to decide which packs to get, not 20 minutes per sock to make them.

And they're cute.

And colorful. 

And did I mention cute? 

Christmas'd out