Spring break

Waverly does not have a week-long spring break, but Austin's mom does, so I packed up the kids and we headed to Grandpa & Grandma Lorenzen's house for a couple days.  We had a great time!  Emily enjoyed learning several new games, including Checkers and Yahtzee.

Lincoln loved playing trucks.

We all enjoyed some time outside with the beautiful weather.  We went to three different playgrounds and played bean bags.

I had one near-adventure while we were there.  The dash lights have been flickering and the gauges jumping in the van every once in awhile for the last couple weeks.  They really started doing it while I was coming back from a shopping trip.  Then the van died while I was sitting at a stoplight by the Jordan Creek Mall.  I was able to start it again right away, but it almost died again on University Avenue.  After a couple phone calls I was able to find a repair place nearby and have the worn-out battery replaced along with an oil change the van needed anyway.  Thank goodness it didn't happen somewhere on the interstate on the way home!

Tree trimmers

We had some fun entertainment during breakfast this morning.  A city crew came by with a bucket truck to trim the trees on the south side of the house.  There is no sidewalk on that side, and the trees are technically the city's responsibility because they are in the city easement.  I found out that also means that when it's time to take them down, the city will pay for it.  Yay!  Unfortunately, that might come sooner than we want.  Two of the trees are 60-year-old Ash trees that have seen better days.  Between that and the Emerald Ash Borer that just entered the most northeastern county in Iowa, it might only be another couple years.  In the meantime, it was nice to get some of the droopy branches cut off and a large one that was touching the house.  The crew also trimmed off an annoying low branch from the locust tree while they were at it. (The only downside is now we have a full view of the redneck neighbors' house across the street :op)  They put all the branches through a wood chipper and even raked the yard afterwards.  Plus they took away the pile of branches that had collected over the winter.  All for free!

Stuck in a stroller

Okay, so Lincoln isn't exactly stuck.  His skinny little butt easily slips in and out of the little doll stroller.  It's funny watching him try to get in and out sometimes.  It's one of his favorite toys. :o)

T-ball

It was the beginning of real spring weather today, and we took full advantage of it by playing outside for over two hours.  In addition to going to the castle park, it was a good day to get out the T-ball set Lincoln got for Christmas.  I was sure glad we had an extra bat and ball from last summer.  It is a very good idea to have at least one per kid! ;o)  It's going to take a little more practice, but they're getting the hang of it.

Emily got excited about sidewalk chalk and Lincoln enjoyed another one of his Christmas presents brought up out of the basement.  Yay for spring!

Toothbrushes for Haiti

Emily's Sunday school class is collecting toothbrushes to send on a mission trip to Haiti next month.  Our church has been going to Haiti for several years and has some strong relationships and partnerships built there.  Emily was all excited after they made a presentation last week.  So when we went to Wal-mart this week, she cleaned out the money from her savings jar and took it along.  She was very proud to be able to pick out a total of 10 toothbrushes and pay for it herself with $5.  She was even more excited to bring them to Sunday school today.  I'm excited because this is the first time Emily has really made a connection about helping someone else out and giving something away.

Side note: As expected, Emily insisted on wearing her new "Easter dress" with the little white sweater to church.  Therefore, I have decided to call it a "Lenten dress" because she'll probably wear it every week.  One of the reasons I didn't dare get any new clothes before this weekend is that I knew once she got them she wouldn't want to wear anything else.  So I had to wait until the weather got warm enough that I wouldn't have to fight her.  After the picture yesterday she immediately put on one of the outfits (see previous post).  As I type this she has changed out of her dress into the rainbow sundress with the white sweater and rainbow leggings.  It's a little much. ;o)

Also, on a completely unrelated note, Austin recently downloaded the "Angry Birds" app onto his iPhone and showed Emily how to play it yesterday.  She is never going to leave him alone now!

New clothes

On Saturday morning Emily & I went on a girls' shopping trip to Kohl's, one of my favorite stores.  They were having some great sales on some stuff I was looking for.  Plus, with spring just around the corner it was time to start looking for some new clothes for Emily.  We went there with the intent to buy new spring pajamas and ended up coming home with pretty much her entire spring/summer wardrobe.  As you can tell by the picture, it's pretty monochromatic.  For the record, she did try on some non-pink clothes, but those happened to be the ones that didn't fit.  Emily was a real trooper and happily tried on everything.  I just hope that by having her pick out everything that she'll wear everything!

We also made a quick stop at UniversiTEES in the mall.  My sisters from the other side of the state have raved about this store that I have never even visited.  They were right.  It is heaven for any college sports-wearing fan.  Half the store is nothing but UNI gear.  If I had my way, I'd wear UNI t-shirts & hooded sweatshirts almost every day.  I already have a pretty vast collection, but I couldn't resist outfitting the entire family in Panther Pride!  The first question Austin had is if I was plotting a family picture.  The thought had crossed my mind.  We'll have to see. ;o)

We got a few other fun things at Kohl's.  Emily was especially excited about her new pink princess kickball and a fun birthday countdown mat.   It was in the section with the placemats, but I'd probably hang it up somewhere.  It counts down for 31 days until your birthday.  She is also modeling one of her new outfits.

Stinker-pot

Lincoln has been a bit of a stinker-pot lately.  He has entered the undressing phase.  I don't know how he does it, but for the last few nights he has managed to get one or even two arms out of his zipped-up, snapped-up, footed sleeper.

He has also been on a bib strike.  He hasn't left a bib on all week.  Thankfully, his drooling has decreased enough lately that it hasn't been a huge problem.  I'm not quite ready to throw all the bibs out yet, but I'm getting really close!!

In addition to taking off his clothes, he is also obsessed with putting on footwear.  Mostly anything other than his own.  He is constantly digging in the back coat closet and hauling out various combinations of boots.  I also find my shoes scattered around our bedroom and down the hall after Lincoln gets into our closet.  If Emily leaves any shoes laying around there's a pretty good chance they'll make it on his feet.  Here he is modeling Emily's new tennis shoes.

 

He is also still way too interested in outlets.  While I was making supper tonight he hauled out the hand mixer.  Before I knew it I heard a whirring and a loud cry coming from the bathroom.  He had snuck in there, pulled out the nightlight and plugged in the mixer with the switch on the highest speed.  Thankfully, the beaters weren't attached.  However, based on the sobbing and whimpering that followed for quite awhile, I'm guessing he might have shocked himself a bit.  Hopefully a lesson was learned.  I know it took me a couple run-ins trying to plug in the Christmas tree lights in the dark when I was growing up. :op

To top things off, while I was pouring drinks for supper Lincoln dug out a large metal spoon and banged a glass of milk setting on the counter so hard it broke.  Luckily, it cracked and fell apart just above the milk line, so I didn't have a huge puddle to clean up. < insert guttural "haaghck" sound my mom is famous for ;o) >

Last snowman standing

Most of the snow is now gone with only a few banks along the driveway and on the north side of the house.  This is the remains of the last snowman we made after the wet snow on Tuesday night.  We can't wait for the spring weather next week!

Fun in the basement

During the long, cold, blah days of winter we have made good use of our basement.  There is enough space and different kinds of things to do that the kids can entertain themselves for quite awhile with minimal supervision/intervention.  Today was one of those days.  Here are some pictures of fun in the basement:

There are also some fun videos in the new March video player at the bottom of the blog!

Hallway rehab

Most people wouldn't consider a hallway a significant project.  However, the hallway leading to the master bedroom/bath and den/Lincoln's room needed a major make-over.  So we decided to kick-off a new round of home renovations with a cheap, but labor-intensive project.

The hallway was the epitome of "blah".  Everything had been painted the same color as the rest of the house.  The picture doesn't even show the horrid gold prism light fixture with only half of the bulb sockets that worked. :op  We also had already scraped the popcorn ceiling before moving in.

The reason this project was a lot of work is because of all the steps involved.  The ceiling needed to be primed and then painted.  There is crown moulding, chair rail and baseboard trim in addition to six doors and a total of eight doorways/door frames that all needed to be primed and then painted.  We knew the original hardwood floors were underneath the yucky carpet.  However, we also knew based on the rest of the house that everything had been painted after the carpet was installed, so the bottom 1/2" of the baseboards had never been painted, and where the carpet met the baseboards there were strands of carpet stuck to it with a paint line that had to be sanded down.

 

Austin did most of the painting last weekend.  While he was gone during the week I got the carpet ripped up and worked on the baseboards.  Then we tag-teamed the wall color on Saturday.  I think it turned out great!  The floors are in really good shape and we already had the runner rugs.

The only problem with finishing a project like this is that it makes the rest of the unfinished projects look that much worse.  I guess that's called motivation. ;o)