Nathan Pics

More Ashley Pics

Windy City

I guess we really are getting old. All that I have talked about in the last few days is the weather. As for today's weather report, it was sunny and about 70 degrees when I picked the kids up from school today. However, the wind was gusting out of control! I don't know the exact MPH, but it was nearly gale force. In spite of this, we went to the park. You can hear and see (by Ashley's crazy hair) the roaring wind in this video:

Arkansas "Snow"

No snow in the South, only sleet and freezing rain. It's not too bad yet, but I'm sure all the grocery stores are sold out of bread and milk by now! The kids' school is closing early today, and Jeff's on his way to pick them up. I'm at work and on call this weekend. Luckily, it is supposed to warm up tomorrow, so we won't have to deal with this too long. Make a snowball for us in PA!

Nathan & Ashley It's Snowing

Jeremiah and Micah got new batman costumes. They were dying to leave a message for Nathan and Ashley!

Do not adjust your monitor...

This is the actual color of the cupcake (yes, cupcake) batter that I made following one of the DD recipes. So far, I have made several of the main dish and side dish recipes. Overall, they have been pretty good. I have found that adding some of the vegetable purees that it suggests to the foods I ordinarily cook to be very successful (i.e. cauliflower in the scrambled eggs and squash in the boxed macaroni and cheese). Today is my first attempt at a vegetable-laden dessert. This morning I thumbed through the cookbook and decided to make the "Blueberry Cheesecake Cupcakes". It sounded good. I will give you a report on how they turn out. I added some food coloring after I took this picture to try to make the batter resemble something blueberry flavored.

Treasure Hunting

We went to MV this weekend for Jennifer's birthday. She got a GPS for Christmas and wanted to try some geocaching. She got the coordinates and clues for 2 locations near their house, and we took the boys on Saturday. It was bitterly cold but still a nice day. We found the first cache, but were unsuccessful with the second. Here's a picture of Nathan holding his treasure.

And then there was one...

Sadly, we lost one of our goldfish, Nemo, last night. He wasn't quite dead, but he was belly-up and very near the end. I told Nathan that we needed to set him free because he was sick. Nathan did not handle that news very well. He got upset, which made me get upset. He was mostly concerned about our other fish, Marlin, being sad if Nemo left. So, I suggested that we set him free in the goldfish pond at church. The parking lot by the goldfish pond is closed right now, so we won't get to "visit" him until we move to the new church. He was okay with that. If you wonder why we were so concerned about a silly goldfish, it's because we've had the same ones for over 3 years! I know, it's crazy. I bought them at Wal-Mart for 27 cents each just after Nate's 2nd birthday when he was in his "Finding Nemo" phase. It's not like I've taken good care of them, they just had some amazing longevity.

Arrrrgh!

I took Nathan and Jenna S. to see the new Veggie Tales movie - The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything - on Sunday afternoon. They liked it. I thought it was just okay. I guess the Veggie Tales have gone secular, because there were no outright Christian morals in this one. (I think the king was supposed to be God and maybe the weird ball thing was the Bible?) I'm sure I am supposed to be boycotting this movie or something. Oh well! The kids had a good time and watched the whole thing.

Yee Yee for Ashley