Children's Museum

Sydney had a field trip with her kindergarten class to the Children's Museum today. She brought a letter home from school several weeks asking for chaperones. "Do you want me to go with you?" I asked her after reading the letter. She thought it over for a minute and said "No. I want Daddy to go." Right through the heart! So, Mike went with today. He got the full field trip experience as he got to ride the bus and everything.

I am very jealous that he got to go, but it looks like they had a fun time.

While talking to my mom on the phone today, she told me about a blog she follows that had posted this fun Valentine's Day craft.

You can go to http://littlebirdiesecrets.blogspot.com/search?q=valentine+wreath for complete instructions. And my mom told me they only have the styrofoam wreaths at Hobby Lobby, fyi. I'll post pictures of my completed wreath tomorrow!

BIG NEWS!!

I just saved Princess Peach in my Super Mario Wii game!!!!!! Yesssssss!!!!! And...I have accessed a secret world! World 9! This has brought happiness back into my dreary day!!

Warning! Suck-y blog post ahead.

After school today, the girls asked me if we could get down some boxes that they have on the shelves in their closets. I said ok, and we headed upstairs. The boxes they wanted to look through are their baby boxes with little things I kept from their babyhood. We got Briana's down first. I open it and spot some finger paintings she made when she was two. She laughs and looks at them, and then we pull out her handprint plaques. Those hands were so little! We flipped through her baby book oohing and ahhing over her cuteness. She even found a two dollar bill tucked in between some cards.
Next, we opened up Sydney's box. The first thing I spot is a roll of wallpaper from her room in our old house with fairies on it. She doesn't remember it, but she smiles and says it's cute. Then I pull out a tiny pink hat that doesn't even fit half of her head anymore. She giggles at that. Then I spot about 18 white folders. And a white binder. And a read book about childhood cancer. I get a pit in my stomach. These are all filled with medical information and print outs of her white cell count. I pull out the journal I kept for Sydney while she was in the hospital, and she flips through it. I can't bring myself to read a single page. I pull out her baby book and we attempt to look through it, but it's only filled up halfway. Because I didn't want to put all the bad stuff in it from when she was in the hospital. So it has occurred to me six years later that my baby never got to be a baby. And that just sucks. Don't get me wrong, I am so incredibly grateful that she is here with me now, HEALTHY and happy. But she didn't get to be a baby. And we will never get to look back on that time with light hearts. She doesn't deserve that. Neither do I.
I know I could look on the bright side and say I will never miss another opportunity to tell her I love her. Which I won't. Or I could say how I now know how fast your world can crumble in the blink of an eye and that's why we should live every day to the fullest, or some crap like that. But, right now I'm just mad. Mad that we even have that stupid box in her closet. And mad that her baby book will never be filled. And mostly I'm just mad that Briana gets to be two dollars richer and all Sydney gets is a print out of blood counts. Where's her two dollars?
Ok, I'm done now.
Happier posts later today.

Snow drifts

When I took the kids to school this morning, we saw these crazy snow drifts in front of the school. The door in the picture is the door Briana has to come out of after school.

The best spot for sunbathing

Snow Days

Thanks to a mountain of snow, tons of ice, roads that are extremely dangerous to drive on, and -40 degree windchills, my kids have had snow days for the last three days. It worked out quite nice because they haven't gone back from Christmas vacation yet. We have, however, played with every toy in the house. We ran the batteries out of the Wii twice, replaced the batteries in the Glow Boards twice, and played every board game we have. We have watched Tom & Jerry, iCarly and Spongebob more times than I can count. Briana completely finished one of her DSI games and Sydney has unlocked all portions on one of her games (no small feat, believe me). I have baked two batches of cookies, two batches of brownies, I have read 3 books, and gotten to world 7 on my Super Mario Wii game. I have not driven my car in four days. I may be going crazy. From cabin fever. And I haven't even mentioned the cleaning I have done. The house is spick and span. I scrubbed all the floors, picked up everything, DUSTED (I NEVER dust.), and I cleaned out Mike's dresser and I cleaned out the kids sock and underwear drawers. I am ready for spring!

More snow? Come on!

We currently have about 18 feet of snow at our house. I'm not exaggerating either. And today we are getting six more inches of snow. Then, it's supposed to snow on Monday, and Mike heard next weekend we are supposed to get 2 more feet of snow. Holy crap! This is what our house looks like from the front.

I know, you almost can't even see the house behind all that snow! Here's how it's looking in the back.

It's very deep. See our grill? The snow goes up to the top of the grill. I caught Briana on top of the grill today sliding off of it with the sled! I made her stop, but it was quite funny.

Here are the girls on a huge snowdrift in the backyard.

And here are my little snowbunnies after playing outside today.

And, last but not least, the other day I went to the zoo with my mother in law (because I am a crazy person agreeing to go to the zoo in -32 degree weather). And I fell in love with this ORANGATAN. He was cuddling up to me through the glass. I love him. I almost brought him home with me but those mean people at the zoo wouldn't let me. So this video is all I have left to remember him by.