March Photos of the Kids

Slightly late but here none the less.

Angela:

She makes a good foreman (woman) while we are doing projects.

Something about the exercise balls that I have draws the kids into being silly.

She may want to kill me for posting that picture, so here is one of her cousin at about the same age, equally draw to being silly with the 'peas'.

Connor:

He is skinny enough he can fit behind the corner cabinet.

His class had a field trip to a gymnastics studio.  Here he is just after running/bouncing down a trampoline road and jumping/flying into a foam pit.  So much fun!!

A little balance beam work.

Emeric:

This boy keeps me on my toes, that is for sure.  He is wearing my bikini top, his snow boats and his diaper.  He has closed himself in Harley's dog kennel and I believe he was pretending to be a lion.

Everyday it is a different "outfit".  Most days it includes some sort of swim suit (whether that be his, Connor's, Angela's or mine) or a 'dress' (often one of my tank tops) or both.  In this picture it is one of my tank tops with Connor's rash guard (swim suit top) over it.

I am not sure if I have two daughters and one son or one daughter and two sons.  Brian and I joke that we have 1 1/2 girls and 1 1/2 boys.  He is at such a super fun age that dressing up is really fun and it doesn't matter if he is a cowboy, batman or a princess.

"H" Date

We have been having some crazy computer things happening around here, so this posting is coming a bit late.

On Sunday April 1st my mother arrived for a week long vacation.  She hadn't been off the train for more than a few hours when we said, "Love you, Goodbye!" and left her in charge of the kids so Brian and I could go on a date.  This was our "H" Date!  We went to the Corner Pocket (our favorite local place) and had some hamburgers.  Brian had a tenderloin steak one and I had a bacon and egg burger.  After some good conversation we headed to the movie theater to watch the Hunger Games.  We both really enjoyed the book series and were looking forward to the movie.  It was enjoyable, but we were left wondering why do movies always change things from the books?  This was a pretty low key date but it makes sense since it was a work night for Brian.

I wonder what "I" will have in store for us?  Any ideas?

Felix The Cat

This past Sunday (March 18th) we added a new member to our family, Felix, the cat!  He is a Maine Coon kitten, 4 months old.  Brian had a Maine Coon while growing up and really wanted to get another one, Angela has always wanted a cat; they wore me down and here he is.

He really has been a very sweet cat and a lot of fun for all of us!

Kitchen Remodel Part 4

We are back to working on our kitchen.  I am sure it seems like such a slow project to you, it does to us too.  We have been doing this in stages to try and not be in debt with it.  Fortunately that has worked! (Kitchen Remodel Part 3, Kitchen Island, Microwave)

This second to last stage is the lower cabinets.  We seem to always do our work at the most inopportune time.  It was raining when Brian got the cabinets home and we had to haul them into the house before the boxes all disintegrated.  All the boxes came into the house nicely except for our corner cabinet.  I believe our back door is slightly smaller than the standard for new construction.  We ended up taking off the screen door and the door to get it into the house.

I lived with the boxes in the kitchen for a couple of days, since Brian picked it up mid week and he couldn't work on it until the weekend. 

First step was to remove all of the old cabinets.  Behind them the wall was covered in lathe and plaster.  That needed to come down too.

Connor really enjoyed helping dad!  He was extremely efficient with the hammer and actually did quite a bit of this work for us.  We did have to try and keep him covered up due to all of the dust.

Next up was covering the walls with new sheet rock.  That was pretty quick and easy.  Brian also moved a couple of outlets so that we could have some above the new counters.  Then it was onto putting in the new cabinets.  Like any older home nothing seemed to be straight or level.  There was a lot of shimming involved but he prevailed.  Once he put the toe kicks on you couldn't even tell.  We were now ready for the new counter top.  We were expecting it to get measured early that week and installed not much after that so I told Brian to leave to sink out and I would do with just using the bathroom one.

When we called and got our measure scheduled (which wasn't until the end of that week) we learned that the counters wouldn't be ready for two to four weeks after that.  I had him then put the sink back in.  We have been living with the old counter which doesn't cover the full space that we now have so at times it gets a little interesting.

Once we got the space measured we had to wait for confirmation that the company got the measurements.  Then we had to sign that the were correct and we were okay with them making the counters (that was this past Thursday).  We now have about a four week wait for the counters to get made, delivered and installed.  Stay tuned for pictures of the fully completed kitchen. 

Groupon & Grub

Our 'G' date was another one like our 'F' date that started out including our kids.  We shopped on Groupon.com and purchased tickets to the Greater Milwaukee Auto Show.  This past Sunday we (skipped church) packet a lunch and headed to the BIG city.  It was pretty fun to see all of the older display cars and Brian was really happy to see all of the new ones.  We then got to the Grub part of our date.  One of my favorite things to do on a trip is try new restaurants, foods, drinks, shops etc.  We started by walking to an Irish pub where we had some wings and a drink.  We then walked along the "river" (really a water way to and from the lake and downtown Milwaukee) to let the kids stretch their legs.  Next we went to a sushi restaurant for some more drinks, egg rolls, sushi and an oyster shooter for Brian.  Angela and Connor both tried the sushi.  Angela enjoyed it, Connor said he didn't but he ate 1 1/2 pieces so I don't know.  Emeric wasn't feeling too good that day so he didn't eat hardly anything - period.  After that we walked around with a little window shopping which turned into a quick bit of real shopping for me.  We then drove to a local brewery, The Horny Goat Brewery, for dinner and drinks.  The restaurant over looked another part of the "river" which was fun to look at.  They had an outdoor fire pit that the kids enjoyed standing by.  They also had a huge tent with three sand volleyball courts and a large spectator space.  Brian and I are really thinking we need a regular babysitter so we can join the volleyball league here. Any takers?  That evening after putting the kids to bed, he and I got some time to ourselves and we shared a little bit of grasshopper pie.  It was a wonderfully fabulous day with the family!

February - Photos of Kids

It is so much easier to get the camera out in the warmer months when we are actually doing something but then again we also get wrapped up in whatever we are doing that we don't always use it.  Here are some colder weather February photos for you to enjoy!  Cheers!

Angela:

Here she is proudly displaying her D.A.R.E. shirt, which she received for graduating from the program!

A little Valentine's Love! (She helped the family when a trivia contest at church that morning and won the balloons.)

Chocolate fondue is so yummy!

Connor:

Laying on Mom's lap, being a weirdo, asking for his picture to be taken.

Chocolate fondue is so yummy!



Having a fun time horsing around with Dad.  Believe it or not he had all three of them up off of the ground.

Emeric:

I wonder if Batman ever looks like this in the bat cave?  ; )

Chocolate fondue is so yummy!

This is how I found him at the end of nap time, curled up and sleeping in the "rocker" chair.

Family Fondue/Fly Fishing

February's ABC Dating letter was the Fantastically Fun and Fabulous letter 'F'!  We really wanted to go ice fishing for this date as it was something neither of us had experienced.  Unfortunately with the way the winter has been going we were a little weary of going.  So we planned on doing a family fondue night and letting the kids share in the fun dinner with us.  (We did watch a film afterwards to have our date time without them).  On, Saturday February 18th, this is what our dinner table looked like:

I had had fondue at both the Melting Pot as well as another non-chain fondue restaurant and for a girls night at our house.  Brian and the kids had never had it.  We made up some cheese fondue and had celery, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot sticks and bread cubes to dip in it.  We also had a pot of hot oil to cook our chicken and beef in.  It was a fun dinner for Angela and Connor because it was so hands on.  Due to the heat it was very hands off for Emeric but I still think he enjoyed the food.

Dessert was chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, marshmallows and oreos to dip in it.  Nothing like a filling rich dinner and dessert for a date night with the family!

Now fast forward about a week.  We were told by our ice fishing friends, Kyle and Sarah, that the lakes were at about 5" of ice which is just fine for walking out onto them and for fishing.  So on Sunday February 26th we got to experience a day of ice fishing.

We had these two sleds full of gear, a collapsible ice shanty and a cooler that we hauled out onto the ice. 

Here is a view of a few ice shanties on the lake.  Shortly after we arrived there were even more plus people just sitting on buckets over their holes.  That seemed a little silly to me because it was quite windy that day.

Brian got to run the auger and drill some of our holes.  We had some holes inside the shanty for "jigging" which is just fishing with a little pole and no casting, you just drop the line in and wait.  We also had four holes outside with tip ups in those.

 

This was a fun picture to show the thickness of the ice.  You can see the crack in the ice on the lower right side of the picture...We were told that since it was so cold that day that the ice was growing.  We were frequently hearing (and even feeling) the pops and cracks of the ice as this was happening.  It felt very weird!

This is a tip up that is set and ready to go.  We had little, maybe 3", minnows attached to the lines.  The theory is that when the bigger fish eats the minnow he will be hooked and that will cause the flag to tip up.  We are then support to yell "tip up" really loud (as it makes the other fishers jealous) and then go get the fish.  This did happen once for us, but unfortunately the bigger fish had only nibbled on the tail of our minnow so her never got hooked.

This is a view of the inside of our ice shanty.  You can see the two openings in the floor as well as the on jigging pole.  There is a propane space heater which was very nice for keeping us comfortable.  I was able to have my gloves of the entire time and never felt cold.  Sarah and I sure enjoyed the nice amenities!  On the table above the heater is the camera monitor.  That day the water was pretty murky so you couldn't see anything unless it was right next to the camera but we did get to see three fish.  I could sit there and watch my pole bobbing up and down and see the fish swimming up to look at it and then wait.  Then swim up again and wait.  Darn fish were just teasing me.  Unfortunately we did not catch anything.

  

But we sure did have fun trying!  On a side note, when we got to the lake we noticed something sticking out of the ice.  Brian and Kyle were pretty sure it was somebodies trailer.  Before our day was done and we left the ice, the looked again and realized that the whole thing had fallen in.  Yikes, how was the ice thick enough for us in one spot but not for something else there.  It was explained to us that the trailer was much heavier than I so I would be just fine.  After we got off the ice and we were loading the car up and man came over to use and said that there were about six people four-wheeling on the lake that morning when it broke through.  I didn't understand if it was one four-wheeler and the trailer that went in or more but regardless, bummer.  Fortunately, it seems like the people made it our just fine and so did we.