Owl Diorama

For school, Ryan had to do a report and diorama on an owl. He worked hard on this and is very excited about it. He gets to bring it to school tomorrow. Hopefully his teacher will like it also! :-)


Mom provided the owl and black rat!! Yuck!

Weekend off

This past weekend the kids did not have school on Friday so Thursday night we went up by mom and dad's. I had my dr. appt Friday morning in GreenBay so dad watched the kids. The had a bonfire in the morning and then went out for breakfast. Dad had to show Tim & Jessie's house to someone so the kids brought their sleds along and went sledding down the hill. Ryan took Penny on a few rides too - I wish I had the camera for that!! Then dad went to get his hair cut - and left the kids home while he did it. He didn't think that they would want to sit there! So the kids had pringles, cookies, peanuts, etc. while grandpa was gone. We met mom at school and went to GreenBay and to the Golden Corral for dinner.

I got to see some friends from WG&R for lunch and had dinner with June & Ann. June is a great cook so she made dinner. It was nice to see them and to catch up. My dr appt went well and everything is ok. I have to go back in a couple of weeks for a check-up, but it should be good. The nurse called today to say that all the test results were good.

Then it was back to Milwaukee for the rest of the weekend. I ended up being sick - flu or something. Ryan and Leah were very good helpers and took good care of me. Ryan played with his friend James on Sunday. As you can see - they were having a lot of fun with Leah's dress up stuff!!

Fun in the snow!

We got quite a bit of snow this past weekend. The kids were pretty excited to be out playing in it. Penny decided that she likes the snow too!

New House

This is the front of the house- basic ranch home.

This is from the back yard. You can see that the yard is pretty big and there is a nice deck off the back.

This is the extra room that we are using as a play room.

Dining room into the kitchen. Kitchen is a little small, but it does the job.

And the living room. You can see the puppy's chew bones on the floor.:-)

There are also three nice-sized bedrooms and a small bathroom. Stop by and visit any time you like!

I can FINALLY do laundry!!

I finally have both my washer and dryer!! When we moved down I only brought the washer because one of my brothers told me that my gas dryer would not work here. He said that the average house is not set up for a gas dryer. Well........he was wrong!! So until this week I have been able to wash clothes - but had to take it to a laundry mat to dry it. On Tuesday Joel brought my dryer down and after a couple of little problems (and trip to Home Depot) got it hooked up and working!! Yippee

but........he forgot to relight the pilot for the water heater - so Wednesday morning I had a cold shower!! Yuk! And having never lit a pilot before, I spend a half hour on the phone with Tom figuring out how to get it light. But I did it and now have hot water and a washer and dryer that work!!

Not having it really makes you appreciate it!

Leah is a Daisy!!

On Wednesday I was picking up Ryan and Leah from their after-school program and I noticed that a group of girls Leah's age were meeting for Daisys (girl scouts). Leah had talked about wanting to join - they had sent a slip home from school about it. So I went over and talked to one of the ladied and signed Leah up. She was pretty excited about it and had fun at her first meeting. They meet every other Wednesday night. Two of her friends from her class are in it also. I think that she will have a lot of fun with it. On Feb. 9th they have their first field trip to see Disney on Ice. She is looking forward to seeing it with her new friends.

Ryan has also joined the Boy Scouts here. They meet the other two Wednesdays every month. He is excited about that as some of his friends are in it. His first meeting is next week.

I volunteered to help plan the annual Maple Grove school family walk. Hopefully I will be able to meet some of the other people in the area. We will see - I might regret it too!!

First Day at a new school / job!

Ryan and Leah started Maple Grove Elementary school today. They were a little nervous, but quickly got over it. I showed them where they would go in the morning for the before / after school program and they met the woman in charge of that. Then they met their teachers. Leah's came down first and she immediately took to her. (the only bad part is that she is pregnant and due any time now!) Leah had to ask if she was going to have a baby! Ryan's teacher came down next and he also liked her. They went to their classrooms to drop off their things and then went out to play. When I picked them up they were both excited about their day and had made some friends. The big hit was the "home-made" lunch! It was cooked fresh at the school and didn't come in a prepacked container. I was happy that the first day went well.

I also started at Steinhafels today. It was a lot of the basics - safely training, HR paperwork, meeting everyone and such. I am really excited about the change and think it is a great place to be working at.

Leah lost 2!!

Leah has been very excited - she lost her first tooth about a week ago and today the second one came out. She was eating breakfast and realized that it was gone. We are not sure what happened to it - but I am pretty sure that the tooth fairy will still come!

Moving!

Well, we are all moved and mostly settled in. The movers came on Friday morning (12.22.06) They packed everything up - it almost didn't all fit in the truck! It was a wet, rainy day - not fun for moving, but we got it done. The movers left around 6:00. Thankfully Tom was here to help me out. He helped to get things unpacked, and hung up all my pictures and things for me. He also hooked up my washer, but forgot to hook up the drain. He threw in a load of laundry and we didn't realize it until later that it was flooding the basement! But we got it taken care of. Sue and Danny showed up around 12:30 after some flight delays out of Denver. Saturday morning we took trip #2 to Home Depot and got the things that we needed to redo the bathroom. Tom re-did the hardware and put in a new sink for me. He also make a nice coat rack for the kids. It wasn't until the afternoon (when we were going to get ready to go to the Harmelink Christmas party) that we realized that the water heater was not turned on. So Tom took care of that, but we had to wait a bit for the water to get hot. On Sunday I realized that the fridge had not been plugged in, so I had to throw everything out! That was a bummer, but at least I did not have a lot that went to waste. Other than that everything has been great!! :-) We really like the new house and are excited to start work / school tomorrow. If you are in the area give me a call - we would love to have visitors!

Merry Christmas

Ryan was very excited to wake up Christmas morning and see that "santa" had been there. He could not understand how anyone could be sleeping with "all those presents down there". He preceeded to wake up everyone (except for mom and Leah - we slept in!) As soon as Leah woke up she jumped up and went running to see if santa had come. Penny even got a little bone in her stocking!!