Mountains of Fun

Yesterday, our loop finally got plowed. They did a great job making piles of snow for the kids. Whether they had this in mind, or we just got lucky, I don't know. Right across from our driveway is a huge pile, probably twice my height easily. Notice Wally almost to the top standing upright.
But, that isn't all. If you go behind the huge pile, there are just more and more piles. And, the piles go all the way around the loop making a super-fun mountain range to hike around.

This is Wally's climbing tree. His head is probably about at the height of me and Joel's when we are standing on the ground. Wally said, "When you take pictures of me climbing the tree, I fall down." And, he promptly fell out of the tree for this picture. Luckily, he only had about 6 inches to fall, rather than 6 feet.

This is a view of our house from on top of the tallest pile. Actually, I don't think I was even all the way to the top.

Wally and I made a slide down the backside of the big pile. When he stops at the end of the video, he isn't even to the bottom of the pile yet.

I am so thankful I have a kid so I have an excuse to play on the snow piles. I had so much fun! I know some of the neighbor kids were out digging caves after Wally and I went inside. I'm heading to Des Moines this weekend with our youth group, and am rather bummed that I will miss playing in the snow. Since it isn't supposed to get above freezing anytime soon, I'll probably have plenty of chances to play in the snow.

February 2011 Blizzard

We survived what the news stations were calling the "monster storm" or the biggest storm in 10+ years (I've heard 50+ even). We were, as far as we can tell about 5-10 miles west of the center as it moved through the Midwest. It started snowing yesterday shortly after noon and didn't stop until sometime during the night. It also had consistent wind speeds of 30-40 mph. And, to Moose's dismay, there was even thunder! We all went out to start shoveling at about 7:30 this morning. When I stepped into the garage, this is what I saw... It is hard to say how much snow we actually got because it had drifted so much. We think it was 14-18 inches. But, since it had drifted it was hard and heavy. Joel worked on the sidewalks while I worked on half of the driveway. Wally had a great time playing in the snow and "hiding" in the holes that the wind made around the trees.

We helped one neighbor get unstuck from the road and back into their driveway and saw several other cars attempt to leave, only to get stuck feet into the road. I was hoping the snow plow would come by, as was Wally...

It is now 8:30 pm and no snowplow has made it into our loop. To kinda sum up the storm, we didn't get any mail today. Joel made it to work this afternoon as the buses started up after noon running on only the Saturday schedule. Joel said it was amazing seeing the amount of snow out there in piles around town. Last night I heard that the National Guard was called into Iowa City to help with snow removal and rescuing stranded cars. Here is one of the piles from only half of the driveway. It is about this tall all the way to the road.

There is a beautiful drift outside our bedroom window on the roof between our room and the porch. This picture was actually taken from outside underneath it.

Our house looked like it had been pelted with snow. I guess it was. Our bushes certainly weren't very happy. This was also the first time that I've seen any moisture under our porch and I think there are two inches of snow or so down there.

The dogs didn't know what to think of the snow. They seemed to think it was pretty fun, but then realized that it was pretty cold. They haven't been out much today.

After nap today, Wally and I went outside again. The neighbor kids had come over this morning to play in our snow piles. They made a cave that then collapsed (it was empty at the time). There was still a small tunnel for Wally though. As I dug it out a little so he could crawl through it, I found some of the original cave. Needless to say, it made my job easier. Between Joel and I, I think we put in roughly 4 hours of shovelling today, and still don't have the entire driveway cleared.

Wally has such a great imagination these days. This was his "Jewel cave" that was full of sparkling jewels. He also had to put snowballs into the cave as this is what Max from "Where the Wild Things Are" did in the movie (that he has been watching).

Joel and I hurt. There was so much heavy snow. We were jealous of our neighbors that have snow blowers, but appreciated the fact that we don't have a corner lot! Once the weather warms up, this snow should be a ton of fun!

A Random Slow January

This January has been slow. The weather has been cold, so we haven't done much outside and we just haven't gone anywhere. We pretty much read a lot. Wally has really gotten into the Magic Tree House book series. Joel tried reading the first book to Wally in the beginning on January on his Kindle. I thought he was crazy trying because Wally has a hard time sitting still and there are not many pictures in chapter book. I was wrong! Boy was I wrong. Since that first book, we have read through book 13 and are headed to the library for more. Luckily, there are over 40 books in the series and the librarian recommended another series for when we are done. Our baby is growing up!

Speaking of babies...here is our original baby. Scouty Babe is over 8 years old now! And, in her old age, she is getting braver...other people have actually sighted her when they visit! Wally loves to make "chocolate fudge cake" (aka any chocolate cake type thing). He is getting to be a really good helper and is learning about fractions with the measuring cups.

He does still cook like Wally though, resulting in a lot of clean-up and laundry!

Maybe I am biased (OK, I know I am), but the kid is a genius! He is always building things with his toys and mixing his different toys together to build new things. A couple weeks ago, he called me over to show me what he built. Using tinker toys, Legos, and marbles, he rigged up a thing that he could put marbles on one side of the "wall" in middle and then use a "hammer" made of tinker toys to hit another marble into the opposite side of the wall to make the first marbles go flying. I tried to get a video, but of course it didn't work out...Engineering, here comes Wally!

For something different, we actually went out to dinner one night last week. None of us had ever been to an IHOP that we could remember, so we tried it out. Wally got a huge pancake that he could decorate like a face with fruit and yogurt. It was a lot of fun, but awfully expensive for pancakes! Notice his sweater. How cute can you get? Some friends from church gave it to Wally as they didn't need it anymore.

Drum roll....My first quilt! I know you all have been excited to see the wonderful creation that is my first quilt. Being Grandma Wynja's favorite granddaughter should come with a certain set of skills, right? Well, I'm pretty sure they got passed to Katie through some weird case of lateral transfer, but any how, I made a quilt! Since Wally and I made fleece tie blankets for Brother, Sister, and Wally, he's been wanting to make a quilt out of the 4-inch squares that we cut from the corners of the blankets. Last weekend, I finally tried. I got better and figured out a few tricks, but really, how good can a quilt be that starts with very-much-not-square squares made out of fleece? I kind of like it because it is made up of parts of the blankets for all 3 of my kids. After I was all done and the sewing machine was put away, Wally pointed out that I forgot the pocket in the middle. (A pocket??!?!??) So, out came everything and I sewed a big Cubs pocket in the middle from fabric left over from Joel and Wally's scarves. Well, Firedog is happy with his quilt (as is Wally). Maybe someday, like 20 some years from now, I will get into quilting in my spare time!

Wally has played with shaving cream a couple times at school recently and has been begging me to get some so that he could play at home. This past week, I swear the kid has grown up a lot. I used to hate taking him shopping because he would wander away and ask constantly for things and throw fits if I didn't give in (though in reality, I think he has always been pretty good). But, last week, it was actually fun and helpful having him there. He helped me find stuff and would ask if something was on sale before asking me if we could get it. If I said no, he would say, "Maybe it will be on sale next time." There were some other examples of him being a big kid too, but I can't think of it. Anyway, I bought him the shaving cream and he's had a lot of fun with it. So has Dad...

Today we were trying to figure out what to do, and Joel said, "Well, it is as warm as it is going to get for a while (aka about 32 degrees), so lets go for a walk in the park. We went to Hickory Hill and took the dogs...stressful because there were other people who dared to bring their dogs to the park when we did! It was nice to get outside though.

A rare picture of Joel and I. Wally is getting good with the camera!

After hiking, we played Play-doh. Wally had a great imagination. The last thing he worked on was building a bear cave and grizzly bears. He then wrote a song about grizzly bears...

Here is me and Wally doing the Grizzly bear dance.

Tonight, Wally told me that he loves me more than God loves me. Wow! That makes a mom feel good!

Steve's Kid

So many reasons to be proud of Joel...

Maybe facial hair isn't one of those things.

Home on the Range

Wally loves dressing up in his cowboy clothes. Last night, he put on his vest and jacket from Papa Steve and started singing his version of Home on the Range. He wouldn't stop and let us go over the words with him, so this is not quite the traditional version. This first video is Wally "singing pretty" for Mommy and Daddy.

We got Wally to sing the "pretty" version only by promising that we would video his "silly" version next.

Katie told me that Reder said that Wally is one of his favorite things because he does silly things that Reder doesn't do. I think this would qualify. I'm pretty sure I've heard his other cousins say similar things about Wally.

Ethiopian Christmas

January 7th is the Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas. To celebrate, we made Ethiopian food (Doro wat, injera, honey bread, and sweet potato green beans). I'm getting better at making doro wat as it was actually mild enough for me to enjoy it this time (I suppose that means it was less authentic though). I was apparently too excited to eat and I forgot about taking a picture.

What makes a holiday special is being able to celebrate with friends. It just so happened that Jen Isaacs (Papa Murr's daughter) had surgery on her hand in Cincinnati the day before and Iowa City is a perfect half-way point for the drive home. It was great to see Jen and Robert again and get to spend some time with them. Moose is growing up. He used to be scared of strangers, especially men, but man, did he love Jen and especially Robert! Jen and Robert were sitting on the couch, and Moose decided that he could fit so he could be with his new BFF.

Post-Christmas Fun

Christmas was a lot of fun, but really, we've still been having fun. In the past, it seemed to take Wally several months before he would really play with his new toys. Not this year though!

For quite a while, Wally has been into super heroes (Spider-man, Superman, etc). So, the first time I found him wearing a plastic bag like this, I assumed it was a cape. Wrong! It is a parachute. He has been demonstrating this fact by jumping off everything he can. I wonder why he always has bruises? Yesterday after the grocery store he wanted me to count his parachutes as he took them off. He didn't quite make it to 10 like he did with the underwear, but made it to four paper bags. Wally used some of his Christmas money from Great-Gramma Camilla to buy a new motorized Thomas as the tires of his old one have worn out and it can't climb hills anymore. He is having a blast with both of his Thomases.

Joel thought of trying to read Wally a chapter book (with very few pictures). I figured Wally wouldn't have the attention span for it, but he loves them! It might help too that it is on Joel's Kindle and Wally loves technology!

Though he is a big boy and can read chapter books with his Daddy, he is still a nut ball!

Our neighbors gave Wally some incredibly cute finger puppets for Christmas. Here, Wally's puppet was the teacher and Joel's were the students. We can't remember how the trains came into play, but they weren't trains in Wally's imagination.

To help pass the time, I've made Brother and Sister blankets. Wally went to the store with me to help me pick the fabric. He had no problem picking the fabric for Sister's blanket, but Brother's was a bit harder for him to decide on. For Sister, he picked a pink print with flowers, hearts, and peace signs with a solid purple for the back. For Brother, we finally settled on a blue print with dogs and lime-green for the back. Yesterday, Wally and I went back to the fabric store to get fabric for a curtain for my new kitchen cabinet (couldn't find any I liked though) and ended up buying him fabric for his own blanket. With much coaching, I got Wally away from the pinks, purples, and pastels (figure he'll thank me some time in the future). He finally settled on Fire trucks on one side and dogs on the other - no solids for him! It's rather obnoxious, but perfectly describes the 4-year-old Wally (Well, maybe pink fire trucks and pink dogs would better suit...).

Now we just need Brother and Sister home to share the blankets with!