Kansas Sledding

Today London had her first experience sledding down a hill. She didn't enjoy it the first time down, but after the second time - the words out of her mouth were "more?"

This is our sledding hill - it's in one of the parks. If you go down the other side you have a good chance ending up in the creek. I remember that the first time you go down - you just make a bee line right up the hill - each time you get a little slower and slower. This has not changed since I am older and to boot I was carrying not only a sled but a 2 year old. Thank goodness for a light weight daughter!

Only my daughter

After and hour and half it was time to go. Time for lunch and a nap. By the way she has been sleeping for 2 1/2 hrs. I think we finally wore her out.

Sledding Videos

Here is a couple sledding videos

It's Snowed

It just plainly snowed in Kansas. No ice, no sleet, no rain, or 60 mile hour winds. Just SNOWED. This rarely happens in Kansas from my experience. I was surprised though how many people were "freaking out" over the amount - but it was just snow - not ice.

It was very pretty - watching it come down. We watched it all day at work. 7 inches was recorded out our patio at work.

When I left for work in the morning at the bottom of the stairs in the back, it had drifted - probably 10 inches or so. I wasn't too happy about having to shovel the steps and out to the jeep and then sweep everything off the hood of the jeep. Oh what - you are asking where my husband was?? he was in bed or just getting up. I "politely" told him "either get the garage cleaned out or you need to clean off the jeep for me."

Being the good wife when I got home from work - I did some shoveling for him and London and I played in the snow.

Are you serious? You want to do what? Ride your trike?

In the end she decided being pulled around the block on the sled was much more fun than riding the trike in the snow.

We then headed off to Augusta - to Frank and Amy's for game night. What? you are asking what the score is now? Men are down by two games! We spanked the guys last night and won all three games. We played a game called "things". It was a lot of fun and we had lots of lots of giggles going on. Thanks for a great night. By the way - the roads seemed to be better at Midnight than they were earlier in the day.

Pillow

I made a new cover for London's pillow. The one she was using was Christmas and decided it was time to change it. I made it out of left over scraps - some are from her bumper pads and quilt I made. She asked me what I was doing - so I told her. She was very excited it was for her. She did a little jiggy dance for me.

Exploration Place

Today we went to Exploration Place in Wichita. We haven't been there for quite while - the older 3 kids used to like going. We heard that they had a Mr Potato Head exhibit visiting and thought London might like it. At first she seemed a little overwhelmed with what to do and all the other kids around her. Once she got comfortable she seemed to enjoy the different activities.

This water/sand exhibit the kids always LOVED. They could of spent hours building dams and just playing in the water.

This was something new since we had last been there. It was a tornado tunnel. Once you went it the air would start slowly and the speed up giving up the feeling of being in a tornado. I surprised but London loved it. I don't know how many times we did it. You can see our hair flying around.

This last picture of London or me - we are showing our "Farah Fawcett" hairstyle look. Then I got my hair cut tonight - it sits at the top of my shoulders - haven't had my hair cut this short for a long time. I will try to post a picture tomorrow.

Diaper Boxes

London has always enjoyed playing in diaper boxes. The other night she decided to get in the box and go for a ride - courtesy of daddy.

January 2009 - just a year later - January 2010

Then then all the babies had to go for a ride

Prairie Girl

This is my latest sewing project. Briana - it is almost done. Her mother flattered my sewing skills and I said "YES - I would love to make this for her". I have enjoyed sewing a project such as this. Leslie told me that some of Briana's friends have found dresses from other girls, but she was excited to have one "custom" made for her by me. This makes the project all the more fun knowing how much she will appreciate it.

Briana's school class is going to be going to a one room school house in February. They will be having school for the day and are supposed to dress as children did then.

This brings back memories . . . . 32 years ago - yikes that is scary. When I was in 3rd grade we also did this. My mother made me an outfit to wear. I remember it being a lot of fun even though I can't remember what we did. We did take a class photo in front of the school house - hmmm I need to go dig that out.

What did you do today?

We took advantage of the "heatwave" we are having today. After church and some lunch we headed off to the Sedgwick County Zoo. It was beautiful out - sun was warm and it felt so good to be outside after being couped for the last week. We practically had the zoo to ourselves. I only got a few pictures because my camera battery died.

Russ riding the bull at the farm animal area - London did NOT want to get on it.

The Giraffes, Rhinos, Elephants and Hippos were all inside today. We learned a lot today - pretty fun to talk with the workers when there aren't so many people there. Russ and London are looking at the hippos. We learned today that they have a five year project going on. The elephants will be getting a new display it will be over by the lions and tigers. The giraffes will relocated behind their current building with the rhinos and we can't remember where the hippos will be. But they are completely going to redo the Africa area.

They were cleaning the elephants feet, filing nails and scraping the bottoms. I learned that these elephants were approximately two years old when they came to our zoo - they have been here 36 years. The hippos have also been there that same amount of time.

There were so many animals out and about that normally you don't see much of - like the lions. We had to get a picture of them. The tigers were fun to watch today also. The female was pacing and kept walking up to the window and freaked London out a little bit - their heads are gigantic!

Fun time at the zoo today. I think we have paid for our membership 10x over. It is fun when you can pop in for a little bit and hit the exhibits you enjoy most.

Probably the coolest thing I just learned - our zoo has a preschool! How fun would that be to attend preschool at the zoo! We are going to have to look into that for London this fall.

Christmas with Thomas Grandparents

Did I not learn anything New Year's Eve?

Oh yeah - DON'T let your husband have the camera.

You end up with pictures like this instead of the family Christmas.

Our last Christmas get together was with Chuck and Kathy. I asked Russ to take some pictures because I would like to be in them.

This is very cool kitchen item. It is something I have looked at but never bought for myself. Hand blender with a whisk and chopper attachment. I haven't used it yet but I can't wait to try it. I will definitely find something to use it on this week.

Konley's ornament was stockings - this would of been his this Christmas.

London's ornament is gingerbread and they found this cute shirt for her.

We had a good time visiting and it was nice that Kassade and Keyton could join us. Thanks for all the great Christmas gifts.