once there was a snowman

We woke up to SNOW yesterday! Church was cancelled, and I felt like I had won the lottery!!! I had been up until midnight working on the Sacrament Meeting talk that I never had to give, and I had NOTHING prepared for singing time. I seriously lucked out!

James helped the kids build a snowman, and I baked cookies. Aaaah...what a great day!

alright...I need advice

Eliza went last night to the optometrist to have her eyes checked. She got glasses a little over a year ago, and was squinting again, ALL the time.

Took her in and found out that her eyesight has gone from -1.75 in each eye to -3.5. Poor little girl! She was SO upset by the pressure test in her eyes (blowing air into them?) and actually yelled in the office, "I hate the eye doctor". She had had a rough day at school (a boy had gotten on her last nerve) and it just made it worse to have to go have her eyes checked.

So...since I've got really NO experience with eye issues:

At what age did you start wearing contacts, if ever?

What is your prescription? Is -3.5 extremely bad eyesight? (I know it's not as bad as James' eyes...)

How did you manage glasses and sports?

Any horror stories form wearing glasses? (I just want to brace myself for the future if needs be...)

Anything else I should know?

thought we'd give you a good laugh...

fabric shopping

Last week I picked Eliza up from school and then we went fabric shopping. She's wanted to make a quilt for a few years now, and after turning 8 I figured it's just that TIME. She's always helped lay out the quilt blocks or take pins out of the sewn blocks, so she's earned the chance to make her own quilt.

We spent a TON of time looking at all of the fabric at our local quilt shop. Then I forced Eliza to narrow down her choices. We'd settled on making a "Crazy Eights" quilt, using 8 coordinating fat quarters. So, you'd think it'd be easy to find 8 that we liked. But...alas...Eliza is my daughter.

We finally settled on 8 and then we went around one more corner. Eliza's eyes got all big, and I asked her if she liked this line of fabrics better than what she had in her hand. She squirmed a little and then she said, "Oh, I do, but it'll take so long for us to decide on which ones to buy."

I then had to teach her the lesson of being happy with our purchases. If you get home with fabric that you don't really like, and you cut it up, you'll be sad with your finished quilt....

So of course we put the others back and ended up with these ADORABLE prints. She was so excited with all of the snow days we've had this week (4 out of the 5) that we had time to cut out the pieces for the blocks.

HAPPY QUILTING!

Happy Valentine's Day

Well...we've been hit by that nasty ice storm. James has been stuck at the airport since early this morning, on his way to some meetings in San Francisco. Three of our neighbors were so kind and came over bringing shovels and tractors to plow our driveway with him away. We're very blessed...

The last picture is for those of you who've visited us...can you even tell where the pathway to our front door should be? I went out with a shovel thinking I would find that path, but you can barely even see my boot-prints. This is SOLID ice.

what Eliza learned

We've had a lot of fun going to basketball games for Eliza each Saturday and a practice for Seth as well (if you call 10 on 10 practice?? that's a story we'll save for another time...). The kicker is seeing Eliza so intense. She takes everything the coaches say and REALLY does her best to put it into practice. She's always talking to herself when she's on the court and gets really aggressive when she plays. It's so cool to watch! We'll try and remember our camera this week so you can see for yourself.

Having said that, with only 4 more weeks of basketball left, we decided we really needed to get the kids to a high school game so they could see basketball in all it's glory. One of the priests in our ward plays on the team, so it was also good to go and support him.

So, last night James headed out to the game with the two of them. He came home with this story:

Eliza took in the whole game (she said she wanted to go so that she could "learn some things"), and when it was about time to go, James asked her if she had had fun. (You have to know Eliza, but LEARNING is FUN.) Anyway, she said she had learned that you could pass outside "the box" when you are in the box, and how to play "hard" defense. Then she got kind of sad, and she said, "Dad, I learned one more thing...that when you get older, boys play basketball and girls are just cheerleaders."

I laugh out loud as I type here! James assured her that girls play basketball in high school too, and we've vowed that she makes it to at least one girls' game next year! We just can't believe that she took it all in and came up with that sad conclusion!

loving that exersaucer

We (and by we, I mean Rachel and I) wore Carrie out by playing in the exersaucer today! She just loves to stand, so this is going to be a great thing for her...I'm hopeful, can you tell? Rachel lived in her exersaucer. We'll see how much Caroline follows...

I've loved seeing Rachel with Caroline, and today was no exception. She's got the high-pitched "motherese" down. Click here to see how hard she tried to get Caroline to smile and talk to the camera. It's so cute to see these two together!

see my cankle

So, Caroline is really starting to look like Rachel! We can't believe it! Look at those cheeks!

I tried to capture the way Carrie sucks in her bottom lip when she sleeps. It looks very Krumperman to me...

Say goodbye to the bassinet! She barely fits in it when she's stretching out. (BTW, this is the look she gave Rachel when she leaned over her with her hair all mopped into her face. Rachel says, "She loves to be tickled by my hair." I'm not too sure...poor baby, to be loved so much by the older sister!)

And my poor cankle. It's still swollen and bruised, almost 2 full weeks later. Jon--you're assessment was right on! The "pins and needles" sensation is due to pinched nerves from all of the swelling. And, after 2 sets of xrays, I'm relieved to report that's it's just a sprain.

One cool thing from all of this...my right calf muscle has gotten a great workout. I see more tone in it than I have in many years. :) That'll happen when you walk on your heel constantly...