Raspberries, Blueberries, & Strawberries

After eating last night Michaela and Danielle wanted to play. A bit of hide and seek, horse rides, and piggy piles quickly turned to tickling. My whiskers serve as a perfect tickling tool, when I nuzzle into either of the girls necks and blow a raspberry they giggle, squirm, and laugh. Michaela was jealous when I did first did this to Danielle, so of course I obliged her and tickled her as well. But then, they decided to turn on me as a team and blow raspberries on my stomach. Michaela would say, "Blow Raspberries" and Danielle would repeat it. After a couple of rounds each I realized Danielle was saying "Blowing Blueberries" instead.

Clarifying that fruit is not equivalent vocabulary to making a weird noise with your mouth is challenging!

Danielle tried to change what she was saying, but would alternate between raspberries and blueberries. After another 30 seconds I heard "blowing strawberries" coming from her as well. Of course Michaela, Christine and I chuckled about that...only to find out after the fact that blowing a raspberry is the same as blowing a strawberry! Who new?! If Danielle was old to know her wisdom I bet she would be getting the last chuckle still today.

What to do when the to-do list is long

My semester is in its fourth week, with my accelerated hybrid class halfway done tomorrow night. I am unfortunately already back into a semester's routine, which I am slowly noticing as being unhealthy to the rest of my life. Case and point, only last month did I finish editing Christmas 2009 pictures. We have nearly a year and half of pictures yet to be archived and edited.

Fortunately for me we've been busy during the past weekends, which has forced me to stay away from work. A month ago the Friends of the Mead had their annual meeting and the girls visited Mobly the Owl.

The past two weekends we've went to Stevens Point and got a membership to the Children's Museum. The girls have enjoyed their time there, and with it only being an hour away the Museum is a wonderful place to get out and play on cold or rainy days. Here is a video of our trip two weekends ago.

Two weeks ago both Grandparents visited for Michaela's birthday. The girls especially enjoy the extra days of attention from them. Between play dates, neighbor girls, and friends visiting the girls seem to be very busy. If anyone wants to see some photos, we've uploaded old photos from a year ago, new photos from the past couple of months, and some photos from in between including the summer trip.

A Year Ago

Michaela's birthday is coming up. I finally edited pictures from our last (2009-2010) Christmas and her 3rd birthday.

I hope to post an update from her 4th birthday in a more timely manner.

Mead Wildlife Website

I have spent much of the past two weeks updating, transitioning, and partially redesigning the Mead Wildlife Area's website. Two nights ago we (with the help of an expert) transitioned the DNS and domain name over to a new server, one that supported a different design which hopefully allows for easy maintenance.

If you're interested, take a look and give me feedback. I suspect there will be many issues to resolve in the coming week yet.

http://www.meadwildlife.org/

Christmas Visit

We had a wonderful visit with Minnesota family over Christmas and New Years. Aubrey, Steven, and Abi were back from Oregon and the girls had a blast playing together. It was interesting watching them "try" to share and have fun, including the youngest two sledding.

It is amazing how hard it is to get three grandkids and grandparents to look at the camera, and from our pictures it looks almost impossible to get seven grandkids to look at the camera (even with Photoshop help).

We were lucky to spend time with many family members, but missed many more and most of our friends. We wish everyone a great 2011!

Puzzles on the Weekend

The first weekend of the new year has come and gone. Did we keep our new year resolutions? Did we have any new year resolutions? Did we stay warm?

Well the frigid weather kept us inside for most of it as we played games and worked on puzzles. The neighbor girls came over and inspired our girls to head outside for some warm weather fun in the sandbox!

Snowfall

We were unable to avoid the winter wrath that hit southern Minnesota and central Wisconsin this weekend, receiving a pile of snow on Saturday and equal sized drifts on Sunday. Today the neighbor girls came over and played with Michaela and Danielle for almost eight hours, with no nap in that time. They had a great time and even helped shovel the driveway. In the late afternoon all the girls went outside to play and enjoy the snow piles. I hope everyone has stayed warm with the winter weather.