Snow, Snow, Snow

Why am I blogging so much today? Well, there's not much else to do. Bruce is stuck in Texas--he was supposed to arrive last night but there was so much snow around here that Chicago grinded to a hault. Now he's stuck in a motel in Austin until tomorrow afternoon. Don't feel too sorry for him though. He's been living the good life for the past couple of days in a suite at the Hilton, going to country clubs and eating fancy four course meals, and ordering room service (for the first time in his life), courtesy of the hospital he is interviewing with. He's gone a little downhill since then though (now that it's on his tab)--he had greasy hashbrowns for lunch/dinner at the Waffle House this afternoon, the only restaurant within walking distance of the motel.

I tried to go get groceries this morning and didn't make it farther than a quarter of a mile down the road before I went right off the road into the ditch. Thank goodness someone stopped--I couldn't get my door open without her help and it would have been a long quarter mile walk home with two kids (we are one of the few people in the world who don't have cell phones). She actually worked for the county and called to see if someone could come pull us out. The roads were so bad everywhere else that they'd been flooded with people needing help and we were very low priority. The kind lady drove us back home and I called a tow service to pull out the car. He had two cars to pull out before us, but within a couple of hours called again and said he was a few minutes away. I told him that since I had to walk to the car, it might take a little while. I was hoping he would offer to pick me up but he did not. Myra was taking a nap and I tried calling our neighbors but they were out, so I put a video on for Alice and started walking down the road. It was about 10 degrees at that point and the wind was blowing really hard--had to be in the negatives with the windchill. About 5 minutes into the walk, a big truck stopped and the guy asked me if I wanted a ride. The guys was pretty scruffy--not someone I'd normally hitch a ride from, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. The tow guy was able to pull the car out pretty easily, so I was gone all of 15 minutes, but it was still nerve wracking having to leave the girls. I just didn't know what else to do. I didn't want anyone else out on the roads trying to help us.

It's supposed to be in the negatives tomorrow and there's also a windchill warning. Can I just tell you that I am SO glad this is my last winter here!!!! I can laugh at days like this because I know I will never in my life have to deal with something like it again:)

Valentine's Day

What we have been up to...

A couple of weeks ago we had Alice's friend Jacob over for a few days while his parents were at the hospital having a new baby. Jacob has a special blanket he carries around, and to our dismay, Alice also felt the need to have a special blanket. We have slowly weened her off of it so now she only uses it at night when she is sleeping, rather than dragging it everywhere she goes. It is called 'The Elmo Blanket.'


Alice and Bruce made a star cake for my birthday. Alice originally wanted to make me an Elmo cake, but I told her since it was my birthday, I wanted either a heart or a star. Bruce managed to find room for 29 candles on the cake, though it was pretty crowded.


Myra's big thing lately is a very strong desire to sit up. She is no longer satisfied with sitting in her bouncy seat or laying back to be fed--she wants to see things. Specifically, she wants to see Alice. Her face lights up when Alice walks into the room--she can't get enough of her big sister.


Alice's new thing is playdough. We also made sugar cookies today and decorated them with frosting and sprinkles, which is very similar to playdough except you get to eat what you make!


Alice has also really been enjoying playing computer games on sesamestreet.org. It's really been fun for her to look for different letters on the keyboard. She can recognize most uppercase letters, thanks to her ABC puzzle, but still needs to work on lowercase. She has also finally started counting normally. For months, she would only say "1, 2, 8, 10," even though we knew she could count to 10 if she wanted to because we would ask her what came after different numbers and she could tell us. I think she just wanted to do it quickly and figured skipping numbers was the best way.

An Account of the Weed and the Outlier

While we were dating, Bruce went for treatment at my dad's office when he was having some back pain. As we were leaving, a patient came up to us and said that we were going to have really tall children. It was a little embarrassing at the time, since we were only dating, but boy was she right!

THE WEED
I looked at Alice the other day and realized that her long sleeved shirt was now a 3/4 length sleeve with about an inch of midriff showing and her pants could not be called anything but highwaters. Some of her clothes still fit, but I've been pulling out things I bought for next year, which is probably good since they might not fit next winter! Since church was cancelled today due to bad weather, I instituted Pajama Day, since her jammies are one of the few things that still do fit her.

THE OUTLIER
Myra had her four month appointment on Wednesday and really outdid herself. She is 20lbs and 27.5 inches. Just to give you a little idea of what that means, beyond being completely off the charts--Alice was 21lbs at her 9 month checkup and she was in the 95th percentile for her weight. She was 27.5 inches at her 6 month checkup and was 90th percentile for her height. So weight-wise, Myra is a very large 9 month old.

Ear Fun

Myra found her ears the other day. She was trying with all her might to pull one of them off, I'm assuming so she could chew on it. I pointed this out to Bruce and Alice because it looked so funny. I then asked Alice if she could pull one of her ears off, thinking she would know I was joking. But no, she immediately started pulling on her ear, and after a few seconds got frustrated and said, "It hard do!" Usually, when she says that I tell her that she can do hard things, but even though it would have been very entertaining to see her try harder to pull her ear off, I decided not to:)

Alice has been particularly worried about keeping things clean lately. She even cleared the table off the other night without us asking her to and we've never even shown her how to do it beyond our example. She just started clearing things off and putting them by the sink. We didn't even notice until after she was almost done. So, all you parents out there--I'm guessing this phase doesn't last long? Enjoy it while it lasts, you're saying in your head?