Last week Maleah got her marble jar filled. This was super exciting to her. It probably sounds boring to you. Maleah earns marbles by doing chores and extra things around the house. She also earns marbles by having good character and doing the "right thing" without being told. She loves this system and has worked very very hard to get her marble jar filled to the top. It has taken over four months to do this (it's a big jar). She was told that when it was full she could pick what she wanted to do, either go bowling, spend $10 at Walmart, or invite a friend over. She picked Chuck E. Cheese's. Okay, obviously not one of the choices but she presented a good argument and I caved and said yes. We needed to go to Evansville anyway so we just added another stop to our list.
So last Saturday we journeyed to the land of the mouse (No, not the most famous mouse. It would take several hundred marble jars to earn a trip to see Mickey. This was the less famous, distant cousin named Chuck E. Cheese). There were at least 600 people there I'm sure. It was PACKED! There were five tra-zillion germs everywhere. At least that's what I was thinking about. Grubby little hands were touching the same buttons over and over. Ewwww! So needless to say, we all got scrubbed down with Germ-X wipes the second we walked out of that place. We didn't eat there either. The lines and the wait for their mediocre overpriced food was long and I had been there, done that, and wasn't doing it again. Jason and I had decided to eat at Red Lobster before we ever even went to see the mouse. We had a delicious meal and our kids love to eat there too. It all worked out just fine and Maleah had fun.
Two days later the ice storm hit. We stocked up on groceries and kerosene. Then we hunkered down for the duration. We lost power for only two and a half hours. We were prepared to be without for days so the short length of time was a-okay with me. There were others in the county who were without power for days. We lost a lot of branches. Well not really. Our neighbors lost a lot of branches - big branches. Their big tree hangs over our driveway which is unfortunate for us because everything from that tree falls onto our cars. Yuck. I was kind of hoping the whole tree would go but it didn't. A good chunk of it barely missed my car (right after that I moved my car around back). We ended up with a little less than an inch of ice over everything. It was very slick out to say the least. After the ice, we ended up with lots of snow. We have some bushes on the other side of our house that my Grandma Rose always calls Honeysuckle Bushes. She didn't know their real name but in the summer they are covered with blooms that smell just like honeysuckle but look completely different. They are tall bushes or perhaps skinny trees I don't know exactly but they are not vines and they are not real honeysuckle. It doesn't matter anyway because they are gone now. Jason had to cut them down with a chainsaw after they fell into our other neighbor's driveway. Apparently there was some sort of domino effect going on around here. Those two bushes would make our whole yard fragrant in the summer. When Maleah found out that Daddy was going out to cut down the bushes (which were practically laying flat in our neighbor's driveway) she cried. "What about the beeeeessss! The bees loovvvvvee those bushes (sniff sniff)! What will they do now? Where will they go???" Talk about drama. Yes, the bees loved those bushes. I don't know where they will go but I assured her that they will find a nice new place to live. I am raising a tree-hugger and didn't even know it. I love trees too but I don't cry over honeysuckle bushes.
The branches falling over our driveway.
My burning bush covered with ice.
I didn't make it through the bad weather without falling. Boo to that. I fell hard on our front sidewalk. It hurt. I was mad. I was relieved that it was dark outside. I knew it was slick and I still fell. I fell on my hands and knees. All I could think about was how bad my hands hurt. I didn't notice until the next day that I had smashed my wedding ring in the process. It is mangled up, prongs all messed up, and a diamond missing. That made me sad and totally explained the cut on my left hand. So now I know there is diamond somewhere between my front walk and Walmart. It could be on the sidewalk or in the snow or in the mulch or in my car or in Walmart. Isn't that lovely? I'm still searching. I think I'll put Maleah on that job. She can spot anything but finding something shiny and reflective on an icy sidewalk and a pile of ice-covered snow is like finding a raindrop in the ocean.
Our little Miss Independent Carissa has been doing her own thing lately. She marches to the beat of a different drummer and insists on wearing her pink princess snow boots and red Elmo snow cap with every outfit every day. She likes the boots because she doesn't need any help to put them on or take them off and she is in love with Elmo right now. She only wants to wear Elmo panties and not her Dora ones these days too. It's all about Elmo. On Sunday morning we were running a few minutes behind (Of course we were. We have a really hard time making it to church on time.) and I tried putting a cute pair of brown shoes on Carissa that matched her brown leopard print skirt, brown leggings, and brown shirt. Nope. She would have none of it and insisted on wearing the pink snow boots. I didn't have the time or patience to fight her on that one so she wore pink snow boots to church with her leopard print skirt and a red Elmo hat. Her Sunday School teacher did say that she eventually took the hat off for a little while but by the time I picked her back up in her classroom she had put it back on. If you look up the word "stubborn" you will find "Carissa" in the definition. I will try to get a picture of her in her get-up soon.
Maleah had Fancy Day at her school last week. She wore her flower girl dress from Kevin and Hillary's wedding and a tiara that her Aunt Cheryl had bought her at Disney World. She looked beautiful and had a great day. This week she is getting geared up for celebrating the 100th day of school with her class. Each child is supposed to be bring 100 items to school in a ziploc bag (i.e. candy, cotton balls, small toys, etc). Maleah is bringing 100 square pieces of fabric. She is also bringing the quilt top that she has been working on and is going to show her class what you can do with 100 squares of fabric. I am so proud of her! She has done all of the sewing herself and is doing a fantastic job! I cut the fabric and did the ironing but she has done the rest. She is excited to show her work to her class.
Maleah on Fancy Day
Maleah sewing her quilt together.
Some of her finished quilt blocks.
I wanted to write more but Carissa won't quit crying and I need to go hold her. She's mad because I won't turn it to "Boots!" She only wants to watch Dora the Explorer 24/7. It's not her turn right now so she is having a meltdown. It's hard to be almost two years old.
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