Monday, January 28, 2008

Odds and Ends

Elisha bought Madelyn a View Master for her birthday.
One day I walked into the living room to see this:



Last week, Madelyn brought me this pretzel and said "E"!
(She was holding onto the round loop, so it really did look like an "e.")
Amazingly, she can recognize all of her letters,
thanks to the Leapfrog Letter Factory video.
Seriously, we cannot take credit for this type of knowledge. :)


Fun with Elisha's hair...pre-haircut

Elisha before bedtime playing with his Leappad

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Growing

22 weeks

25 weeks

Friday, January 18, 2008

One more thing...

My mom had her "reconnecting" surgery Wednesday and will be in the hospital until next week. The doctor said things went well, so we are looking forward to her resting, recovering, and resuming her normal activities sometime down the road. We would appreciate your prayers as she completes this final leg of her journey. Thanks!

Fantastic Five

Elisha decided to have a snowman part to celebrate turning 5.
A few friends joined us to create sock snowmen, make minis pizzas,
play games, and enjoy cupcakes. It was a fun day!

Making mini pizzas
(really simple to pull off with store-bought frozen bread dough)

Pin the Nose on the Snowman



Friends having fun at present time

"Happy Birthday to You!"


"Let's eat 'em!"

Startling

We were going a bit stir crazy last night, so I decided about 6:00 to load the kids up and head to Tree of Life so they could spend some birthday money to buy a DVD of their choice. After getting their socks and shoes on, it was my turn.

I grabbed my shoes from our laundry room (a nice warm area that also houses our furnace, water heater and such) and started to put them on. The right one went on fine, but the left one seemed to have something in the toe that was making it uncomfortable ("maybe a piece of lint or a small rock" I thought.) I turned it over, knocked it on the floor and tried again. This time there was something under the ball of my foot. I tried to shake it out but didn't see anything fall out, so I stuck my hand in the toe and tried to scrape it out. I was relieved when something dark appeared in the shoe's opening - finally!

My relief was short lived as the object started to move and crawl onto the heel of my shoe. It was a huge (in my opinion) spider! I jumped up and semi-freaked out for a moment, but quickly regained my composure since the kids were around. Jim was at work and I would have to deal with this. My plan: take it outside and kill it (I didn't want its guts on the carpet). I put on my boots, picked up my shoe (it crawled back inside), took it out to the front porch, shook it out, and stepped on it.

Below is a photo of the remains that Jim took for me this morning. You can't tell how big it was because it's all curled up and there is nothing to show it's size, but I'd say it was bigger than a quarter with its legs out. I considered trying to take photos when it happened, but I was afraid it would crawl away and I would have to stay up all night wondering where it was (shiver).

Thus ends the my spider story, although I still get the heebie geebies just thinking about it: I touched a spider! Eeeehhhhh!


Sunday, January 13, 2008

Turning Two

It's been the week of birthdays at the Womack house.
Madelyn turned 2 on Monday,and Elisha turned 5 Thursday.
We are now officially presented, partied and cupcaked out!




More Christmasing

Christmas Sunday


Christmas Eve at Great-Grandpa and Grandma Bowman's



After-Christmas, opening presents from Uncle Dan and Aunt Patti

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Funny, Funnier, Funniest

I'll leave it to you to decide which adjective fits which photos.

What happens when you leave clean laundry too accessible.


What happens when you share your hat with a tired 4 year old


What happens when you leave the Kleenex
box within reach of your 1 year old

Christmasing at IWU

IWU has a wonderful Christmas "party" where they have great snacks, fun presents for the children, and (yes) generous bonuses for employees. Here are the kids all dressed up and enjoying their gifts.



Experimenting

I read about this idea in a magazine (I think it was Family Fun) while I was in the doctor's office a few weeks ago. I came home and tried it out that very day. Just fill an ice cube tray with water and put drops of food coloring in each area. Let your child use a plastic dropper to mix colors and experiment. Elisha did this for about an hour, if I remember right. Once the colors get too mixed up, you can just dump it out, rinse the tray and start over. I love fun, inexpensive projects like this!