Tommy and Sally sitting in a tree....

k-i-s-s-i-n-g
first comes love,
then comes marriage,
then comes the baby and the baby carriage....



I'm just sayin'.

Seattle Children's Museum

Just as a side note, does anybody else have the same problem as I do? Whenever I get on the computer, my glorious children seize the opportunity to ransack the house! They know that my attention has been drawn away--even for 5 minutes--and they start getting into anything and everything they know darn well they're not supposed to be in. Like gum from my purse. Both big no no's!! And the dvds and the pantry and climbing on the table..... Things that make you go Grrrrrrrrrrr.... anyway, moving along.....



Waaaaay back in January, Joanna's preschool class met at the Seattle Children's Museum for a day of learning and fun. Since Seattle is about 1.5 hours from Ellensburg, I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to go see our good friends, Pete and Sarah Nielsen and their two boys, Clifford (5) and Kristjan (4). They used to be our neighbors when we lived in student housing but they have since graduated, got a "real" job, and live in Lynnwood (about 20 min. northeast of Seattle).

The children's museum was Friday, Jan. 29th. So the day before, me and the kids went to the Nielsen's and stayed the night. The next morning I took Joanna and Clifford to the activity museum and Sarah stayed with Kristjan and my two younger youngins. Joanna and Clifford had a b.l.a.s.t. being there together!! And I spoiled them with lunch at the food court, then ice cream and candy afterward.

One of the areas of the museum was a true-to-life exhibit of Sesame Street.
Here's Joanna and Clifford in Elmo's world.

Joanna grocery shopping at the mini store

Joanna's attention in the firetruck lasted about 30 sec. Clifford played in it for 10 minutes!

Inside the belly of the whale. Literally! hmmm. All of a sudden I find
myself humming veggie tales. ;-)

Playing in the forest exhibit. There were caves to crawl in and fake boulders to climb on too.

Okay, before you watch this video, you need a little background. One of the exhibits was all about the human body. Kids could learn about the 5 senses, about the muscles and bones, about breathing and circulation, and so on. I think the favorite area of this exhibit was the one on digestion. Mainly because part of it was pretty disgusting. But the kids all thought it was hilarious!! Enjoy. You may want to put down your sandwich before watching this.

Above is Clifford learning about the nose. When you push the mucus, dust, or pollen buttons, they make the nose sneeze, and then water mist comes down from the big nose above!! It grossed Joanna out! She said, "ewwww!!"

After we left the children's museum we got ice cream and walked around the Seattle Center grounds. The kids chased some of the fattest seagulls I've ever seen. Then we walked up to the Space Needle and then Clifford said that it was the biggest elevator he'd ever seen.

There are little carnival rides nearby so I let them get tickets to ride one ride. They chose the carousel. Then we went back to the Nielsen's where we stayed the rest of the weekend!

Information Overload

I'm back, blog-o-sphere. I have been on a self-prescribed blogging hiatus. More of a technology hiatus, really. Where have I been? At home reading a newspaper. You know, that rolled up bunch of thin paper that stains your fingers black. And if you subscribe to my hometown newspaper like I do, you inevitably wind up feeling dumber after reading it. (The Daily Record is usually filled with immaturely written/typo-riddled/outdated news and feature articles. Sorry, but it's true.)

How blessed are we to live in an era of human history where an infinite supply of knowledge and information is possible. Instantaneously. Around the clock. With so many techy devices and media formats at our disposal it's easy for small, Daily Record-exposed brains like mine to become saturated and overloaded with it all.

This is Jolie's brain.

This is Jolie's brain after reading too many news articles, magazines, blogs, facebook, etc.

Perhaps you have found yourself feeling like the people in the video below. I know I do some days.



For this reason I have been limiting my time on the computer lately. Alas, I feel compelled to update the world at large with the happenings of my little family. In other words, I intend on further congesting the already overloaded information highway with more words and more images.

Stay tuned over the next few days. I intend on maxing out your brains with loads of useless and yet pertinent information.

Sledding

As you can see by the date stamp, it was a month ago that we took the kids sledding. Better late than never, right?! Joanna's preschool class was going sledding, so I took Jaclyn and Jayden along for the sweet ride. And oh, what a ride it was for all the kids that day!

The hill that Joanna's teacher chose was perfect. It was out at Ellensburg Golf course, and Josh tells me that we sledded right down the fairway of Hole #1. And the snow was perfect too. It had rained the day before, and then refroze so the hill was extra slick!!

I'm not doing anything wrong, mom! Honest!! Jayden accompanied Joanna on the sled a couple times, but after his second spill, I think he felt content playing in the snow. ;-)

Hot cocoa and donut break!!
Here's some of Joanna's friends from school. Her teacher, Mrs. Martone, is the lady in the black coat. Joanna loves her!

Joanna is the one on the far right.

Jaclyn was skiddish about sledding at the start. She's always so cautious! But she eventually warmed up to the idea and climbed into a sled. I had to push her off against her will, but you should have seen the look of excitement in her eyes when she climbed back to the top of the hill and asked me if she could do it again!
And after that, she was a sledding fool. There was no stopping her!!

The golf course's caretaker's dogs ran out to play with the kids. Jayden and Jaclyn were entertained by them. They got a kick out of watching me play fetch with the dogs.

Joanna with her "toobie" as she calls it. I called it an inner tube. Her 4 year old ears heard "toobie" and the name has stuck.

Ice Skating

Last weekend we took the girls ice skating for the first time. Joanna and Jaclyn have seen ice skating on t.v. and have wanted to try it, so we did. I expected this excursion to last 10 minutes, max, ending the moment the first bum hit the ice. But the girls proved me very wrong!! They LOVED it!!! We had to bribe them with ice cream to get them to leave!

Oh, poor Jaclyn! She wasn't happy about falling, but she shook it off quickly and kept trying. In her defense, she had a handicap that night. They had no skates in her size. Or in the next 2 sizes, either! She wears a size 8 shoe and she had to wear size 11 skates. As a result, she was pretty wobbly out there.

This was the only fall of the night! Pretty incredible, considering the girls had skates strapped to their feet for the first time!

The only reason I never took any diggers is because I wasn't wearing ice skates!! See?

I was so relieved when the lady in the ticket booth told me that I could be on the ice in tennis shoes.

HaHaHa

I SUCK at skating. Roller, ice, whatever. I am terrible! This fact brings great shame to my family. Why? Well, because I'm from North Dakota, and I grew up in a town where everybody skates in the winter. And both my brothers played hockey in high school. And both my parents skate really, really well! And then there's me. The non-skating black sheep.

The girls took turns using this pushy thingy. It helped them propel themselves down the ice and learn how to balance on skates.