March Madness continues!

March Madness continues today into the weekend, but I thought I should share a few things about our March Madness.

Like this showing up in my driveway on Saturday morning...

No, I don't need a van, but thank you anyway.  It was Jay's grand plan to remove the guest room bed from the loft and return the loft to a sitting/play area.  So, that was fun...a little more warning to me about his grand plans would have been helpful.  Clearly we are getting old because we both were complaining about aches and pains after moving everything.  I'm sure it was hysterical to see us both out in the cold (remember how cold it was last weekend?!) trying to literally SHOVE the mattress into the back of this hot cargo van. Mattresses are heavy!  But, the project is complete and I'm actually surprised at how much room we have in the loft when it's not being used as a guest room!

So, to top off the March Madness at our house, the brakes went out in my beloved Escape while I was driving (!!!!) to the Pizza Ranch last night for dinner, with my entire family in the vehicle.  Talk about panic!  No crashes or injuries but that was not cool, not cool at all.  And, it was 6:30 at night.  I got a tow for the Escape, a rental car so we could get back home, and then we ate some pizza and chicken.  :)  I had to take a picture of the car (CAR) I am driving today.  Ford Fusion.  Thankfully it's not the Focus.  I've made too many jokes about the Ford Focus and I don't want that to come back and get me.  ;)  But, this short length of time driving a car has reminded me why I do not like to drive a car.  Most important reason - I can barely get in and out of one!  It's like a turn into a 90 year old woman when trying to get in and out!  And, call me old school, but I am not a fan of the computer screen in the center of the dash. 

Let's just hope I remember what vehicle to look for at the park-n-ride today after work! 

(And we better not get any ice or snow, because I'm pretty sure I don't have an ice scraper in the rental...)

March Madness continues...

Wondering what's going on?

March Madness is in full effect over here.  Last weekend I'm pretty sure that's all that was on our TVs ALL of the time.  But, I sort of love it.  The madness, the STRESS of watching all those games come down to the last few minutes (so many close ones!) My bracket though, is another story...maybe the worst picking performance in my March Madness career.  If you want to know the truth, Ella's bracket (oh yes she participates too!) is in the lead by 2 games (me) and 3 games (Jay).  Clearly, not a winning bracket year.  And I had so many plans for my billion dollars....

In more March Madness news, we had another virus run through the house before St. Patty's day.  Ella really had a case of it!  I am hoping we can now all stay healthy and get some much-needed sunshine! Viruses are not fun.  We probably have enough popsicles in our freezer to last all summer, or feed the neighborhood.

Ella continues to grow and is having a great time at Kinder Kollege.  She loves to tell us what she's going to do when she's 5 (cause that's WAY older than she is now).  :)  And, she's already planning her 5th birthday party, but I hesitate to commit to a theme this early in the game....she loves to change her mind.  I get daily pictures of her during Kinder Kollege....here are a few of the latest ones.  

 (notice the dainty pinky - like she's going to drink some tea....)

 Disclaimer:  It was mismatch outfit day!  Those pants are so ugly!  

Disclaimer:  It was western day!  

The dollar store to my rescue since we own nothing western for her, and I'm pretty sure my vintage cowboy boots won't fit.  :)  I am not quite sure why her face is so strained...makes me laugh!

We made a spring break trip to Walmart Superstore...clearly we are in desperate need of a true vacation since we classify this trip as a fun part of our spring break (and we went twice!)

 But, I am always so excited to find crazy products that our boring Target grocery store doesn't carry and then I like to take pictures of us getting them apparently.  Like, birthday cake Pop-Tarts - come on! 

(Note, they are just "okay" but you have no idea how excited I was about trying these!) And...I know Ella is too big for the front of the cart, but I was not going to ruin my spring break trip with an argument...

 

 Clearly, we were craving non-nutritional foods....Sprinkled Donut Crunch Cereal!! 

(Note: again, not that great)

So, that pretty much sums up the beginning of our month of March Madness.

Disney on Ice Recap

We're late....we're late....for a very important update!  Way back on March 1st (whoops!) we headed to Disney on Ice, which was a gift to Ella for Valentine's Day.  :)  We all had a great time and enjoyed seeing all of the characters!  A few pictures from the big event:

 (picture not great, however, this was the best one we took - boo!)

In other events, we have had kindergarten registration, so that's happening!  We've got our house for sale by owner (round 2)!  Schools are on spring break this week, so no Kinder Kollege and Sara's will be closed the end of this week and beginning of next week, so we'll have lots of free time - ha!  Hoping to enjoy some warmer temperatures!  

Weekending...

Well, winter is never going to end apparently!!  We survived the epic snow storm late last week, and endured through the terrible road conditions all weekend long!  Now, we're dealing with another of these polar vortexes.  Unbelievable!!  

Ella didn't have Kinder Kollege on Friday because all the schools were closed (again).  So, we braved the local roads and headed to the bakery for a morning treat to make up for the terrible weather! :)  The bakery is less than a mile from our house (I think) so it wasn't too bad driving there.  We used "fun" plates too...we had to make it interesting!  Ella LOVES chocolate donuts with sprinkles.

That afternoon I slowly but surely made it to Eagan for my anti-aging photofacial treatment (an IPL for those in the know).  All of a sudden my skin appears to be showing major signs of aging, so I'm on an anti-aging kick.  I bought this treatment as my birthday present to myself way back in November and finally got a chance to use it, so despite the road conditions, I ventured out.  No before and after pictures to share right now.  We'll see how the end result looks.  Right now I have really dark (like peppery looking) spots where my face had age spots either already developed, or hidden under the surface that the laser brought to the surface.  Anyway, I'm hoping for some major improvements.  I am on day 4 of the 5-7 days that it will take the skin to return to semi-normal and the entire rejuvenation takes 4 weeks.  

In other weekend news, Ella has started to take her afternoon snooze on the floor....this is so odd to me, but is her new preferred spot.    Whatever works I guess!

And, they are celebrating Dr. Seuss at Kinder Kollege this week!

Ella's fish lips - HA!

Tonight we have kindergarten registration, which is still so strange to me! 

So many questions and things to learn!

Random...Weekending...President's Day

So, just as I was going to start this post, I "put two and two together" about why Bing's photo of the day is of Mount Rushmore.  I. am. an. idiot.  When I opened (is that the right word) the internet this morning, I noticed the picture of Mount Rushmore at bing.com and I was wondering to myself why? and more importantly....why wasn't there any snow at Mount Rushmore, and my mind continued on that path... wondering if the Black Hills have any snow (they should)...and maybe I should look up their weather conditions, etc....on and on. And then it dawned on me.  DUH!  For President's Day! So, it looks like I might have an interesting day if this is how my brain is going to process things today!

So, I'm enjoying a long weekend because our daycare and Kinder Kollege are both closed today and we're in the middle of another winter storm warning, with decent snow coming down right now.  Ella has already destroyed the house - almost every portion of the living room & her bedroom are covered with stuff, which I'm told I can not move because she's using it.  Playing "family" and "going to Florida"  I'm pretty sure that's a hint....

Yesterday after church we took a Sunday drive (because we're old) and drove around stalking the neighborhood where we want to move.  :)  Half the neighborhood was out blowing snow, so I figure we should just start waving, stopping by for chats, etc.  Make ourselves friendly.  Except, maybe we should warn Ella that it's not likely we are going to find any pink houses to live in.  This might be devastating for her.  And did you know there are builders in our area building single family homes without basements - like none. Slab.  What is the world?  I think that's annoying.

Did you know Bode Miller is 36? (He's the alpine skier if you haven't been watching the Olympics).  When they said that, I thought to myself, jeez, he's old!  Then I realized, wait...I'm 35.  Shit.

Ella had a great time at the Valentine's party on Friday.  She got loads of valentines from her classmates & teachers.  We went out for heart shaped (delicious) pizza at Green Mill on Friday night.  :)

 I mustache you to be my Valentine...

 The Queen of Hearts!

 We enjoyed heart shaped strawberry pies!

(we also made some for some special valentines)

And Ella opened her Valentine from us

She's pretty pumped that we're going to Disney on Ice in a few weeks!

 Sunday afternoon, Ella and Jay added some more fun to her snow slide.  A little cave!

  

Happy President's Day!

Valentines!!

Hello!  We are thankful to finally (fingers crossed) be over the latest bout of stomach virus at our house.  This has been quite the season for us!  To celebrate feeling better, we worked on some fun Valentine's Day things on Sunday.  I snapped a few pictures along the way.  Ella's bringing butterfly valentines to Kinder Kollege this year.  No boring M&M candies for this little lady!

 See - BO-RING....

But, add a foam heart sticker and some pipe cleaner antennae....and

TA DA!

 Beautiful butterflies

 We both had a good time making these.  

I handled the pipe cleaners and Ella put on the hearts!

I found a cute tag "You make my heart flutter Valentine!" 

which I'm going to add to each and then Ella can sign her name!

Later, we made some delicious mini heart shaped cakes.  YUM!  I used a box mix, but made homemade chocolate frosting.  I tried a new recipe because I couldn't find any others at home and I will totally use it again!  It was really delicious and spread on the cakes wonderfully!  Link to the recipe here.  Ella worked on her fine motor skills frosting those little cakes!  She did a great job.  :)

YUM! 

(and if you look closely, you'll see that she is eating just the top of the cake first -

a mouthful of chocolately frosting goodness!)

In other news, we have Kindergarten Round-Up in a few weeks.  WHAT?!  I can't believe it!!

Late Weekend Recap and the Olympics!

Last Friday, Kinder Kollege kids wore football apparel to celebrate Superbowl weekend (clearly this is a holiday! - HA!)  So, our household was cheering for the Broncos (what the heck happened there?!!) but we didn't have those colors, so Ella just stayed true to the MN Vikings instead.  :)

Saturday, it sort of warmed up....sort of.  So, Jay built Ella her own snow slide....but since the Olympics are starting, I'm calling it our own LUGE!  :)  I'm obviously jealous that I won't get to go down it....

So the weekend went great!  But randomly Ella caught a bug or maybe ate something that went bad?  Not sure, but she was sick Tuesday....started to finally eat something Tuesday night and then was home yesterday too with Jay.  Thankfully, she is feeling better and we're back to the normal routine today.  But, thank goodness for lots of comfy blankets & naps on sick days.