Thursday, December 24, 2009

And the answer is...


Corner frosting on a cake I made for a baby shower for a colleague. It is her first baby and it was a surprise. She is due at the end of January and I am SOOOO GLAD that I had my babies in moderate temperature months...in GEORGIA! I can't imagine having a tiny baby in this cold :-)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Potty Training

We have finally begun in earnest with Ankica. She has been going on a regular basis at school and she did really well yesterday staying dry in undies. Not constant but at least she finally understood that wet was uncomfortable and not a wanted outcome.

I have ZERO patience for this kind of thing. Which is probably why BOTH of my girls are older than some of their young friends that are already potty trained.

Give me your children with algebra and chemistry problems. Let me teach them how to draw and bake and knit...but someone PLEASE potty train my girls for me! :-)

We will struggle through and it will happen eventually...Lord give me strength!

Christmas Vacation and Snow


I hate to say it but this is what I have been missing for about five years. Well, I guess there are layers to it. First, I have been missing the idea of Christmas vacation...the time off after a hard semester of work. I barely remember a time when I wasn't working on the semester schedule. It wasn't until after Ankica was born that I had a year round vacation from school. Now that I am back at it, it is sweet.

The second thing about today was the snow. It is snowing at a medium rate this morning and it looks like a snowglobe when we look outside. There was a bit of a blizzard two weeks ago so there was snow on the ground already but this week being the week of Christmas and with snow in the forecast for most of the days this week INCLUDING Christmas, well, it is just RIGHT for our first Christmas in Wisconsin as a family.

The next thing is the girls. Having them at an age where they want to go outside and play in the snow (sort of) is just the kind of thing I was waiting for. We were out early this morning because I got tired of the begging from the girls AND the dogs. The dogs were playing and enjoying the snow while I was holding Lillian's hand. She wasn't too keen on the deep snow in the backyard but Ankica was making snow angels. Suddenly Riley took me out at the knees and down I went. Thank goodness for the deep soft snow! Lillian was frantic but I just laughed :-) We were outside for a total of 15 minutes but everyone is suitably tired and the itch has been scratched.

At least for the morning.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Their new favorite movie




One day we turned on the T.V. and there it was "The Wizard of Oz". I wasn't sure how they would deal with it but they LOVED it. The next day Ankica asked for it. She knew how many friends there were and could name all of them. I was amazed. I told her we would have to buy it. She cried. I tried to make her feel better by looking through their videos to find a new favorite movie.

Low and behold. We already own Bizah da Boz. Just ask Lillian. She'll translate for you.

And the answer is...

A picture of the Christmas tree with no flash while moving :-)

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The Day the Snow Stopped Us

I really didn't think the snow was that bad last Wednesday but apparently the University and even the Governor disagreed. Not that I was overly sad about it :-) Loran's work called him at 6:30am and we were up earlier than a normal day! I got alot accomplished with the day off and we didn't even have as much snow as places farther west in the state. This is the bush in our front yard. I bought some net lights and that was the only outdoor lights we got up this year.

Luckily our big upstairs window shows off the Christmas tree quite nicely. Unluckily there is a half strand of lights that died IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TREE. It looks good from the inside but I don't want to turn the tree. I need to buy a small strand of lights to overlap the dead part but I am sure I won't get to it before Christmas is over :-)

Christmas Letter

I realized today as I was writing my Christmas letter that if I don't keep up with my blog I won't remember what happened during the year! I looked back over the year and couldn't believe how much things have changed...and I was grateful for the time I took to write down my thoughts as we were making the transition.

And I really appreciate being able to see how important people and their families are changing and I need to keep up with this blog better for anyone that might care what is going on with us too.

So my New Year's resolution ( a bit early) is to be a better blogger. :-) We'll see how that goes!

Friday, December 11, 2009

Last class!

I just finished teaching my last class of my first semester!

Granted, I still have papers and assignments to grade, finals to write and then give and grade next week, but as for teaching classes and preparing lectures...

I AM DONE!!!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

How do they do it?

I am missing Loran...he is in Madison for training. Granted it is better than him being in Georgia because if he NEEDED to he could be home in about an hour and I am not jealous that he is spending time with good friends.

He will be back on Friday, for which I am grateful, but it really makes me wonder how those amazing military moms do it. I know some and I think they are awesome! I know I could do it if I HAD to but...

Anyway, the visit with Julia was great. She came to school with me M-W and had a good time (I think :-) pretending to be a college kid. We went to Fond du Lac for Thanksgiving and spent W-Sat at my parents' house. It was alot of fun being with family and not feeling stressed about getting back home. I spent alot of time grading exams though :-)

We got our Christmas tree on Saturday and put it up on Sunday night but it is not decorated. It is, in fact, in the middle of the living room in a pile of needles. I don't think this tree wants to be a Christmas tree. It looks very sad. Ah well. Maybe it will look better with lights and ornaments. I am hoping to get some lights on it tomorrow night so that we can decorate it on Saturday with the girls.

No snow yet. We must have brought the Georgia weather with us because it has been a very mild fall so far. But I want snow for Christmas. Next week I think :-)

I have pictures but I never seem to get them uploaded. I need to put the software on my laptop so that I can bring the camera with me to work and get it done in my downtime here (oh, I am so FUNNY!).

I have 6 more articles to write to get to 200 on Associated Content. Technically I have written 202 but 8 of the articles were for AC partner sites. (Those were great...very lucrative...in fact, I passed the $1,000 mark a few weeks ago...)

What should I write about? I need IDEAS. I have some but they never seem to get on paper. I try to write for things that AC is looking for if I can but I have also thrown in my own stuff to make it easy now and again. If you haven't seen the site in a while, I have added some of the review sheets from my science classes just for fun. The link is over on the right :-)

I need new eyes. I have had these glasses for WAY too long and I realized last week that I can't see very far at all. So in two weeks I have an eye exam and then I just need to get new glasses. What was the name of that website Coralie? I know my mom would kill me (she is an optician) but I need to save some $$ until we sell that house in Georgia.

Anyone want to buy a home in Columbus Georgia? :-)