Human Rocker

A few days ago we were cooped up in the house with no excercise so the girls and I made human rockers.  I did this when I was in school and it's a lot of fun ~ if your younger!  I was pretty worn out after all this.

 Here goes Chloe!

 Addi is loving it too!

 Crash and burn~

"Spaghetti arms"

There is a washing machine in my barn!

Dancing girls

Chloe and Addi decided to try on their old ballet dresses (actually these are from Tap).  They dance around and had fun while I played with the camera trying out different ways to take pictures.

There is a baby swing in my barn!

The road to health

One of my problems is making sure my kids are eating healthy.  This month we tried some different fruits.  Chloe had a fit when I told her I was looking for the "ugli" fruit to try, so instead we tried starfruit (pictured), papaya and an applepear (not pictured).  The starfruit was a HUGE hit with Addi.  It tastes kind of like an apple and grape mixed, but is easy to find in the winter months.

Chloe and I watched some show on healthy eating for kids one day and it gave the recipe for a raspberry smoothie.  It looked delicious so me, Chloe and Addi made one and tried it out.  We all liked the flavor, but Addi and Chloe had some issues with the texture (which did not bother me a bit).  Here is the recipe if you want to try one.

1 cup of raspberries (frozen or fresh)

6 oz fat free vanilla yogurt (I even found organic)

4 T organic Orange Juice

1 T org wheat germ

1 T Flaxseed

Then I topped with whip cream for me and Chloe (Addi and Daddy do not like whip cream).  This was yummy with our fish, rice and carrots.

We have a small boat beside the barn and a Grimlin in the barn.

Give me Power!

You never realize how much you rely on power until it is GONE!  Our electricity was off from Tuesday to Friday.  We have a well so we can't get water either.  We temporarily moved in with aunt Rachael, uncle Jeff and cousin Olivia.  It was pretty fun and the girls LOVED it.  Then on Friday Addi had a birthday party to go to (at Chucky Cheese), Saturday she had a basketball event with Girl Scouts and Sunday was a Superbowl party...and we are still trying to get things back to normal.  Two of our fish died and we had laundry coming out of our ears.
I did not have my camera when we went to the cousins house, but I did have it for the basketball game and the Superbowl party. 
Here are a few shots of those fun times!

This is Addi with her her friend (maybe best friend), Jonathan, his sister Katie, and snowman Joe (Chloe refused to be in the picture) at the Superbowl party.  The kids were off to have fun while the adults got to talk a bit - ahhh that was nice!

And this is Emilee and Addi at the Girls Scout basketball event.  The basketball they are holding was something Addi got for answering a question asked by the coach.  Out of the 12 girls in Addi's troup they were the only 2 there, but they get a badge for it!!  This is the same little girl Addi took dance with last year.



I am sure you are all wondering (the two people who read this anyway) what else is in my barn...There is a four wheeler in my barn (Addi loves it)!!

Oops!!

There are 3 riding mowers in my barn!!!!

Resolutions - keeping myself accountable

Isn't this a cool picture?  My sister-in-law took it during thier yearly Thanksgiving visit.  I love this picture!  Thanks Jess!

I feel like I am a pretty closed person and it seems to be getting worse.  I constantly worry about saying the wrong thing - so I guess I figure I won't say anything at all.  I say I 'deal' with things that upset me by not thinking or talking about them.  Peter tells me that I am not dealing with them, I am avoiding them.  I am sure he is right.  So one of my resolutions is to be more open and actually reveal things about me.  This includes being a better listener when people talk to me as well.  I also want to spend more quality time with Peter, my silly, fun loving hubby (he thinks he is spiderman because his name is Peter-btw).  Most of our time is spent watching some television and relaxing when the kids go to bed.  Not that this is not wonderful - but seriously what kind of quality is that?  So, time to get working on that.  Anyone have any good ideas on that one?
I also want to spend more quality time with the girls.  Like so many others, I think I am too busy for anything.  I need to get this done then I will play.  But wait, just one more thing.  I end up losing the entire day.  That needs to change!  Sooo step 1... 
Addi has been asking and asking to play "London Bridge" every night (for about 3 nights in a row), but when she asks it is already too late so we tell her "no".  I had an idea what "London Bridge" is but not why it was so important to play this with us.  Well, the other night I remembered she had been asking, so about 30 minutes before bed time I told her we could play.  So Peter and I held up our hands like a bridge and the girls ran around singing, "London Bridge is falling down" (as we trapped them in our arms every so often).  This lasted about 15 minutes, and let me tell you, they had so much fun and I think Peter and I were both surprised how much fun we had with them also.  I sit and think, she just wanted to play with mom and dad and I wonder..."what is wrong with me?  Why can't I see this?"  So, more of this with my girls!  Now, that was a totally easy thing and not at all time consuming.

Snow Day

The girls and I had a snow day and it was soooo cold we stayed in all day.  The girls decided to make an imaginary picnic in the family room.  Of course no matter how much play dishes they have, nothing compares to the real thing.
That was Addi's 4th snow day and my 2nd.  Today we are home again.  Addi has to make up 2 days.  I will have to make up days if we miss any more.

As for the barn...  we have a armoire with 4 different color doors (that actually belongs to my parents).

Rocks

Our cat...

and yes, he's been in the barn too.

Here goes....Day 1

I have gone back and forth on actually creating a blog and now I am finally doing it.  I decided to do it as one of my New Years Resolutions.  I think there is a little more accountability when you write it all out and "publish" it.  So this one had to be done before I could let the world (or at least my family memebers) know all my resolutions. 
So, I will put the list up soon.  I will leave you in suspense for a bit. 

First, I bet you are wondering about our Title.  I could not come up with something catchy so I called in the husband for his ideas and the first choice was "What's in the barn?" sadly that one was taken so he picked "What's in my barn?"  Not taken.  I was so excited because I read some sad stories of people trying to get names where they were all taken, but I think we did pretty good.
He said after each blog I could end with the revealing of an item you could find in our barn.  Now I have no worries about this ever ending because our barn is seriously full.

On that note - there is a 3 foot plastic elf living in my barn!