Heavenly Play-doh

Saturday morning Isabella and I were playing play-doh while Zach was taking a nap and Liza was gone to a student leadership meeting. She was making her normal "pancake" and scooped a little bit out. She looked at it a second and said, "It's a manger! We need a baby Jesus." So I made a little bundle with eyes and put it in the "manger." "Now make a Mary. So I did that. Next came Joseph and then "Make a sheep too, daddy!" So I made something that looked more like a dog, but oh well. She thought it was pretty cool. We then worked on making some flowers as well. She is getting very creative with her play-doh.

Here is Belle with her play-doh nativity scene.

Mary is on the left, but only she would know that.

Flowers in pots. Having pots was very important.

Here's mud in your mouth

Last night we had a "new parent's class" leadership meeting down at our friend's, the Lloyds, house. There were lots of kids there and they were all playing while the adults talked. Zach was playing in the living room where Liza was and I was in the kitchen. Suddenly I heard, "oh my!" from someone and looked around to see that Zach was playing in a big potted plant in the living room. He had fist fulls of mud and was stuffing it in his mouth. Liza grabbed him and brought him in to the kitchen to clean him up. Did he cry and try to spit it out? Oh no. He just kept chewing on it and smiling happily as Liza tried to clean it out. I finally had to hold him over the sink and put handfuls of water in his mouth to clean it all out. They said having a boy would be different... but wow. :-)

"Mud... it does the body good!"

Ice Storm 07

I have to admit, when the silly weathermen came on the air Monday with a big "Ice Storm '07" graphic, talking for HOURS about how bad it was going to be, I mocked them. I didn't believe it would be so bad. I attributed their over excitement to their desire to justify their "dual doppler" radar and the "Vipir Storm System" on which they had spent millions of dollars. Liza went shopping, I went to work, and rain fell on the wet (but not at all icy) streets all day long. Most of Austin was "hunkered down" and we mocked them openly.

Then came Tuesday. The rain kept falling all night long, but the temperature dropped below freezing. Rather than coating the ground with a nice snow, it encased everything in a large ice cube. You can see my car below. I spent 30 minutes chipping the hole in the ice so I could see just a tiny bit to pull the Kia in the garage. (It looks like the glass is broken, but it isn't. There is just 3/4" of ice coating the entire car.)

The trees had each individual leaf coated with a leaf-shaped ice cubes an inch thick. The Live Oaks, which stretch out over the ground, were bending down and touching the ground. The bridges were frozen solid with snow 6 inches deep over 2 inces of ice, and everything came to a halt. We stayed home. We had little choice. But, we had fun.

Isabella and Zach went out to play in the ice ( and see the big fluffy snowflakes that did finally fall) and see how the yard was one big ice rink that crunched as you walked on it. Hoosier didn't know what to do, and didn't enjoy hearing it crackle under him as he tried to do his business.

Here is Isabella playing in the ice and snow.

She gathered up snow in her bucket and had a great time.

Zach wasn't sure what to do with it, but that didn't stop him from sampling the leaves covered in ice.

The kids spent most of the 3 days in their pajamas. Isabella enjoyed wearing her tutu over her hers.

Zach was a little tired of it all by the end, but didn't stop looking cute.

Finally, today, the weather warmed up a bit, and the ice started to melt. Outside, the ice was falling off the trees like hail, as well as from the power lines and everything else. It was a little hazardous to drive too, not because of the ice on the road, but because of the sheets of ice flying off the tops of cars and bashing the front of the cars behind them. It was quite an experience. I didn't believe them when they said it was coming and I couldn't have imagined how much fun we'd have as a family in the midst of it.

We mocked, we poked fun, we said they were wimps. We were wrong. To all the Austin weathermen, we apologize. :-)

Hoosier Ride

Here's a fun little video from tonight as we were playing at home. Click on it to play the video.

Snow and ice

It doesn't happen too often, but now and then it finally gets cold in Austin.
This morning we woke up to snow on the ground and about a 1/2" of ice on the windshield of the car. Thankfully Liza still has her ice scraper from Boston, so I could use that. I took Isabella outside to look and she said, "Oh yookie! Snow! But not enough for a snowman. It's cold!" and ran back inside. Here you can see our now dead plants and the back yard as well.



In other weather news, on Saturday morning, there was a big thunderstorm that woke up the dog and the kids about 6am. Liza went in to get Zach just as there was a flash of lightening outside. Isabella said, "Oh- it's blinking outside!"

All better!

Isabella has been doing well and healed up very quickly. Here is a picture of her showing off her healed up lip and nose.

Zach just wanted to say "hi."

Healing

Today Isabella is healing from her big boo boo. You can see her lip is very red, but her nose is looking a lot better. She is getting a scab on her lip and today as we were riding in the car, she kept pursing her lips and trying to see them. I asked her if her lip hurt, and she said "No! There's something on it! It's bugging me!" We decided to go to HEB and pick up some chapstick for her to help keep it soft so it wouldn't bug her so much.

Here Zach is having fun with one of the "little people" elephants. He really likes all the toys he got for Christmas. Thanks to all his grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends!

"Yum yum... but really, I'd rather eat some fuzz, or a dog toy, or a stray leaf... maybe some tissue paper or a Kleenex I found...."

Extreme Makeover Update

We had to leave to go to Indiana before they were done with the Extreme Makeover Home Edition house down the street from us. So we didn't get to see the "reveal" or get any more pictures of the process, but here is the final product. This house is just a little out of place in our neighborhood, but oh well. It sure does look nice!

Side and back view

Corner view

Front View

Front and other side

Big Boo-Boo

Today Liza took Zach to the doctor for his 9 month checkup. Things went great. He's 19.2 pounds and 28" long. He's doing great. On the way out to the car, Isabella was carrying her magna-doodle and tripped. She pretty much did a face plant on the asphalt. When I picked her up, she was bleeding from the lip and crying pretty hard. I took her in and gave her some ice and made sure she was ok. She then went with Liza to the doctor and he checked her out. She was ok- scraped knee, scraped nose and a loose tooth. He said it should be ok in about a month. She spent the rest of they day looking a bit like Rudolph, but she is doing fine now.

Grasshoppers

Isabella got a new magna-doodle for Christmas when we were up in Warsaw. She loves it and plays with it all the time. One night at the hotel she was working away very hard. She likes to black it out and then draw in the black. I asked her what she was drawing, and she said very seriously, "I'm drawing grasshoppers" and went on working away.


I'm not sure how these are grasshoppers, but I guess you should never question an artist. :-)

She likes the 4 star hotel.

Isabella really liked the Hilton. She discovered that it came with robes, which she thought was pretty cool. Here she is after a bath showing off her fancy robe.

Happy New Year!

We brought in the new year this year in Tulsa with Grandpa Roger and Grandma Carla. We had a great time up there and it was great to see my dad in the short time he was back in the country. The first day of 2007, we drove to Dallas for our annual Dallas Winter Conference that went from the 1st to the 7th. We stayed at the Hilton and the kids enjoyed having their own room.

Zach and Daddy at the hotel.

Isabella loves to ask mommy to give her a "Piggy Ride-Back."
Here they are having fun in our room.