My Family Loves It

goodbye winter…we will miss you!

Heather — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:29:38 +0000

I love living where we have 4 seasons, but I’m not always ready for them to go and change on me! I feel like we got no where near enough snow this Winter. Luckily, towards the end we had a nice storm and the kids got ttheir sledding in. I think one of the most ideal days is a sunny day at the end of Winter when there is still enough snow on the ground for sledding, but you can feel Spring in the air. So I’m giving in to the excitement of Spring and the new things it will bring, but its hard to say goodbye to days like this:

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Reuben pictures

Heather — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:40:32 +0000

He may be a big pain but he is a very handsome old pain and he looks good on the brown couches!

John just bought us a new camera lens and he used it to get the best pictures we have of our dog Reuben! I am excited to see if I can get some nice pictures of the kids with it too. I finally decided to be ready for some Spring and I am excited to take pictures of the kids outside on GRASS soon! Oh and extra sunlight is going to be wonderful!

John’s Note: I got us the Canon EF 28-135mm with image stabilization.

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WIN a Vat 19 SLUSH MUG!

Heather — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:22:20 +0000

Vat 19 was kind enough to send us a slush mug to review AND one to give away! I had high hopes for the slush mug and luckily I wasn’t disappointed at all. We have been enjoying frozen treats for over a week now with no complaints. The inner core goes in the freezer for at least 8 hours prior to use but its best to just leave it in there all the time so its ready to go when you want a slushy drink (and if you wash it right after use and put it back in freezer it will be ready to go again in an hour or so in my experience). So far I have tried it with OJ and chocolate milk but any drink you like that isn’t artificially sweetened will work. The OJ was pretty good and it froze right up in a few minutes but the chocolate milk was the best and I think our slush mug will probably be used with it the most. I buy the gallon size chocolate milk and when its in the slush mug it is almost identical to a Wendy’s frosty! The slush mug keeps your drink slushy for hours so I’m looking forward to using it in the summer outside by the pool! A nice bonus is that its made in the USA. The only downside to this review is that I need to hurry up and order at least 3 more so that all the kids can have their own or maybe the Easter bunny will be putting slush mugs in the kids’ baskets!

ENTER TO WIN A SLUSH MUG in your choice of red or blue:

Visit the Vat 19 site and tell me another product you like.
You can earn an extra entry by becoming a subscriber to my blog and leaving a 2nd comment.
Contest open to continental US mailing addresses.
Contest ends on St Patricks Day, Wed March 17th 2010!

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Name that snow creature!

John — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:17:02 +0000

We got a few more inches of nice wet snow so we finally set out to build a snow man in our yard. I felt inspired to try building a snow troll or goblin creature. Building the 2 legs was fun and easier than I thought. Since we had 2 legs that meant we need a snow butt.

I wimped out on the arms and just made them crossed and attached to his body. For the head I started with a rough shape, a big nose, simple eyes and started adding horns. As the horns grew they started looking like ears…and oddly familiar. I added 2 buck teeth and then I knew who it was. Look familiar to you?

Here he is completely assembled.

And here are my helpers.

Know who it is yet?

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Snow Eater

John — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 20:15:55 +0000

Jillian is obsessed with eating snow.

So I try not to think about why she didn’t like the taste of this particular snowball.

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SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!

Heather — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:11:25 +0000

We finally got our BIG SNOW, the first real satisfying storm of the season! YAY! Ethan was the first one out there, he rushed to get his gear on and go. He was very smiley and kept scooping up armfuls tossing it into the air above him.

Ben was the last one to come in, he turned pretty red cheeked by the time I bribed him in with hot chocolate.

I got some pictures of the four of them together but Jamie was too busy for the camera. We couldn’t get any building done with destructo-baby nearby! Luckily the snow was too high for her to walk so we moved our igloo building away from her.

Jillian LOVES the snow but she eats a lot of it so her face got very pink and she wouldn’t keep either of the 2 sets of mittens I had on so her hands got icy and I had to take her inside despite that she didn’t want to. She kept yelling “BOOTS” at me in protest because thats the closest thing to snow that she can say!

After the girls and I went inside it got quite windy and blizzard-like out there. I took this picture from the living room and then got started making the hot chocolate. I am so hoping for another SNOW DAY tomorrow! Today was only our 3rd snow day of the school year so I think thats a reasonably request at the end of February!

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My girls are so snuggly in their Chipoupine teddy sweaters, WIN one for your little munchkin!

Heather — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:14:34 +0000

I can’t help but rub the “teddy bellies” when my girls wear their Chipoupine sweaters, they are so super soft and irresistible! I like so much about these sweaters that I made a list:

They are soooo soft and thick that you have to snuggle your kids extra when they wear them.
The fleece is high quality and just as soft on the inside as the outside (I have noticed some fleece clothes are not soft on the inside and whats the point of that!) the sweater is not fully lined with the cotton print, its an accent on the inside cuff and neckline.
They wash and dry very well, I’ve washed them now several times and they look like new still.
They are great for year round: extra sweater in winter, an outerwear layer in Spring and Fall and even a warm fuzzy Summer cover-up after swimming (my kids will stay in the pool until they are blue).
I ordered both the girls’ sweaters a size too big so they can wear them for a longer time, now they can wear them with the cuffs turned up and they are more like tunics on them but as they grow the sleeves can be uncuffed and the length will be good still. Jillian’s is a size 2 but at 15 months she really would be a size 1. Jamie can wear her size 4 right now but Jillian’s 2 fits her still (those first 2 pictures are Jamie wearing Jillian’s sweater).
The teddy belly circle is a unique whimsical touch and it is what won me over when I first saw the sweater.
They are designed and made in France, I never had a package arrive from France before and it made my day!
The Chipoupine embroidered logo is adorable on the back of the sweater (check it out in one of the pictures below).
The gender neutral design and colors are a nice change of pace from all the pink the girls have! My favorite is the green below but I let Jamie pick the colors.

ENTER TO WIN the Teddy Sweater of your choice:

Visit the Chipoupine site and then come back here to tell me another item of theirs that you think is great!
For a second entry become a fan of Chipoupine on Facebook and let me know in a second comment.
CONTEST IS OPEN WORLDWIDE!!!
Contest ends March 12th 2010, good luck!

Don’t worry, no sweater was stained in order to get these pictures (I only use washable paint!).

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Finally, some snow!

John — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:40:36 +0000

The North has been looking on with envy while the South has gotten all OUR snow. Even worse was hearing some people complain about their abundance of the wonderful white stuff. Well, we finally got a few inches of snow last week. Here’s one of the reasons we love winter.

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Our old dogs are distrubing the peace!

Heather — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:23:46 +0000

“Who us?” Here are Reuben and Casey looking oh so innocent after I tried to sneak up on them and snap a picture of their nap! I woke them up and then Jamie moved in for a snuggle with Casey. I’m not a fan of blog rants so I’ll keep this short. Yes they bark multiple times a day but not for more than a few minutes at a time and I never leave them outside in our fenced yard unless I am home to bring them in when they want to come in, some people are just grumpy and mean! THE END (I really hope!).

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

Heather — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:15:46 +0000

The girls and I got to go to both the boys’ Valentine’s parties on Friday (we lucked out and they were one after the other so we didn’t have to be at 2 places at once!). It was really nice, all the kids were good and cute and the chaos wasn’t too much. I love holidays. My kids are wonderful. As I’m writing this I was just presented with a nice picture from Ethan and a Lego heart from Ben, they are sweet.

I love Ben rubbing his belly over the Valentine treats!

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