wordless wednesday

backlog blog

So I have been absent from the blog...not because we havent done anything, but because I didn't have the urge to tell the world. Since Disney we have celebrated both kids birthdays (Finley w/a Chinese party and Braden w/an Army party at the bowling alley), endured a Blizzard, celebrated Valentines day, a sneaky silly Leprechaun visited our house on St. Pattys day, Braden played a full schedule of YMCA basketball, the Superbowl and College March Madness occurred, Baseball Opening Day passed (go Yankees) and we have started baseball for the year.....thats just what I can remember!
We did venture up to Wisconsin to visit Seans brother and his family for his babe's, Abigail, baptism. Sean and I were the Godparents. Refer to Kari's blog to see the story unfold there.....but here are some of the pictures from the weekend....









This is Abby....the girl of the weekend!!

we love disney

We ventured to Sunny CHILLY Disney World the last week of our extended Christmas break. This time the Renfroe side of the family took part. My parents, sister and brother hadnt been to Disney world in 25 years (only Magic Kingdom)....so it basically was like a first time trip. The weather was pleasant during the day, think high sixtys with a breeze, and chilly at night, think 40s with wind. We walked and walked and walked and everyone did great. I think the Renfroes enjoyed their "first" trip to Disney and Finley asked me last week if we could go back after Valentines Day....um.......

The Disney Marathon was going on when we were there...that was kind of neat. Makes me want to whip my legs in shape so I could do the 1/2 marathon next year. BUUUUTTTT I doubt that will happen...3 miles is enough for me these days.

Here are just a few pictures. I have a large cache of them, however hate to bore you.

Were all in the same boat....

The official count in the paper today was 15 inches.....I know, I know, it doesn't look much...however it is drifted everywhere!!! There is one part in our back yard I stepped in that the snow went up to my mid thigh!! School has been cancelled for three days....kids are going stir crazy....im sick of making meals....we havent had fast food in days (which is rare for us).....we finally got out today and it was 6 degrees. There are mountains of snow EVERYWHERE in town....here are some pics from my house.

Across the street....the private plow had to be plowed out by apparently a city truck...

Finley is in a flowerbed and is almost level with the airconditioner
Drift outside a patio door...poor Jack...this hasn't been easy on the pets
Can you see how big that pile of snow is back there?? Thats from the driveway...the kids can't wait to sled down that!
The drifts are awe-some.
The groundhsaw did not see his shadow.....he is only 33 percent right....he is in Pennsylvania.....there is a chance of snow this Sunday and Monday....

fun ornament

In a season of busy-ness....its always fun to try to squeeze in some crafts. The Kane girls were in town this weekend and I took this craft over to the kid's grandma's house to fill some time. Its really easy!!

I saw it on a blog....a little bit funky...and she got it somewhere....giving props where props are due.

I will say it was easiest with the bigger kids, although Mallory the 2 year old did fine. I do think an even larger ornament would have worked better with Braden.

Paint liberally their hands....

Place bottom of ornament in their palm and have them slooooowwwwly
Wrap their fingers around the ornament....the slowly un wrap.

Then comes the tedious part.....once dry, I hot glued felt as hats and scarves and used a sharpie for the face....be sure to write their name and year on the underside where the palm was...if you click on the below picture you can see the finished product better!

annual gingerbread houses

We continued the tradition...actually we thought we could bypass it this year, buuuuuttttttt, Miss Finley reminded us we hadn't done it yet. Now, please know the kids start out strong ... about get one half of the roof done.... and decide there is other things to do which leaves us adults to finish the creation. Finley reminding us probably means that she wanted them around to eat the candy off of them. Last year she would pick a piece off each time she walked by....

Maddie and Emily working on Finleys
Finley at least hung around when she was "finished"...decided stacking Starbursts was more interesting...
The finished products. Marshmallow (our trusty elf) decided to land there this a.m. Finley's is in the foreground and Braden's is in the background.....wonder if we will do this again next year??

christmas craft

I had lofty goals to do a craft a day this week. Started off well on Monday.....fell off the wagon on Tuesday.....and forgot that Wednesday and Thursday are super busy days for us. So for now, we will have just one craft this week. Brady and Sean were troopers, I lost Fin about 3 minutes into it....Spongebob was on in the other room and apparently it was a pretty funny episode.

I got this idea off the crafty crow.

Start by cutting white felt into 1/2 inch strips. We used 6 strips for the head and 9 for the body. Then various items for the eyes, nose and buttons.

Glue a line down a strip and start rolling. Repeat for the rest of the 5 strips and for the body.

Once both head and body are glued, glue them together....use fancy soup cans to hold together. While this was gluing, we glued on the eyes (colored brads), nose (orange brad upside down) and buttons (small pom poms). We let the body dry overnight. This a.m. I threaded some string through the head for the ornament holder.
Proudly place on the tree!!