i'm not ashamed...

Here's a little tidbit about me you may not know. I love to be called any one of these things: geek, nerd, crazy, smarty pants, or any synonym of any of those things. Here's another little factoid, which is slightly more embarrassing: When I would come home from college to visit...I loved mom's cooking, my cozy bed, and playing with Lego's. Uh, yeah, you read the last one right.

So, color me happy that now I have a Lego-lovin' four year old that can sit for long spells just piecing things together. Occasionally she'll hog the pieces I need, but if I ask nicely, she thinks about it and usually lets me have what she's using.

She added the beds on the roof...I thought is was a nice touch.

Knex is a wonderful version of Lego that I tip my hat to the designers of...pretty sweet stuff. Here's the fun we've had this week.

The Octopus Whirl...motorized...
A Ferris wheel...

go gators...

I have four teams in my closet: Michigan (of course), Kentucky, Florida and Purdue. Although, I do have the most in maize and blue, Jeff says I have no allegiance. That's just not true. If three of those teams ever play in the National Championship game, I'll gladly wear the gear with pride. But it seems I keep wearing this one...

there ain't no lernin' again today...

Yet another snow day has us sitting around and instead of burying our head in the sand...you guessed it...

I know we're Dutch, but I'm certain Lauren is part Eskimo...

another little snow bunny...

Julia has been looking out the window at her sisters running around outside most of this winter. Today was fairly mild (yes, 30 degrees is mild now), so I thought it was as good a time as any to get her decked out in snow gear.

It didn't take her long to just plop down and check it out close-up. Lauren was happy to show her the ropes.

So, she stopped eating sand this summer...and now she can't get enough of munching snow. Argh! (this picture is just one of twenty...do we feed this kid enough?)

She just loved doing what her sisters were doing. She was so proud!

The fun ended right after I took the picture below. She started crying and looking at her very cold hand. I took her inside to get hot chocolate ready for the big kids. Check out Sarah, the sledding guru, in the background. She can get some incredible speed on a 6 foot hill.

the gang's all here...

Back to the trip to Charleston. Did I mention that this was the first time in 15 years that our family was under one roof for Christmas? So, it was pretty cool and obviously had to be marked with family photos! Built in 1776 on the coast, Fort Moultrie was a great spot for pictures.


Love this one...I loved this picture below. I won't tell you who stepped in what to get the kids laughing like this. Love it! Enjoy more pictures of my niece and nephews over at the photoblog...

so what if she skipped lunch...

Sarah was dawdling with eating lunch today (nothing new...same stuff, new day). She was babbling about being allergic to hot dogs and that's why she couldn't eat very fast. Now, if you've ever seen this kid at Costco, you'll know that to be a bold-face lie.

I wanted to stretch the legs on the camera and called into the kitchen to ask her if she'd like to take some pictures. "Ehhhh" was her answer (translates to "no"). I said, "You can be done with your hot dog if you do." She was in front of me with a big grin in 3 seconds flat. Here are her pics...(I asked her for some emotions in a couple)

silly face...
angry face...That's my girl...quite the cutey. Oh, back to the title of the entry. I walked over to the kitchen table to clean up the remnants of her lunch. It was untouched. Oops...

happy new year...the party is over...

Well, it's back in the saddle again. The strange sound of this thing they call an alarm clock disturbed my sleep this morning and I had to go nag Lauren to wake up for school. After 5 minutes of her pleading to just go back to bed, we had to explain truancy to her. The thought of police at the door demanding that she return to school got her moving faster.

It's officially a new year as the only reminder of Christmas left in our house after my scrubbing yesterday is the very depressing sight of our tree on the front porch, lying on it's side after serving us well for the last month.