Nice spring day, Paula Abdul, and David Archuleta

How's that for random? We had a great spring day today, although it was really windy. Grace got a new outfit in the mail today, and she wanted to go outside to model it.

And on Saturday, we watched the Kids Choice Awards on Nickelodeon (except Ben...he was with his friend Jeff). American Idol won for Best Reality show.

Grace: Oh Mom, David Archuleta is SO CUTE!

Matt: Why is Paula wearing a basketball sleeve on her arm?

Thoughts for Joel & Heidi

Moorhead is getting major flooding from the Red River, and Joel and Heidi's house may be in trouble. They are bringing stuff up from the downstairs and getting ready to possibly evacuate to Heidi's brother's house. Please send lots of positive vibes out for them....and hope that the water stays out of their house!

Noah and the hats

I forgot to post this pic the other day. The kids played at our house while people went to church and when I turned around to look at Noah, he had 3 of Rich's fedoras on his head HAHAHAH! Too funny.

Matt's been doing a unit in science where they make what's called a Rube Goldberg.

It's kind of like that game Mousetrap where you have lots of objects that hit together to finally make the net drop. Matt and Hunter are making theirs from dominos, and the goal is to make the automatic paper towel dispenser go off. Here's Matt doing some practice runs!

Dinner time battle-royale

So I made this taco bake thing for dinner tonight. It didn't go over real well with the little kids....they whined that it was too spicy and had onions and beans (eyes rolling here). But I made them eat some of the chicken that was in it....CHICKEN for goodness sakes, what's so offensive about that? Grace decided she did NOT want to eat any of the piece of chicken I told her to eat, so I made her sit there until it was gone. She sat there for 45 minutes. Here is the huge (another eye roll) piece of chicken she was 'forced' to eat...you see it there on the table, that small piece of chicken in front of her?She told me I was torturing her and I was the worst mother ever and she was going to throw up. In the end she finally ate the darn thing, and didn't even puke! After the stand-off I saw her writing on her pad. This is what she made:

It says at the top "The Rowls (the rules)" and has a picture of our family. Notice Rich's snappy fedora? I'll read what it says from the left:

1. Keep your room clean The kids

2. If you make a mess, clean it up 8. Don't be mean

3. Don't say bad words 9. Don't fight

4. Listen 10. Don't scream

5. Eat your food 11. No tears

6. Be nice to each other 12. Do your manners

7. Be respectful and responsible 13. Listen

Interesting list, isn't it? Especially after she planted herself in that chair and refused to eat a quarter sized piece of chicken for 45 minutes.

Happy Birthday Eli!

We celebrated Eli's 5th birthday at my mom's yesterday (his birthday was actually the 13th) with a great meal and lots of fun little boys! The Kluver boys and Luke came to the party and all the kids had a ball together! Those boys are so cute and sweet! It was a Transformers party, with lots and lots of Transformers decorations.

Chase and Spidey Noah:

Joel & Rich took the kids outside to fly kites for awhile in the afternoon. Here are Rich and Grace flying her kite....Grace is wearing her high heels of course!

Happy Spring!

We were outside a lot of the day today...the weather was beautiful! Things are starting to pop up over at my mom's house....yippee! Joel & Heidi & the boys are down this weekend to celebrate Eli's birthday...the kids have had a ball playing and riding their bikes!

Lake South Heart

South Heart is a little town we drive through to get to my dad's house. With all of the snow & warmer temps, there was tons of melting while we were there. South Heart has a little river (?..I suppose that's what you'd call it, it's more like a creek) that runs just north of town by the golf course, and it completely flooded the fields & golf course. All the water you see in these pics should be fields! We also stopped and visited Monica for a bit. The kids spun around on her kitchen chairs and Ben almost puked on the floor. Good times!

Bishop

The night before we left North Dakota, a stray dog showed up at the back door. He was so dirty and cold and wet, poor baby! His collar said 'Bishop' and he had a phone number from Mississippi. Rich called the # and left a message...the guy called back the next morning and apparently is living in N.D. now, about 15 miles from where my dad lives. He had broken his hip and had another farmer looking after his dog, but the dog got away and traveled 15 miles to our house! Poor dog....he was shivering and shaking. We fed him and gave him some water, then Tyler and I smuggled him in Grandpa's house and gave him a bath and a warm blankie to sleep on (sorry Grandpa, we couldn't resist him :)!). He was SO sweet and absolutely loved us all...especially the kids. Grace made some posters she taped on the walls....Lost 601 pupy :). 601 was the Mississippi area code on his collar.

Quiet day

Matt doing his LeBron James imitation. Apparently LeBron throws powder in the air before each game. Matt would know!

Tyler made a snow cave for the kids. When he started it was going to be a tunnel, but he got this far and called it quits. So now it's a cave :). I have washed coats and snow pants every day after they go outside...it's SO muddy here with the thawing and melting. It's been in the 40's every day, which isn't warm by any stretch, but has melted a lot of snow. It's a muddy mess!

We had a quiet day today, not a whole lot to blog about. While the others were in Bismarck, I took Matt, Ben, Grace and Eli to Dickinson. We went to Wal Mart to pick out Transformers for Eli's birthday from Grandpa Jim. He got Cheetor and someone else...he is so smart about his Transformers and can name pretty much all of them! We went to Burger King for lunch then headed home. Grace and Eli both fell asleep in the car on the way home...I think they are both kind of worn out from playing so hard. Eli played Ben's Nintendo DS quite a bit this afternoon...he's getting good! He'd like that added to his birthday list, Daddy :) (even though his birthday was last Friday).

ND State Capitol

Tyler, Rich and Jim went over to Bismarck today to the State Capitol to attend a memorial service for past state legislator's. My Grandpa's brother Gilman, who passed away last September, was one of the legislator's honored at the ceremony. It was interesting for them...they got to sit in the front row of the House of Representatives. No pics allowed inside, but they took a couple in the lobby. The pic above is Rich, Tyler, Gilman's wife Monica, and my Dad. This is Tyler standing by Phil Jackson, legendary Bulls coach and present coach of the Laker's. Apparently he's from Williston, ND....who knew?

Pink snow

In North Dakota, a lot of the gravel roads are scoria, which is red rock from over by TR National Park. So instead of the snow being dirty brown by the side of the road, it's a nice pink color! It reminds me of Cat in the Hat snow, when the cat shook the stain off the rug into the snow :).

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Medora, and the Trapper's Kettle

Rich & I took Grace, Eli, and Ben over to Medora today. Nothing was open of course because nothing is ever open in North Dakota from Labor Day to Memorial Day, but we did get to go to Theodore Roosevelt National Park visitor's center and drove through the park a little. We went through the museum and T.R.'s Maltese Cross cabin. There were still some things in there from when T.R. lived there. This trunk and buffalo hide were both his. We saw Mule Deer, Prairie Dogs & pheasants....we didn't see the buffalo that roam around the roads though, which was disappointing. After our drive we went to Belfield and ate at the Trapper's Kettle for lunch. It's been there forever and it was always a huge deal for my brother and I to go there when we were staying with our grandparents. There are stuffed things on the walls and in cases all over the place. We decided to sit by the big bear!

More Snow and crazy bugs in the dryer

Here are Tyler and Matt playing on the snowbank in front of my Dad's house. I am standing right outside of the front door...the snow is seriously this high! It's probably an 8 foot drift, and covers most of the front yard!

Yesterday I did a load of coats & snowpants because they were soaked after playing in the snow. When I took them out of the dryer, I noticed these 3 scary spiders inside:

Today I did another load of laundry, and when I went to fold and take out of the dryer, I noticed THESE scary bugs inside:

Church at Daglum Lutheran

Eli, Grace, and Great Great Uncle Roman (he's 95!):


Grace wearing Roman's cowboy hat:

We went to Daglum to church this morning...there were 22 people there, usually there are only 8 or 10! We Peterson's packed the place...Roman and Lynn were there too, which was really nice. Grandpa Jim got Eli a Spiderman cake and we brought it to church to celebrate. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to Eli, and he buried his head in my leg the whole time :). Not a fan of the singing. It was fun...I love Daglum.

Welie and Gracele

Eli and Grace have been playing school a lot since they got here. They write papers and notes, then give them to me to look at. They have decided that their names now are Welie and Gracele (Wee-lie and Grace-lee). It's so hilarious, they call each other that all day! Here is Welie writing his paper:

Oh, and by the way mom and dad...Welie would like an ipod please :).

Lamington's

I have to make a quick post about the Australian Lamington's I made for Ben's class. They had Australia day at school Friday, and I was assigned to make these. I've never even heard of them, but oh my are they good! They are cubes of sponge cake (I used a frozen Sara Lee pound cake) dipped in chocolate icing and rolled in dessicated coconut. Since I had no idea what that was, I used regular coconut. YUM! Not sure if the kids liked them or not, since not many kids like coconut, but the adults probably did!

Fun in the snow!!

Whoops, where did the swings go? At least they can reach the hanging bar now :)!

This was their 'club'. They said that only people with marker on their hands and face could be in the club. This was the backseat of the van entertainment :).

We got to my Dad's this afternoon. The kids played for awhile, then wanted to play in the (abundant) snow. It was so nice out...in the 40's but it felt much warmer. The sun is really intense up here for some reason, kind of like Colorado. Grandpa Jim has a big snow hill by his garage, and the kids played and slid down it for an hour or two, they had sooo much fun! I shoveled out steps on the side of the hill so they could get up easier.