Beautiful weather

We went to the park yesterday afternoon...the temp on the Applebee's sign said 77, but I'm not sure it was quite that warm.  A few pics from the park!

There are still mounds of snow here and there, despite the nice weather.  This was the dirty gross pile in the parking lot of the park.

4th grade recorder concert

Tonight was Ben's recorder concert.  Oh my aching ears :).  Rich was working, but Matt, Tyler and Grace came with me to watch it.  Luckily for Grace, her friend Lizzie was there to have her Girl Scout meeting...her mom is the leader and they invited Grace to sit in.  So does Grace want to be a Girl Scout now?  Of course!  I am secretly NOT looking forward to Girl Scout activities, but I guess we'll give it a go.  Anyhow, back to the recorder!  They actually did played pretty well, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't overly screechy.  Ben had a solo!  He played "Pretzels".  His solo was the first and he did really well, we were proud!  You'll notice his intense recorder face in the pics...he furrowed his brow and was very serious.

there was also an art show..they had a visiting artist last week and the pic above is Ben holding his picture.  It was really pretty up close!

The big day has finally come!

I ordered that tooth fairy pillow just in time, because Grace lost her first tooth today!!!!!  She was eating a strawberry (? Not sure how that could do anything?) at lunch at school and felt it crack and get really loose.  So one of the first grade teachers (apparently she is the designated first grade tooth puller) pulled it out the rest of the way. Everyone always wants to lose a tooth at school because you get your name on the tooth chart and get a little plastic tooth box. 

Have I mentioned how excited she is?  She said "Mom, in this picture I want to make the "YESSS" move!".

I asked her how much she thought the tooth fairy would bring her.  She said $10.  Hmmm...does the tooth fairy know there is a recession? 

On a side note, Matt's track career lasted one day.  He decided it wasn't for him (which I probably could have told him, but it was good that he tried!!).

Really scary

This evening we were watching Dancing With the Stars in our room while Ben was watching Harry Potter in the living room.  He came running in our room saying he saw a big flash over by the wall.  It turns out he did perhaps the scariest thing he's ever done in his mischievious life.....he put a penny between a night light and the outlet cover, causing a big flash.  We ran out to the LR and Rich took a couple of plastic utensils and pulled the night light out, causing lots of sparks and electrical flashes.  SCARY!  Ben was very upset and said it was 'an accident', but we all know it was his curiosity and lack of impulse control that led him to it.  It melted the penny (which you can see at the bottom of the night light prongs).  It makes my stomach hurt just looking at it!

A North Dakota funny

Forgot to post this yesterday.  Just in case you need to pick up some wildlife art with your liquor, head on over to Paul's Ponderosa Liquor and Wildlife Gallery in Dickinson, North Dakota!  That's really a place, and it cracked me up!  It reminds me of Peterson-Wahleen-Knox Funeral Home and Furniture Store in Woodhull, Illinois LOL!

And I've come up with a list of my top 4 North Dakota annoyances:

1.  The fact that nothing is open here on Sundays before noon.  Except for the grocery store.  But no stores like Target or Wal-Mart, etc.  It's some weird law I guess.

2.  The fact that there are no chain pharmacies allowed in this state.  No Walgreens, no pharmacies in Target or Wal-Mart, etc.  Another stupid law....something to do with small pharmacies and ownership rights. 

3.  The fact that there are many unregulated intersections in the residential neighborhoods.  Meaning that a lot of cross-streets around here don't have stop or yield signs, so you have to be really careful at each intersection.  Don't like it.

4.  I can't find a car wash to save my life.  There are a few one stall crummy car washes at a convenience store here and there, but I went to 4 convenience stores today and none of the car washes were in working order.  I finally found one, but where is the Super Wash and Splash Car Wash with mega-automatic stalls when you need it?  Don't people enjoy clean cars here?  I looked in the phone book and saw 2 listed as Laundromat & Car Wash, but they ended up being those self-serve washes.  Maybe I need to start my own Splash franchise?

Lotsa snow

We went over to Grandpa Jim's this weekend armed with the snowblower and 2 shovels to see if we could make a dent in his driveway.  Um, no.  The little snowblower wasn't about to get any of that snow gone...it was hip deep in a lot of places, and icy hard.  So hard that Grandpa's new truck got stuck at the end of the driveway.  He got pulled out today by a kind neighbor (and we use the term 'neighbor' loosely....this guy lives about 5 miles away...that's actually a pretty close neighbor there!), so has the use of his truck back.  After going to church this morning, we headed back without helping a whole lot!  Had a good lunch at church though!

Not sure if it comes out in this pic, but the snow IS pretty and sparkly! 

I'm starting to see peeks of the grass in our yard!  It was beautiful today, I think it was in the 50's.  Still have way too much snow on the ground.  Our backyard is insane.....when I was out on the deck today I counted *33* webkinz and stuffed animals that the dogs have drug out there over the winter.  It will be an interesting clean up out there, it will probably take us several hours to get all the dog surprises gone!

Cute Etsy finds

I got Grace the cutest tooth fairy pillow on Etsy!  Etsy is kind of like Ebay, but it's all homemade stuff.  This seller makes everything with felt....she has the cutest stuff.  I also got G some cute strawberry ice cream cone earrings.

Tyler did this awesome Bleach Board drawing in art.  He started with a solid black board and used ammonia to white out parts to make a drawing.  It's Adrian Clayborn from Iowa by the way :).  I think he is going to send it to him!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Matt, always up for wearing a silly costume, won the St. Patrick's Day costume contest for the 7th graders at Wachter Middle School today!  He won 6 cans of Mountain Dew...what a grand prize!  He's such a goof.

Grace had 2 of her class friends come over after school yesterday.  They painted nails, applied make-up, ate pizza and discussed who was whose boyfriend.  Oh boy.

The Sun! The Sun!

There was a strange yellow ball of light in the sky today, I think it may have been the sun!  I don't think the sun has been out for weeks.  Even though it was only in the mid-30's, it felt warmer with the sun out and no wind.  There is still quite a bit of snow in the yard, but all of the concrete was snow-free, so the kids got out this afternoon to ride their bikes and scooters.  I saw two people wearing short sleeved t-shirts and shorts today.  It's like summer up here when it makes it into the 30's :).  First pic I took with my cell phone of the front of the house two days ago....it was raining/snowing and thoroughly disgusting outside.

getting the mail from the boxes across the street.  you can see how much snow we still have!

There is a tax prep place up by the mall that has people dress as either Uncle Sam or the Statue of Liberty and walk up and down the sidewalk waving and beckoning to people to come in to get their taxes done.  Today it was Uncle Sam's turn :).

St. Patrick's Day fun!

Thanks for the St. Patrick's Day box Grandma and Don!  It's so fun getting things in the mail!  Aren't our new monkeys cute?

Here is Ben's "I Have A Dream" wish for this year:

Yipes!

Ugly sweater day

Today was ugly sweater day at Matt's school.  Don't be offended Grandma Cathy, but Matt decided to wear this:

you have to admit, it does look pretty homely on him :)!  You'll be glad to know he was in the Top 10 ugly sweater wearers.

Ben found a sheet and was trying to make a toga out of it...he has been obsessed with Greek gods and myths and stuff.  But he decided to wear it on his head instead.

The Bismarck High School boys made it to the state tournament, which starts tomorrow and is here in town.  Matt's getting a tournament pass so he can go all weekend.  Matt has also decided to go out for track.  Hmmm, he's slow and has a vertical jump of about 1/2"...should be interesting LOL!

One more quick funny from tonight

We all know how Ben has a one-track mind.  Once he gets an idea in his head he will say it over and over and over and over.  Today it was Dairy Queen.  He wanted me to go to DQ after dinner tonight.  I said not tonight, we've already had a pretty big day...maybe one day this week.  After asking about 10 more times, it was finally his bedtime (thank God).  When I went to the kitchen later to let the dogs out, I saw this on the pantry:

Oh ADD, why must you challenge me so?

Our star bell ringer

Ahh, what a relaxing, nice Sunday!  We went to church this morning and Grace got to ring the benediction bell.  Here's the story of ringing the bell:
"The bell you ring is the one that hung in the steeple of the first Methodist Church in Bismarck.  It is more than 130 years old because before it hung above the church it was on a steamboat on the Missouri River.  You will ring it three times-once for god, once for Jesus, and once for the Holy Spirit.  when the congregation starts to sing the last hymn of the service, come to the narthex at the back of the sanctuary and I will meet you there to go to the bell."
She did great!  She was kind of nervous I think....she thought she would have to do it in front of everyone, but actually it was outside of the sanctuary way back in the meeting hall. 

The first pic is Grace ringing the bell with the help of the lady from church.  It was pretty heavy!  You can see the bell better in the second picture.

After church we went to Cracker Barrel to eat (thank you Grandpa Jim for treating us to lunch!), came home and took a nap, went to the library, and now it's Oscar watching time! 

Matt's basketball season comes to an end

Well the B-2 Wachter Wildcats had their last game last week.  They actually ended up pretty good and got to the finals of the season ending tournament.  Matt had a great game, he played like a defensive monster!  He also had a great left-handed lay-up.  The team looked much better at the end of the season, as opposed to the extremely rough start of the season!  I'm always sad when bball season is over, I really enjoy it.  A few pics!

Blah

I think I have the winter blah's.  I don't feel like blogging at all, mostly because we do the same things every day, which is basically nothing.  I'll be really glad when spring gets here.  I don't think our snow has melted much at all....it will take a month of 80 degree weather to get rid of all this ridiculousness.  I'd even love to see the dead brown grass at this point!
First up is a pic from the day Matt got home from his ski trip.  He actually got his brothers and sister a t-shirt from Red Lodge!

We had a really fun visit from Heidi, Joel, Eli, Noah and Grandpa Jim a few weekends back.  We miss them a lot and it was fun for the cousins to hang out together!  In all the bustle I didn't take many pictures, but here are a couple.  Noah and Grace were eating an apple and Noah had an owie on his thumb.  He didn't want to touch the apple for fear of hurting his owie, so he ate them off the counter like a doggie :).  I love that kid.  He somehow lost the Batman cape off of his pajamas, and it's still MIA....that darn cape is hiding pretty well!