You Would Have Thought...

We were getting the storm of the year, but the first ice/snow storm of the year is on its way. Actually it is the second, but the first one was in and out fast. But like every prediction of snow and ice the grocery stores were INSANE!!!! What do people think? Do they really think they will run out of all groceries in 24 hours? We had a couple projects that we are going to do on Saturday and needed some things from Wal-Mart. When we stopped into the store, we turned right back around and headed out - lines about 10 deep. It looked worse than the day after Thanksgiving but instead of presents, everyone had milk and bread.

Fareway, my favorite store, had only a few loaves of bread left and a good supply of milk. Good thing I could get my bread and milk, we want french toast for breakfast!

Slacking...

I know that my faithful readers - all two of you - are probably really frustrated that you come daily and nothing new. It is not for lack of entertainment at the Willis household, but for lack of time and energy by the editor and chief of the blog. I would like to say that tonight is an exception but I have an extra kid for the evening, Jason is in Wisconsin, and I have more papers to grade than I know what to do with!

We have two different sets of friends having babies. Our neighbors are in waiting since their baby has 5 days more to go before the dr. will let her have it. She has gestational diabetes. Ethan is at our house right now making a pen for the little cow - Drew. Pray for them as she is having circulation problems in her legs.

Our care group is gaining its first non-charter member!!! Henry Charlton O'Brein was born tonight - 8 lbs 11 oz. Congrats Jesse and Linda - we can't wait to meet him. Linda is a champ - from a 7 to baby out in less than 40 minutes - AND no drugs!!!!

I was taking a look at all of our Thanksgiving pictures (which I will post later) and noticed that 90 percent of them contained Lauryn. Does this mean the baby thing is on our mind? Jason took a 2 hour nap with the little princess! Aren't they precious?

Christmas is coming!

We put our Christmas lights up today! We typically don't like to do this before Thanksgiving (this is the first year we have), but you have to take advantage of any day where the temps are above freezing and when there is no rain or wind. We started early after our friends from Ames left and got a head start on Clark Griswald behind us. I don't like tacky, but I like a lot of lights. We are trying to change it up a little bit from last year. We still have the outline all done, but are trying to add some stuff to the front porch. There will be NO blow up Santa! The Wagners had a huge Christmas tree on their porch and I thought that was so pretty. Since we don't have any shrubbary to decorate we might get a tree for the porch.

We didn't get finished today since we took a break to "watch" the ISU football game - to be truthful neither of us watched it but slept until Ally drove us crazy. Drew and Ally's Christmas program is coming up and they are practicing their songs. Drew typically isn't the one to break out in song, but he was doing his "Chubby Snowman" finger play. Sorry it isn't the best, but the first time he would do it- it was perfect and then when I would go get the camera he would mess up the lines.

Words: The chubby little snowman
Had a carrot nose
Along came a bunny
and What do you suppose?
That hungry little bunny
Looking for his lunch,
Ate the snowman's carrot nose
Nibble, nibble, crunch.

One Off the List

I like to brag on my honey. He loves to do woodworking or making furniture but with two kids around and other things on the honey-do-list he doesn't always have a lot of time for this precious time-consuming hobby. We needed a new dresser, and I had found the plans last Thanksgiving for a misson style one that would match the rest of our bedroom furniture. Jason started on this project last winter and with much patience from me and him, he finally got it done. He was very frustrated with the drawers - making them slide right.

It is huge compared to what I was used to. I can barely see in the top drawers.

So the honey-do-list has just got shorter - so what should I add???

It's about time!

Chris and Amy - well I should say Amy because it is unlikely that Chris will have much to say have finally started a blog. Check them out! Kaylee is the chickadee on the farm that is hilarious! I am sure that Lauren will try to get a few words in someday!

Sore Losers

We have two new rook friends!!! Kate and Jim are our game buddies! They don't have kids - yet - so they come over after Drew and Ally head to bed. We have taught them Dutch Blitz, Sequence and now ROOK!!! It was a slow night with only one bid over 140, but as you can tell my the TERRIBLE picture the girls kicked butt both games! We did have some table talk, but nothing that would have made the game any closer.

Score: Men -195 to Women 610 I did have a picture of Jason (giving me a friendly jester of love), but he erased it before I could get it downloaded to the computer.

Love You!

Ally has been very interested in what she did as a baby for several months. She asks how she asked for a bottle. We started talking about sign language again. Her teacher at school uses the letters. She holds up the "a" and if your name starts with "a," you can line up or do whatever.

Somewhere along the line we talked about "I love you." They have both picked this up. Ally usually sticks a number on the end to show how many times she loves us. I love to hear it no matter how she tells us!

Ready for Christmas!!!

I can't wait for Christmas. It is my favorite time of the year, but at the same time I don't want the season to start in September. The weather has finally changed and the cool air is moving in. We had to officially pull out the heavy winter coats this week. Tonight we headed out to Sears to get some pictures taken since the last good ones were taken by Michelle. There is no comparison to Michelle's pictures! We knew the girl we had in Sears was going to be trouble when we could barely hear her and she had no enthusiasm to get Drew to move or smile. We got enough to get a Christmas card and some updated pictures.

So when is it too early to put out your inflatable Santa? Jason wants to know. One guy down the street has his out already! Jason is seriously considering putting the lights out soon since there is no snow on the roof, but I PROMISE they won't be turned on until the day after Thanksgiving!

Grandpa's Chickadees

Chris and Kaylee came home to help finish up the harvest. Late on Saturday afternoon we headed over so that Drew could get one more ride in the combine before the end of the year. Jason reluctantly (not really) gave all the kids rides on the 4-wheeler while waiting their ride with Grandpa Charlie.

Drew was first to head out. My Dad says that riding with Drew is very calm. He will talk once and awhile, but is most intrigued by the combine head (bean or corn). This comes out in play at home. When Drew is playing with his combine - he puts the head down, drives it to the end of the row, put the head up, turns around, puts it down to start on the next row, drives it to the end of the row, puts the head up, drives it to the tractor and augor wagaon. Then as the corn releases he makes the hissing sound to show it is going into the wagon. Then he starts this process all over again. For those of you who don't know the head is the "picker" on the front of the combine.

Drew's turn was "over" much to his disagreement and the girls got in with Grandpa. But I don't think Grandpa was ready for what was about to occur. He said that Kaylee and Ally didn't stop chit chatting the whole round. He couldn't understand their fast pace conversation, but was done with it after one round. He wanted it to be somewhat quiet with an occasional conversation. He took my quiet little boy back to finish the field.

Those two little girls are hilarious together even though there is 2 years different - they will surely become good friends!

I'm Shadow

Our little boy is crazy or maybe he has crazy parents or maybe both. Does anyone else's kids love to play pretend animals? He crawls around acting like a puppy. This is not the insane part, but he also refers to himself in third person. If we call him Drew - he responds - I am Shadow not Drew.

Some of this is coming from school. Those poor teachers have 25 kids Drew's age pretending to be cats, dogs and other farm animals. I can understand why they want the chaos to stop, but imagination play is so great. I thought it was slightly cute at first, but after 5 days it is getting old!!!

Not Old Enough

I shouldn't be having this argument yet!!!

On the way out the door this morning, Ally asked for her lip gloss. (Thanks Pastor Paul for putting make-up in your VBS store!) I told her to play with it at home and that we didn't need it. She told me that Izzy was bringing something cool and she told Izzy that she would bring something cool to play with her.

I told her she wasn't wearing or taking make-up to school. "But why not?" she replied.

Goodness - isn't this an argument for middle school not with your 4 year old. Today, I won - kind of. She put some purple lip gloss on before heading down to her class, but the rest had to stay on my desk. I am sure that my 8th graders will love this toy!