Green, Gold and Great Grandma Grace

Two weeks ago we headed to Green Bay to celebrate my grandma's 95th birthday. We (or should I say Jay) decided we also needed to squeeze in a trip to the Packer Hall of Fame before the birthday festivities began. Bryn, Henry and Liam loved the uniforms, throwing passes, running obstacle courses and walking out on the field. Before the huge door opened to let us through the Packer tunnel, they streamed crowd noise through the speakers and the three kids held hands and walked on....

It was so great to see my grandma, who looks amazing for 95! She even joined my dad in his truck for a lunch trip. (surprise to the rest of us!) She told stories about her days teaching knitting in Superior and how excited she was to make $1 an hour, which was increased to $1.80 when they thought she was going to quit!

Everyone joining in to help Great Grandma Grace blow out the candles!

Happy Birthday Grandma!!

The World's Biggest Snow Woman

Only in our neighborhood.............. We woke up December 9th to find a couple giant snowballs across the street from us in Mr. Sam's front yard. He told us that he wanted to make a huge snowwoman for Bryn and Henry to enjoy and that he did!! He pulled late nighters hosing down the snow balls to turn them into solid ice, bought ice crampons for his boots (since he did most of his work on a sheet of ice), pushed the wheelbarrow around the neighborhood collecting only the whitest snow from surrounding lawns, went through a couple pairs of waterproof gloves and worked on the snow creation for months.

Henry and Bryn had a blast helping him with their tiny fist fulls of snow to add to the bottom ball.

He asked H and B if they would make her ( the snow woman) a flag and scarf. Jay found an old canvas tarp and the kids went to work painting a fire flag and polka dot scarf. Below is Jay tying the scarf around the headless neck.

Sam hanging the fire flag from one of her branch arms!

Last week while Henry was biking in the driveway Bryn was hanging out with Mr. Sam and helping him add some snow to the melting woman.

The coolest thing other than the final product was to see how many people came to our street from all over Madison to get a look at her. It was definitely a study in social science as people slowly drove up smiling, rolling down windows and yelling out encouragement and thanks to Mr. Sam and plenty of strangers getting out of their cars to make videos, take pictures and just chat about nearly anything.

This past week as we sadly watched the snow melt, Mr. Sam told us that he was told that there was a website called snowmen against global warming. Sam was happy with what he had accomplished but once the website was mentioned he wanted to finish a head so he could add his creation to the site.

I almost died when we drove home from work yesterday to find the snow woman DONE!!! It was a 50 plus degree day but he managed to add long hair (grapevines and evergreen boughs) and the biggest red lips I have ever seen. The candle eyes lit up for effect as well.

Someday Henry and Bryn will truly appreciate what an amazing neighbor they have in Mr. Sam who gave up hundred of hours to make them a winter/spring (summer?) memory they will have forever. Thanks Mr. Sam. We LOVE her!!!

Henry's turn

We can finally give Henry his much deserved "star" time now that we finally hooked up the new computer, even if we are a month late. He was not as obsessed with the whole idea of star status as Bryn had been, which was fine with the rest of us! I was the lucky parent to visit their classroom and read the book "Henry Works" as they sat in a circle in front of us. Then I sat back and watched with awe as my little guy grabbed the special pointer and discussed each of his pictures from his board with his entire class. Where did that poise come from? Who was this little man that spoke with such confidence and humor, as if he had been teaching for years? It was a thrill to watch him call on his friends who asked some cute questions about his pictures and then listen to his answers. Bryn was fine with Henry's star power until she realized I was serious about letting Henry sit on my lap instead of her and she had to compose herself from a mini tantrum to a somewhat supportive sister. It was tough but she survived. It's all life lessons, right?

Below he was talking about his plans for the week! Of course Bryn was his little assistant through the whole recording.

Basement Barber

The lull in posting is again due to our s..l...o...w... computer but I did find a couple pics that I managed to download that I could share until we decide on a new computer.

Henry has the fastest growing hair and nails that I have ever seen, and both seem to grow twice as fast as his sisters. Poor guy is constantly running around with long nails and hair in his eyes. After a recent bath (above) Jay took matters into his own hands and set up a barber shop in our basement.

The clippers first.

Then the scissors for the bangs....

And then the hair dryer, basement style!!

Finally some fireworks!!

Would you believe that H and B have never seen fireworks until just a couple weeks ago. Thanks to an early bedtime, and the long summer days, they never last long enough to see the fireworks around the 4th. We just happened to be up at the lake for their winter festival that included fireworks that started much earlier thanks to our early winter nights. Jay caught these expressions as they sat out on the dock watching the display over the frozen lake.

Even I did a double take the first time I saw this picture and freaked out that there was a bear that snuck into the picture to only realize it's Finn enjoying the colors too.

Our little Star!

It was a much anticipated week for Bryn last week. She finally had her two days in the spotlight as she was her preschool class's Star of the Week. Bryn pretty much told anyone and everyone in the days leading up to her special week, that she was the appointed "Star" of her classroom and quickly told them what this title entails as you can see from the above video. The best is the outfit she picked out days ahead of time. Her all time favorite T-shirt which is orange and has a huge strawberry on the front was a must for this important day. She has been wearing that shirt for almost 2 years and I wonder if she will be squeezing into it for years to come. She then had on her glittery red skirt, a recent St. Vinnie's sweater and her yellow cowboy boots. She's got some style!!

Below is her first day as the Star and is posing with two of her teachers, Miss Chas and Miss McKenzie and her poster board of her favorite pictures.

On Thursday Jay hung out with the class to read the book "Sophie's Knapsack". Bryn picked it out most likely cause one of her favorite friends is named Sophia(standing next to Bryn in the pic below) . As you can see, she picked out her outfit again. I have to say, it's so refreshing to see how many crazy combinations she comes up with and the confindence she has in just being herself!

When they came to pick me up at work following her first day of being the Star, she was sound asleep at 5pm with one pig tail in and one out. Guess all that attention wears a little girl out!

And yes, she did bring bugs on a log as her special treat since it was "a healthy snack, right mom?"

Stay tuned for Henry's post, since he will be Star of the Week very soon!

Our busy January

Those of you that follow our blog may have wondered why I became such a slacker lately. Well, it wasn't all my undoing. Thanks to us, two camera happy parents, we have taken tens of thousands of photographs and have essentially maxed out our computers hard drive with pics and videos. We need a new computer and one with tons of memory. Yes , we have them also saved on an external drive but it's not easy to access, blah, blah, blah. Basically the computer was shutting down with a simple download request from me. I was told to just stop trying to monkey with the thing and I did. Just recently Jay deleted a years worth of outtake shots that were on the memory to clear up some space and I am now back to blogging, but it most likely won't last long.

Here is a smorgasbord of our January fun.


Snowshoeing with their friend Simon and his family. At about the half way point on our hike, Henry melted down and was sitting/lying on the snow more than he was upright. Thanks to some quick thinking from Simon's dad who managed to lure Henry into some racing down hill games so we could enjoy the beautiful day without listening to a crying kid.

Snowshoeing can make for one sweaty head!!

We had so much fun watching the UW women's hockey team play the U.S. women's Olympic team (which was full of former and current Badger women). If that game was any indication, the Olympic team is ready for action and will be fun to watch this February. Thanks to Miss Laura who rallied the troops down to the glass and whoop it up in hopes of coaxing Bucky over to them.

Dress up fun with Lennon, Aidyn and Hadley while taking a break from their parade

Bryn with baby Beckett.

We literally had front row seats of a Badger Womens B-Ball game and were there to cheer on Eliot who was a towel boy during the game along with the rest of the Pickhardt family and friends. The following picture is my absolute favorite. Seeing that the kids were in the front row, Bucky was very close at hand. So close in fact that he plopped down right next to Henry. As you can see he was in awe that his favorite mascot was within inches! So excited, he couldn't bear to look at him......





All that excitement equals two worn out kids!

First Goal!!!

Luckily I captured Henry's first official goal that actually made it into a net! He has remained hooked on his hockey playing and our cold temps don't even deter him from getting on the ice.




It was pretty cute. After he righted himself and sat down next to the net he asked me to take a picture of his first goal and didn't touch the puck until I took this next picture.....

Their friend Abbey loves the sport just as much as Henry so they were trying to pass it back and forth which is much easier said than done. The puck usually went flying in a completely different direction.

Earlier in the week I took a video of Bryn doing her thing at Westmoreland ice rink by our house. The skaters they used last year are gone and have been donated to their friends Sam and Abbey, which was Bryn's idea, after they figured out they probably don't need them anymore. Henry first told me that his friend could borrow his skater for 1 week... needless to say he hasn't asked for it back.

I just love the way her little hips are just twisting back and forth. cracks me up! Bryn, who never misses a thing, did check out some "prettier skates" that some other girls were wearing at the rink. Now not sure what to do since she is used to the hockey skates and that darn toe pick could definitely throw a wrench in the works. Luckily she hasn't brought it up again so we will see.

Christmas 2009

Is it really over already? How can 2 weeks go by so fast? As Monday quickly approaches I thought I better try to at least post some Christmas pics before I lost my ambition. Enjoy!

Christmas Eve was spent in Madison and we were lucky to get a visit with Shannon, Bruce and Liam on their way up to Green Bay. The kids exchanged gifts that night before they headed north to see my parents and we stayed here to hang back and enjoy Christmas as a family.

This is my favorite pic of the hundreds we took. Shannon was reading Liam's new book that we gave him for Christmas whose main character is a sweet little boy named Liam. This was his expression when he heard his name. Pure joy and utterly priceless!!!!

Closely matched by the excitement of having an ant farm this summer!

Santa had specifically asked for chocolate chip cookies (really Santa?) and since they usually don't fall within our Christmas repertoire we convinced them that peanut butter kiss cookies have the worlds largest chocolate chip in the middle. It worked. Above are their pictures and letters they wrote for Santa's stop at our house. I was quite impressed with Henry's deer since most of his artwork is quite avant garde and not usually easily deciferable.

Jay and kids reading the note Santa left for them as they stared at their gifts under the tree. Henry got his wish and now owns two hockey sticks (one to share of course) and a hockey puck and since Bryn didn't ask for anything Santa surprised her with a wooden ironing board and iron among other things.

Then on to my parents to hang out with Shannon and family.

Tinkertoy microphones was all they needed for their impromptu Christmas concert.

Trying out their new snowshoes! There was no learning curve whatsoever. As soon as they were strapped in they literally took off running! My dad kept saying how happy it made him to see not only his daughters, but also his grandchildren enjoy a sport he loves so much! We took many hikes in the woods.

My mom's 65th birthday would not be complete without sledding with the 3 grandchildren!

We then left for the cabin to see Jay's parents, Jen, Shawn, Mia and Allison and the entire Becker clan. We indulged in scrumptious meals and drinks and enjoyed hanging out on the lake with everyone.

Henry and his hockey stick. Henry quickly learned some moves playing with "Uncle" Andy, and was "shooting goalies" with anyone who wanted in. He figured out fast that it's much easier playing in boots than his hockey skates and was scooting all over the place.

Bryn and Mia being silly. Henry and Bryn love to watch Ally and Mia and comment on everything they do. Not sure the girls want another set of parents only 2 years older than them....

Snuggling up with grandpa and a Winnie the Pooh book.

Mike pulling Bryn and Emma on the ice! We also went sledding onto the frozen lake, ice fished and shoveled a huge rink for skating. The temps were in the single digits but once we were all properly bundled it didn't matter one bit! The camp fire on the dock helped too.

Grandma and grandkids playing "Simon Says". Each correct question moved them up a step and based on all the giggling it was a hit.

Best of all was just being able to spend so much time with the four of us together.

Hope yours was a blast too!