Snow Day

Today was our first snow day of 2011. This was also the first time I had to try to drive to the airport for work. Regarding that topic, it will also be the last time I go to the office when it is snowing. What a freaking mess!! I can work from home and if I did not have to get one very important thing done I would have turned around. Okay, on with something of more interest.

We left early and when we all got home we started in on the driveway. This is a very light snow, which is good when you are a shoveler. We have some good helpers around here so it went really fast.

This is really the first time that Addi has been helpful with a shovel with any significant benefit. I have to say she still has a way to go because she shoveled her little row right off the driveway, across the street, and down the cul-de-sac. When you tell her to clear snow you better mean it!!

After the driveway is clear we are good to go on sledding!!! We love to sled, or at least in theory we love to sled. Addi does great until that first push. Then she is all screams, and not the joyful type. Addi loves to make snow angels but she hates to do it when it is still snowing because it gets in her face. It is to snow all evening and into the night so hopefully we can make some angels tomorrow.

oHHHH, KCMO just cancelled for tomorrow and so did Lee's Summit? Could we get two snow days in a row? I so hope for Luke's sake. That means he can play in the snow whenever he wants and how ever long he wants tomorrow .....I am so crossing my fingers

Indoor baseball

Are you thinking about baseball?

Luke had his first indoor baseball game Saturday afternoon. They play at an indoor facility in Lee's Summit. It really is not set up for people to watch, you have to stand or sit on the cold ground for 90 minutes but the boys have an awesome time.

Luke is going to play for the Rascals this year. This will be their first year as a competitive team. This will also be the first year for boy pitch. Yep, that means the boys have to pitch the ball, no t, no machine, no coach. It could be scary folks!
Just about every boy needs to be able to pitch. Luke is working on his throwing and being a catch will help him out they say. We have a couple of boys that are pretty good so that should help. No one is expecting an amazing season here but the boys are excited and that is the key to getting anything going.

It is hard to get pictures in the indoor facility, for some reason they did not install good picture taking lighting. I am so going to have to talk to someone about that. Hum, maybe Frank White because he was there talking to all the boys and our coaches Saturday. What an awesome guy!! If the lighting was not enough of a problem I also have to deal with a chain link fence and a black netting system. I hate to complain because we all know I would really bitch if I got hit by a ball while I was standing around.




As the season moves along, and outdoors, I will keep you updated as to the schedule for league games and tournaments. Baseball this year will go from January to September and the football starts in August. Have I mentioned lately how glad I am we are sitting out wresting this season?

Hunting

Jeremy and Lucas have been lucky enough to hunt a lot this season. This season Jeremy has shot more banded geese then every before in his whole hunting life as Luke likes to say. The winter has been mild until this last weekend so Luke has been able to go quiet a bit in the blind. Saturday Jeremy brought home another banded goose!

Addi decided to check it out, I mean who does not love a goose with a little jewelry on it?



This is one happy hunter!

Happy New Yar 2011

We hope you are having a wonderful start to the New Year. I am not so big on resolutions, maybe because I am not so great at setting ones I can achieve. I do think the new year is a good chance to start new traditions and to re-focus on things that are important to you. This year we started a new tradition for New Year's Day. We did fondue. Aunt Shelly got a new fondue pot and gave me her old one, which is wonderful for us. We started off with cheese fondue and moved to dessert with cho-ko-lot fondue. That was every one's favorite. It was a tradition I am sure we are going to keep because after all the eating of the holidays that something lite is perfect!
The kids had such a good time that I think we are going to do fondue a lot this year!

cheese, bread, diced pepperoni, salami all equal yum.
Addi tried to dip peanuts but she could not stick 'em.

blueberries, strawberries, bananas and marshmallows now that is serious yum!

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas from the Long Family. We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Santa brought animals for Christmas. Oh what a treat, a crazy crazy treat.

The kids bought Christmas presents for GG at the Christmas store at school this year. GG got such a kick out of her present.

I must admit that this year Jeremy got me. He decided to get a little creative with my present. He sent me on a scavenger hunt. I do love a scavenger hunt. Typically, I enjoy being the planner but a hunt can be fun! I am happy to say in the end I received a new pair of shoes, a wonderful bottle of wine and an ipad. Yep, that is correct and ipad!!! Can you believe it? I can't.

I am still trying to figure out how to work it and look forward to blogging away on it because the things you can do to pictures is amazing!!

Here is Addi digging into her puppy present. Oh year, Santa did not bring it but GG sure did. Addi has walked that little dog a lot!!

We spent the rest of the day hanging out around the house, playing with our gifts and eating a nice Christmas dinner.

We hope you had a very Merry Christmas. If you did not, come on over to our place next year. We will surly entertain you and may even drive you crazy enough to love what you did before :)

Christmas at the Farm

Christmas on the Farm.....this year was much, so much, less stressful than last year. I did not realize how relaxing it was until after we opened presents and did not have that we must rush out the door feeling. It is so nice to sit back and relax. The farm can be such a relaxing place. There was a nice snow falling but nothing scary. There was a nice breeze in the air, not a blizzard rolling in. I took a nice nap in the afternoon-oh how I love a farm nap!

Here our our Christmas elves passing out presents. This is where all the kids would wear their matching pj's that Aunt Carrie buys. I was a wonderful mom and managed to leave Addi's at home this year. When we arrived back home I found them laying on my bed with the coat I was going to wear but decided to switch at the last minute. Addi did have them for Christmas morning and the official picture was the week before when Maddie was in town so at least we have that one.

I think everyone received more than they could absorb. Addi got the cutest cowgirl boots. She then opened up a cowgirl costume and told me today when I was unpacking she thought she was going to have to wear that dress and hat with her boots. Now that she knows she can wear them independently, we seem to be good to go. She also received a Dorothy outfit from the Wizard of Oz. She insisted it was Hannah Montana. After seeing a few minutes of Wizard of Oz she seems to be back on track. I think she is just willing to wear the dress so she can wear the shoes. Oh for shinny shoes.

Luke received a BB gun with targets. Thankfully, we left that at the farm so I have been able to avoid the entire discussion of when he can go shoot. He really thinks he is going to be able to bring it home and shoot into the creek. Got to love how his crazy mind woks.

The Grant man got an Iron Man mask and was able to open his presents with the mask on. Now that is Christmas bliss.

Years ago the adults gave up exchanging presents with each other in order to play a white elephant game. The most popular item this year was a box of lottery tickets. I stole it, Jeremy stole it and lucky Brian got it back in the end. Unlucky Brian only won $5 off the box full of tickets.

Here the kids are hovering over our game. I think they are getting old enough to join in or at least think they want to join in. I still wonder how it will go when their favorite thing gets stolen out of their cute little fingers.

I love this scene every year, Christmas Even, gifts are being ripped open. Parents are searching to see what their kids got and you are hoping no one throws away a present. Family is a good thing!

CHRISTMAS EVE 2010

We decided to start our Christmas Eve this year at Aunt Carrie's house. It was a bit selfish of me because I wanted Addi to see her present to badly.
Look at these Christmas angels. They were so good. We made them wait about two hours before we opened the presents. Ah, I love the torture!

This is what the first few shots looked like. I can't wait until everyone is old enough to sit still and fake smile for us. I am sure then I will miss the moments of trying to get everyone together.

Carrie made Addi Jo a dollhouse. A dollhouse that I thought was going to get a lot of screams and oh my goodness when she opened it but received more of a silent shock look. In the two days that have passed the excitement and realization have begun to sink in. She is demanding we go get it. Yeah, we are bad parents. It is still at Aunt Carrie's house. It is huge and would not fit with everything else we had in the car. We have got to go it soon. Today we ran a few errands and went down the toy isle where Addi demanded a pool for her house. We recommended she go for bedroom and living room furniture first and we were told she did not need the living room because she can put a pool in there.

Here is a special Christmas photo. Aunt Carrie thought she could plop her little self on the trampoline and it would not sink. Now that would be one special present :)

Ah, the moments we can catch on film and now the internet forever :)

Hunter loves Batman. Thank goodness we got in on the love with the Batmobile.

Christmas pickle 2010

We did the Christmas Pickle this year. Jeremy and I thought Addi might really give Luke a run for his money. She had practiced just about every night and wanted me to keep moving it.

I have to say her competative spirit is very impressive if you love the idea of winning. If you love the idea of being a good sport she may have a ton to learn yet.

We hid the pickle and called them out at the same time. I made Luke wait for a minute to start looking which caused Addi to get upset because it was no longer a race, of coarse. Silly me. It lasted a few minutes more then I would have guessed. In the end Luke found it first then Addi found it on round two. I mean you have to have two rounds, hurt feelings and Christmas spirit just don't mix well.

MERRY CHRISTMAS PICKLE!

First snow of 2010

We had our first snow of the year a couple of Sunday's ago. We headed off to church and came home in time to play for a bit before it melted. There was just enough to shovel a bit of the driveway. The biggest issue we had with the snow is the fact we have 50mph winds whe it was snowing so we had some mounds in place and bare grass in others. It did remind us of Christmas Eve last year.




Addi just loved the snow!!

Mr. Mischief!

then everything had to end with a snowball to the face.

Sadly the snow was gone the next morning. We did not have any snow for Christmas and are waiting for enough snow to make a snowman!!

Addi's Dance Show

Addi has been taking dance since September. She was promised that when Lucas started football she could start dance. That statement was made without me realizing the dance studio would not start up until after Labor Day so Addi could not start in July when Lucas started football. Oh, those were long days. Addi asked every single day if it was the day dance started. Finally, dance started and she went every Tuesday.

Sunday was her first real show. She had a practice a couple weeks before and it did not go so well so we sort of held our breath for this one. Addi did great! It was such a relief to know that Grandma's and Grandpa would get to see a real dancing Addi.

It was not easy to get picture of her, but I was able to snap a few;

Part of the dance they were to pout. You can pretty much see it is a very natural pose for Addi...

I just think this is the cutest thing ever and I love the tu-tu's.

Here is a picture of Addi's teacher Ms. Courtney. She was the lucky one to stand off to the side of the girls and do the dance while they did it. It is not her best picture but Addi really does love her and she makes their 45 minutes of dance so much fun. Addi loves to try and take over when Ms. Courtney has to talk to another girl during class Addi is very quick to jump in and try to teach the other girls. I know, who would of ever thought.

Christmas Tree 2010

The tree went up the Friday after Thanksgiving just as it should. I went to be at 9 after making a final list and one last peak at the ads. I hit Wal-Mart at midnight for the toys and then came home, did some on-line shopping and grabbed the neighbor to hit Wal-Mart again at 5am. The only trick was that was for electronics so we had to be there at 3am. We conquered Target, Gordman's, and QuikTrip for some cappuccino then came back home. My mom came over about 9am and Addi, my mom and I hit Dick's, PetSmart, and Kohl's. After that we had lunch and then back home to do the tree. By then the boys were home from a morning hunt and we started decorating. It was not until 9pm that I manged to find my bed again. I may or may not of had sugar plums dancing in my head, I have no idea, I was exhausted.

This next part is 100% for Jeremy. He loves the fact that the tree he asked me to measure before I decided I wanted it is really larger than necessary for the living room. I wanted a tall tree and we certainly have it. I moved it to a better spot this year so we can get every section up. It is now taller than the ceiling fans.
The picture is not the best because I took it the day we were decorating but it is beautiful, well I am happy with it at least, and tall, very, very, very tall. I think next year I will switch up the colors but is no ceiling fan use for a few more weeks around here. I can't have an angel that really flies!!

Addi Jo

For some reason it has really hit me lately that Addi is no longer little. It may of started during football season when there really was no rational to explain to her that she is not like the other big girls anymore.


It certainly sank in when she started to steal her own mashed potatoes and eat them with chopsticks in the kitchen. I mean there is no need to tell her that is just not a good plan because she does not want to hear one word of it.

Then there is the cute face of a little girl that made her own Christmas list. One that compares to 16 year old girls in some ways and one that made of items only a 3 year old would want. I mean the i-pod was a bit over the top but who would not want to get her a sleeping bag and pillow pet. Then there was the baby puppy and zhu zhu pets.

It is just amazing Addi Jo is so big now. She loves preschool everyday and is learning so much. She loves to say the prayer at the dinner table and give her brother a hard time. She is starting to play games and is super competitive, which means she fits in well here. She is her brother's biggest fan and worst nightmare all in the same evening.