Ice Garden

We had a bit of a cold front come through the first of the month.  It would drizzle rain one day and then get down to low 20's.  (I know that isn't really cold for some of you, but around here it is pretty cold.)  It has resulted in some frost on the windows.  I was so inspired by Malea and Colton's pictures of ice crystals on their window that I had to brave the cold to get some cool pictures!

Okay...so we didn't have really cool crystals on the window of the car. 

This is the best we could do.

The seal below the window on the door produced some crystals.  They still can't quite compete with Malea's ice crystals.  I was a little bit disappointed, but then I found something even better!  An ICE GARDEN!  I can grow ice!!

Here is your fist look at the ice growing up out of the ground pushing the sand up as it grows.

Another look.  This one really shows the sand on top of the ice "hair" really well.

The ice didn't just grow straight up.  It would bend this way and that way.  It was amazing!

The sun shining on the ice.  It was really quite pretty and a bit cold!

This is ice growing around my daffodil.  It hasn't bloomed yet.

The ice garden from a little bit farther away.  The over all look was pretty amazing.

This is our flower pin wheel keeping guard over the garden.

This is something of a phenomenon.  We have grown ice in our garden a couple times over the past week and a half.  It only happens after we have a day of rain and then low temps at night.  We actually had a couple days this last week when the temp got down in the single digits at night.  After the first night in the single digits our kitchen sink quit working.  I was fairly certain the pipes had frozen.  Fortunately the pipes didn't burst and we were only out of a kitchen sink for a bout 36-40 hours.  We just switched to paper products and washed all the fruits and veggies in the downstairs bathroom sink.  It was slightly obnoxious, but we survived.  After talking to a couple neighbors it sounds like almost everyone had a couple pipes freeze that first night.  

Jan. 4, 2014

Happy New Year

For New Years we spend the evening playing games and watching movies on our new TV.  The kids were so excited to stay up all night.  :0)  Nathan only made it until 8 pm.

 Daniel only made it until about 10:30. 

 We did fireworks at 11 pm because we were all too tired.

Eliza was excited to do sparklers.

 Bradley was excited to do the cars that shoot sparks.

Dad got carried away with the sparklers!

Poor Daniel missed out all the fireworks.  We couldn't get him to wake up, SO the next night we had to do a repeat for the sleepy heads.

 We were waiting in the driveway for Dad to get the lighter.  The garage was dark and we knew Dad was in there, but it was so dark!  I turned the flash on and we caught him.

 Eliza and Daniel were brave enough to go in once they knew where he was.

 Nathan was so excited!  He wanted to be right next to the fireworks.

It was a full time job to keep him away.

 Eliza with her sparkler.

 Daniel was excited to finally get to do fireworks.

 Bradley love to play with fire.

He kept trying to start the car on fire with the sparklers.

 Dad helping Nathan with a sparkler.  He LOVED it!

 Lighting more sparklers.

We are excited to see what 2014 has in store for us!

Dec. 31-Jan. 1, 2014

Merry Christmas

Christmas morning the boys were up by 7 am.  Since I went to midnight mass with Marek and Margaret the night before I was still pretty tired.  We talked the boys into waiting until Eliza woke up before we went to open presents.  As a result we didn't get started on presents until about 7:30 am.  It was great!!

Eliza, Daniel, Nathan and Bradley

Eliza was super excited about her new bike!

Hi Mom!  Can't wait to get on the road.

Dad and Nathan opening presents.

While no one was paying attention Nathan climbed on Liza's bike to try it out.

Daniel with most of his things.

Bradley with his haul!

Dad surrounded by utter chaos!

Eliza with her stuff.

Nathan with his plunder!

I tried to get pictures of the kids and their things quickly so that we could get the house back into some semblance of order.  Unfortunately in the hurry we missed some of the presents.  We had a great Christmas.  We must have been very good all year.  :0)

Once breakfast was over and the presents were mostly put away we went for a ride so Eliza could try out her new bike.  She was very excited!  She does get a little nervous going down hills so I had to walk next to her to help her out.

Notice she brought a doll with her.

Dad and Nathan getting ready to head out.

Dad, Nathan and Eliza riding their bikes on the bike trail.  Bradley and Daniel are up ahead of them on the trail.  It was pretty cold and by the time we got back home Eliza and Nathan were frozen!!  It is a good thing we have some warm blankets to snuggle in.

Dec. 25, 2013

Happy Birthday Dad!

Andy got his birthday off this year!  We enjoyed having him home for three days in a row.  

We played outside and cleaned the van before we got around to opening presents.

Andy was documenting me document him documenting me.  :0)

The kids thought it was funny that we were taking pictures of each other.

What a handsome birthday boy.

I find that we are always out of birthday paper by the time Andy's birthday comes around.

He always get his presents wrapped in Christmas paper.  He and Eliza are trying to decide which kitty is the cutest.  I think they are all cute.

Once they came to a decision on the cutest then Andy started to unwrap the present.

I had to disguise it so he didn't know what it was.

Daniel was the supervisor.

Tada!  A wasp nest!!

Okay...maybe it is something more.

Like a fishing pole.

He was very excited.

He also got a fishing net.

Bradley made a hat out of the wrapping paper.

Eliza caught a big one!

Did you see that?!  I got him!

After we had dinner and watched the Nativity the kids got to open their new PJ's.

Nathan likes his new dino pj's.

Last but not least we had strawberry cheesecake for Dad's birthday.

As you can see there was quite a blaze!  We almost had to call the fire department.  :0)

Happy Birthday Dad!!