Pooooooor Buddy:(

My poor Buddy, doesn't he look just pathetic:( Here's the story: three weeks ago Buddy was fine and very playful in the morning. Later I saw him, and he was obviously hurt. I got really nervous because his tail was between his legs, his hind legs were shaking and he could hardly walk. He was obviously in pain. The scary part with his legs is, that between the ages of one and two, he had very expensive and extensive orthopedic knee surgeries (two separate ones) in his rear knees. This involved some bone reconstruction and pins for a genetic defect. If we hadn't gone through with that, he'd either be severely crippled today, or not with us any longer. Anyway, that Saturday when he was hurt and could barely walk, I noticed his head was bleeding a bit too. We were trying to figure out what happened--I knew my 3 year old fairy girl threw a big wheel down the stairs, but she says he wasn't down there. Then it dawned on me! My husband was in the basement, I thought he was in the workshop, but he was in our office/guest bedroom. He didn't notice Buddy was in there too. For anyone who's been a guest in our home, you know that the bed we have is an antique four poster bed, that is really high. In fact, it's not safe for the kids or for Buddy, and probably not for our guests, being so far off the ground:) Well, the girls had made a huge mess on the floor with mostly bedding items, so I had piled it on the bed. We figured Buddy couldn't get up on the side with all the stuff, so he tried to get up on the side with barely any room for him to jump, very close to a wall and a cedar chest, and he didn't make it and fell off the bed (in fact there's blood on the bed, so I know that's what happened). Boy did I feel like pond scum. I know I watch for him when I'm in here, but I didn't think about my husband not noticing. So, he must have been down there awhile because we didn't know he was hurt, and somehow dragged himself up the stairs. We called the vet, because he could barely walk, and wouldn't eat, but they were closed, and suggested we try the emergency vet. We decided to wait it out (since emergency costs are the same a few hours later anyway). I sat with him all day, and all night--and thank goodness, he was walking normally and perky the next day, and back to himself. And he ate, so that's a great indicator he was feeling well. But, his half dime size cut on his head never looked great, but we didn't take him in because it had scabbed over. Well, this morning, it must have been itching, and he scratched it so badly it looked terrible--in fact our bedroom had blood splattered all over the walls! Since it had stopped bleeding, my husband brought poor Buddy to a pet store with him to buy this collar (and some anti itch spray). This is the second time in his life he's had to endure this (first time when he was one and had the second surgery, so he wouldn't remove his stitches--he was bumping into everything, it was hilarious, and looked so sad with it on:) This time around, he's being a really good sport about it---so, here are the nicknames we came up with years ago for this scenario:
LAMPSHADE HEAD
SATELLITE DISH
BOWL BOY
Pooooooooor Buddy:) We're just grateful he wasn't seriously hurt. And, BTW, the antique furniture set is finally for sale---it's just not safe to have around (antique isn't my style anyway:)

When I Grow Up, I Want to Be:

me: NOT a cake decorator!
(more later on the cake:)

fairy girl: A trapeze artist or a paratrooper!
She LOVES to jump, and out of all the kids in her tae kwon do class, she's the only one who gets big compliments on her jumping abilities--I can't wait until she does those flying kicks--I'm sure she'll amaze all of us as she defeats the laws of gravity!

Birthday Art

Angel Girl is getting ready for her much-anticipated birthday!

Hatha Hound

Downward Dog Pose

Fairy Girl Moment

Yesterday my four year old angel got her little fingers caught in a door, just before bedtime. They were throbbing, so we gave her a gel freezer pack. Well, Little Fairy didn't want to be left out, and came running out of bed and said, "my head hurts." So we found another gel pack, and off she went to bed, taking care of her poor head:) This morning when she woke, she came walking out of bed into the family room with the gel pack still on her head. Poor girl:)

It's Mommy and Me!

Snow Balls and Mittens Class

We first read these very sweet stories---SNOWBALLS was actually written by someone local.


Doing the song of the snow flakes---"Snow flakes up, snow flakes down, snow flakes snow flakes all around." We'll let you know if the snow has heard its call and makes its appearance. (I have a strong hunch it'll be here tomorrow, again:)


Snow Art--the kids took a small balloon and dipped it into some white paste, and decorated with cue tips and paint. This is my little girl's snow women.


My Little Fairy Girl is outside painting the snow, with non toxic paint in spray bottles.


A few of the kids from the class climbing the "mountain" and making snow angels. After the class went back inside, they made snowman snacks by piercing marshmallows through rod pretzels and using raisins and candy corn to make the eyes and nose. The other really cute idea, and I'd like to do this at home is they had felt snowmen hanging on the walls, and felt accessories (hats, mittens, eyes, noses, mouth, etc) so you could decorate your snowman as you please.

Our Weekend In Review

We had another fun-filled weekend, after we warmed up to about 15 degrees (which sadly felt so much better:). Angel girl got to go skiing while my little fairy and I built a nice fire and made a very long paper chain--it's amazing how much fun she had with the paper chain--running, flying, dancing. Buddy had fun too, he got to go cross country skiing with his "dad." And yesterday, the cul-de-sac kids all got together and made snow tunnels! They had snow much fun:)

A Midwinter Night's Dream

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine."

So my little fairies had themselves a sweet picnic, until the big black beast took off with the teapot!

Today's Artistic Expression

Total artistic expression!

A Little Girl Goes on A Swing

My Little Angel has decided she'd like to start writing and illustrating her own stories. This is her first story:

Once there was a little girl who sat on a swing. Her name was Samantha. The swingset also had a club house and it was made out of wood. Samantha climbed into the clubhouse and had fun. She played with the steering wheel. Then, she went inside the house to eat lunch. She ate a sandwich with cheese, mayonnaise, and lettuce. Then she went outside again to play on her swingset. Samantha climbed up into her clubhouse to write a letter to her friend Collasa. In her letter, Samantha thanked Collasa for the wonderful swingset she gave to her for her 18^th birthday. After she wrote the letter, Samantha drew a picture of a horse. Then it was night and she went to bed. When Samantha woke up in the morning, she went out to her swingset again!

THE END

Funfilled Wintery Weekend

We had a snowfilled weekend playing--skiing, sledding and snowmen!

Fairy Art

Fun with markers!

Angel Art

A couple of her pieces suggest to me that she may be craving warm weather!

Building Bridges

I don't post too much artwork of my Little Fairy Girl, because that just isn't something she's been too interested in so far. But, she LOVES to build things. This is something she does daily now, and she calls it her bridge--they started small, but now they usually span the distance of the entire house--and in a long ranch, that's a long distance! She connects her bridge with no gaps with books, pillows, small furniture, toys--anything to connect her bridge--and when she's done, she sometimes walks on it--but mostly is just satisfied with having completed her bridge. (Then I get to clean it up every night---picking up after herself isn't on her list of fun things to do, for some odd reason:)

Happy New Year

I know, this picture's old--but it's still a goodie (doesn't he totally look like he's suffering from the New Year Day hangover:) So, here's a very precious moment from New Year's Eve last night: (yes New Year's Eve is pretty wild at our house)--about midnight, my husband who was working in the basement came upstairs. I had a nice fire going, and was just relaxing and watching shows (I believe HGTV)--he said, shouldn't we watch one of those shows with the crowds of people where the ball drops---I said, why, we know what'll happen--true, he agreed (besides, we're central time, so by the time our midnight hits, the NYC ball drop is old news, and the Chicago celebration isn't quite the same). Well, then as soon as my one show ended, we knew it was midnight. My husband was sitting on the middle part of the couch, I was on one end, and Buddy was on the other--he looks at me, looks at Buddy, and gives Buddy a big New Year's smooch!!! See how life changes after 8 years of marriage:)
Happy New Year Everyone!

Christmas Scenes from our Home...

Merry Christmas from Buddy!!!

We received so many wonderful gifts from near and afar--thank you everyone! So, what do you think is the likelihood of receiving four Eric Carle games, and not one duplicate! We were thrilled, as the only games we had before were Crazy 8's, Hi Ho Cherry-O and Candyland--and the girls are old enough now to actually learn game skills rather than just run around losing the game pieces. So, a couple of weeks ago, we had established family game time, which we now do 1/2 to 1 hour every night before bedtime. We all truly love this quiet time together (and of course, don't tell them, but it's a great learning opportunity:)


Our Child-proof tree--we let them put all the child-safe ornaments on (I think many are currently scattered around the house:)--I filled in with the poinsettias so the tree still appeals to me:)--someday when the girls are old enough for the real ornaments again, I'm going to keep using the poinsettias, plus all my beautiful blown glass and ceramics, and it'll be gorgeous! (I think I'll take advantage of the after Christmas prices and run back to JoAnne Fabrics for a whole bunch more poinsettias--I never tire of the rich Christmas Reds!:)


Ok, if you've ever been to my house and saw the toilets, especially the powder room one, you'd know why I'm very excited to receive a toilet for Christmas:) (ok, it wasn't really a gift to me, but it sure would be an original, eh!)

Christmas Cake Diva

This year I decided to pass on baking all the cookies, pass on the pie since I'm not a huge pie fan (though I will eat it if it's put in front of me:), and bake a Christmas Cake! I will say this, I can bake--I don't think it's too difficult to do if you follow the directions and use quality ingredients, have good bakeware, and know your oven! And I've gotten really good at knowing when something is done to perfection--so generally when I bake, it tastes pretty good. But where I've never done very well was cake decorating--I CAN'T FROST A CAKE! Actually I LOVE looking at beautifully decorated cakes--I even admire them. I've come to love watching a couple of television series that specializes in cakes and (weddings, those are fun to watch too, and usually those involve a cake:) So, I decided to quit being a passive cake admirer and to take action! I decided it's going to be a new hobby of mine to learn to decorate cakes for special occasions (or whenever I have a few hours to do so:) I even purchased a domed cake plate, and semi decent cake pans for the occasions. So, this Christmas I made a Christmas Cake (of course completely from scratch, I haven't used a box mix in many many years)!
Here is my first pretty cake creation, and I thought I did a decent job frosting it (for the first time ever:)--I now have mastered the art of cooling the layers and doing a crumb layer first:

Three layer chocolate fudge cake, with a raspberry glaze between the layers.
Buttercream frosting with a hint of lemon.
Glazed fruit (this took two hours of simmering to accomplish), comprised of fresh orange slices, freshly diced pineapple, dried apricots, dried cherries, and dried cranberries, and toasted walnuts, all reconstituted in a simple syrup to create the glaze.

I'll let you know how it tastes after we cut into it tomorrow:)

Woodland Holiday Class

We had our Woodland Holiday class this morning at our local nature center
http://www.county.milwaukee.gov/display/router.asp?docid=10115
We started out sitting on the pond (carpet) where each child selected a stuffed friend to hold. My older angel selected a beaver, and my little fairy selected a squirrel. Miss Bev. Then read a beautiful story (that we have at home too) called The Snow Tree (I have these winter tales books in a series, and they are beautifully illustrated with raised embossed pages). As each animal was read in the book, the child holding that animal got to go to the tree and decorate with the appropriate ornament. My angel with the beaver decorated with a piece of fur, and my fairy girl with the squirrel hung red berries on the tree. After story time the children get to do a craft, and today they put little ornaments on the pine cones. I'm going to put some pretty yarn on so we can hang it on our own tree. And finally it was snack time, so the kids were each handed a cut out Christmas tree cookie, and got to spread different colors of frosting on (and then of course eat it). As the high today is ZERO, we didn't take the class outside for a walk in the woods (and somehow, I FORGOT to put mittens on my little angel--bad mom! She usually tells me things like that:) On a really good note, as cold as it is today, it's a heck of a lot warmer than it was yesterday, as we had 40mph winds that made it unbearablely cold--about 25 below zero windchill--and on an even brighter note, contrary to popular belief, there are actually colder inhabited places on earth--check out today's headlines, brrrrr!

A visit to the coldest town on Earth

Founded by Mongols in the time of Ghengis Kahn, the town of Oymyakon is the coldest permanently inhabited place on earth.

The village has a population of around 800 and is located 690 meters above sea level and lies in a valley between two mountain ranges (the reason for the low temperatures). The name Oymyakon means "non-freezing water" because of the natural hot spring close to the village.

The temperature this week is pretty low and the temperature tomorrow is a chilly -63C which based on the stats at Wikipedia equals the record low for December.

Ringing in the Winter Solstice

What a better way to celebrate the arrival of the winter solstice, than to go out and play in Mother Nature's beautiful playground. For the first time we ventured away from the safety of sledding in our own backyard, which has the perfect slope for small children---and we went to a REAL sledding hill. I forgot how much fun it was to sled. It was about a 300 foot hill, with about a 20 degree grade, and boy did we fly!! As you can see the girls ventured over to the play ground and literally flew off the slide as well:) It was a beautiful night, we went after dark, it was about 25 degrees (warm, today it's minus 6), with snowfall. The cardinal is a regular visitor to our birdfeeder.