When Company Comes to Call

***This entry got lost in the shuffle at some point and never got posted.  So...  a couple of years go by...  I think it's because the pictures aren't on my laptop.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.***

I had some of my favorite girlies come to visit us for a long weekend recently. We had a blast, quite literally! ;)  OK, we let Dave join us. 

We took a trip to downtown Burlington (sans kiddos) where we wandered Church Street and saw a fun street performance of flaming hoop jumping. We wandered down to the lake and had a yummy lunch. We stopped at the Maple store and hooked Alonnie up with enough maple syrup to last a week or two. :D

Another night we watched the movie New in Town. It was predictable, but fun.

We also had lunch one day at Smuggler's Notch. Chef Boy R Dave prepared some of our food and briefly graced us with his presence.

I finally got to meet Lora's Carolyn.

Micah built us a sweat lodge (an igloo shaped sauna) that was fabulous! He did a great job. And after that, we came out and gorged ourselves on s'mores.

Early Birthday Party

Some of you know my birthday was last Tuesday. Fewer of you know I have a step-daughter. The bigger has an older half-sister. I loved her when she was a baby and a toddler and a preschooler. Then for various reasons she was not a part of our lives. The bigger found her again a few years ago and I saw her briefly shortly after that.

Well, I was so excited to hear she was visiting Dave last weekend. I invited them over and used homemade pizza and decadent birthday cake to lure them away from the sights and delights of Vermont to visit with me.

I face a bit of a conundrum where Big Sis is concerned. I have not been with their father since she and the bigger were much, much smaller. So, the $2M question? Is she still my step-daughter? I don't know if divorce, time, and distance can nullify that kind of relationship, but I never stopped loving my first (and only) little girl. I hope her mom is OK with that.

Anyhoo, here are some pictures. I know she is looking forward to seeing them too.
I don't think anyone was quite prepared for the cold snap! Brrr!Cass is so funny.All "my" kids.And the absolutely delish pizza Micah made. Regular and Buffalo Chicken. That's all that was left after dinner and by the end of the night, they were gone too!

Winter Storm Warning

I can't believe it has been nearly four months since I last posted. Yikes! What a slacker. Anyway, I have a couple of pictures of today's storm damage (actually, only one, because I only had a video of the downed tree...). Aside from the usual "chasing of the random loose stuff from our yard and the neighbor's yard", we had a tree down. Conveniently, it fell away from the house. Phew! Our barn roof was messed up too. A tree narrowly (like by mere inches) missed our neighbor's house.

And because I know you don't come here for anything but to peek at the boys, here they are (and Cass).

Hodge Podge Catch Up

Dave and Cass playing CandyLand with the Littles. Mal is loving this game. He caught on pretty quickly once he was ready. He is all about winning. Xav mainly moves his player randomly around on the board. He is pretty good about not moving other players.It got pretty windy here (as you could see in my last post). This is what our trees looked like.

Cool toothbrush covers I found for our trip. Happy covers for the Littles' musical Veggie Tales toothbrushes.
The Bigger on his TWENTY-FOURTH birthday. Where does the time go? He's eyeballing the strawberry cake with white frosting. I wanted to cover it with brown chicken and brown cow sprinkles. He ended up with brown cows, but the chickens were pastels. :D

A Bit Windy Here Today

I know you've all been dying for an update. Right? Rightrightrightright. I'll fill you in on some missed happenings, but first I wanted to share a few pics brought to you by the weather. Every time the wind gets whipping, I worry about our ginormous pine and cherry trees crushing the house or cars. Well, wouldn't you know, it wasn't our tree that came down today. A tree at Dave and Cassie's apartment came down and knocked out power, phone and internet for about 800 people.

Their apartment is on the second and third floor.
This one is our pond and yard. You can see all our little birch trees bending in the wind. The pond is pretty ripply too. I'm guessing the frogs stayed down below most of the day today since I didn't hear a peep. (ha! get it? peep? I crack me up!)

Happy Birthday Cassie!

Cassie's birthday was yesterday. She and the boy came over. I made cake balls for her and we had calzones for dinner. Yummy! Isn't Cass cute?














Doesn't the littlest resemble the biggest in these photos? They both have stuff on their lip and chin. ;)

Dave and Cass came over for tax help on Sunday. Unfortunately, Dave for got to bring his tax stuff. KIDS! Maybe next time. Cassie brought her handy dandy Texas Instruments calculator with bells and whistles attached. M fell in love.



















Here he is after being sucked into the TI's aura of smartiness. He was oblivious to the camera. We think he is trying to calculate something "very important" and gEEky or he could just be graphing boobs.