Nathan & Bowling

Nathan has now taken up bowling. He first fell in love with it on the Wii--especially after he found out he could beat mom! He spent Tuesday at our neighbor's house and played the bowling game they have in their basement most of the time he was there.
He has learned all about strikes, spares, and splits.
Yesterday he remembered the bowling ball and pins he received for Christmas last year. We found them and I made x's for him upstairs and downstairs, so now we have three lanes in our house (including the Wii). Last night Dad got to be the pin setter for all of the kids.
Tomorrow we plan to go to Eureka so that Nathan can go "real" bowling with his Papa Butter. He's never picked up a real bowling ball, so I am sure he will be surprised that it is heavier than a hollow plastic ball or Wii remote. It may also be an unpleasant realization when he finds out he will not be able to walk right up to the pins before throwing the ball.
Knowing Nathan and sports, I am sure it will not take him long to adapt to the "real" game of bowling!

Baby and Ma-Mom

Teresa loves to pair her stuffed animals up as "Baby and Ma-Mom." This is the baby and mom she brought together today. My favorite pair is a big raccoon I had as a child and her Christmas bear. (I think that baby must take after his dad--he looks NOTHING like a raccoon.)

Teresa's Tutu

I found this idea in the November 2009 Family Fun magazine. It is TOO cute and SO easy that I just had to make one! What little girl wouldn't love a tutu of her own?
I know one of these would have instantly replaced the white sheer curtains (my "wedding dress and veil") twenty-five or so years ago. At one time my career aspirations were to be a ballerina in the morning and a librarian in the afternoon (or was it the other way around--I always forget). A girl can dream, right?
I may have an aspiring ballerina/librarian of my own now. Teresa has been wearing her new tutu for most of the morning--even to read books.
The best part? It took under an hour to make and is completely no sew.

You will need:
Elastic to fit child's waist with the ends tied together
2 rolls of tulle (or more if you want additional colors--you'll just have some left over for another one)
Directions:
Stretch the elastic band around a large book or shoe box. Cut a 14-inch length of tulle from each roll. Stack two pieces together and tie them to the elastic band. Continue until all elastic is covered.
The tulle at our local craft store was all so pretty, I used four different colors--turquoise, lime green, lavender, and pink.
I've also been thinking of other ways to use tulle--cut shorter to cover a headband, decorations for shoes, etc. If you have any ideas, I'd be happy to hear them, too!

A Storm of Emotions

As the thunder rolls, I barely hear Your whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you"
And as Your mercy falls, I raise my hands
and praise the God who gives and takes away.
--"Praise You in this Storm"--Casting Crowns
I went to Aberdeen today (by myself!) which gave me a lot of time to think and listen to KLOVE radio on the drive there and back. It was one of those days that every song felt like the Lord was wrapping his arms around me.
My heart has been heavy these past few days as I see the devastation in Haiti, my friends and loved ones in South Dakota living without electricity for the past several days, and thinking of a dear family friend and her family as she prepares to leave this world after battling cancer for much of the past ten years.
Her daughter summed up her mom so well on her Facebook status late last week. She said her mom was "out of this world . . . . She never did belong here. Thank you, Lord Jesus." What a beautiful tribute.
But, even in the midst of pain, our Lord continues to pour down blessings from above. A granddaughter was born into their family today and our friend will be able to meet this newest blessing before she meets her Lord.
And that is why even when I do not understand God's plan, I have to believe.
"Though my heart is torn, I will praise You in this storm."

Can I Get an "Amen"?

If you are married to a Melius descendant, you probably have this same problem. There is a characteristic that seems to run rampant among them. It is the desire to constantly try to improve what they have.
Now, this can be a wonderful quality in their line of work. But, when it sneaks into the house, and especially my kitchen, it can make this Melius wife CRAZY!!
Once I had perfected the Melius pancakes to the best of my ability, David began asking for the one thing that would improve them even more--homemade syrup.
His mom makes homemade syrup for her pancakes and it is quite tasty, however I didn't know why I had to fire up the saucepan and make my own. Even our little local grocery store probably carries 20+ different kinds of pancake syrup. If he wasn't so afraid of grocery stores (seriously--he is), he could go and pick out his own!
As luck (for him) would have it, I happened to be perusing the spice aisle one day and my gaze settled upon the maple flavoring. It was close to Christmas and I was feeling generous, so I bought a bottle.
Finally, I thought, I had attained greatness! I made my own syrup! Ah, no. Not so fast. Every measuring cup or container that held the syrup left drips behind. How would we EVER solve this dilemma?
This morning I decided to shake things up and make french toast instead of pancakes. That went over well. So did the homemade syrup, but the best part was that I FINALLY found the PERFECT syrup container for David! He said so himself!!

I discovered this alternate use for the Pampered Chef Measure, Mix, & Pour quite by accident (it was in the front of the cupboard), but I am so glad I did. Seriously, I through my arms up and did a little victory dance. It pours perfectly, holds one batch of syrup nicely, and, most importantly, does not drip.
What will my perfectionist husband set his sights on next? Lunch is only a few hours away. I am sure he will think of something.

Successful Online Kickoff

Many Steps to Fight MS received $70 in online donations yesterday! Wow! We now have 15 weeks until the walk and $1430 left to raise. I know we can do it. For more information, visit www.mymswalk.org or www.nmss.org.

My Blog Book

Shortly after we returned from Florida, I followed the link to The Cutest Blog on the Block and uploaded my blog to be printed. It arrived yesterday and it is absolutely beautiful.
The finished product really is all the website's doing. All I did was click a few things, choose a cover, and they did the rest. It was a little pricey (about $75 for a 170 page hardcover book), but the professional quality was SO worth it.
I love having our family's 2009 history in our bookcase.


OK--so I have my book. Now maybe someday someone will actually pay me to write. If not, oh well. I'm doing just fine--as long as I don't end up as a starving writer. Being hungry makes me waaay too grouchy!

Wii-ally Fit

I have been losing and gaining the same five pounds since I had Teresa over two years ago. The rest of the 30+ pounds left me, but not this little bit of extra weight. It's not like I had been doing anything extra to get rid of it. I had made peace with the weight and the extra tummy she left for me. After all, I had an excuse--I just had a baby!
Well, my baby can now count to four and she showed me how to turn on a DVD player this morning. My time may be running out on the "just had a baby" excuse.
Why the motivation NOW? It is a little someone named Mama Mii who wears a purple shirt and looks a lot like me as she bounces around on my TV. She looked pretty good until she weighed in on Wii Fit. Suddenly she became quite round around the middle. Her weight settled near the bottom of the "Overweight" line on the graph while some unpleasant frumpy music played.
It was in that moment I knew I should and could lose these five unnecessary pounds to get down to a healthier weight. That was a week ago and so far I am two pounds down. I have been watching my calories a bit closer and walking, but the Wii Fit definitely helps keep exercise new and fun. I especially like the Rhythm Kung Fu and the Hula Hoops.
Mama Mii always has a smile on her face. She is the athlete I never was, and is surprisingly really talented at the ski jump despite my fear of heights. I thank her for giving me the motivation to say "good bye" to this residual baby weight.
Too bad I missed the Olympic trials for this year.

Hey, Mom!

If I had a dollar for every time I heard, "Hey, Mom!" since Friday, I would have a lot of dollars.
Oh, Landen. God love him . . . and I so do I, but wow! I think he has broken some kind of record. Currently he likes to talk about his successes on the bicycle game on Wii Fit or ask me if I "renember" all sorts of random information he has acquired in his 6 years.
I take comfort in the fact that he will go far as a great communicator some day. Maybe he will be an announcer for Nathan's professional football games. (I predict Teresa will either be a cheerleader or a trapeze artist during the halftime entertainment.)
On this subject, I heard some discouraging news today. It appears our kids are normal.
I mentioned a few days ago that we didn't know why our kids had to screw around right at our feet all of the time. I was convinced not all kids are like this--and especially not the kids two generations back. It appears they are and they were. You just have to ask their mothers.
I asked my friend Jennie at lunch today if her (7, I believe) children were always at her feet when they were young. Sadly, she nodded and said she threatened to move all of her dishes into the toy room and their toys into the kitchen. Her husband Arvid loves to tell the story of her getting so fed up with at one person spilling his or her milk at every meal that she started one meal by throwing her glass of milk over her shoulder just to get it over with. All of their children stared in disbelief.
She went on to tell me that a relative of hers had nine children in nine years. They finally stopped allowing beverages of any kind at meals. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.
I actually find these stories encouraging--not discouraging. I seem to hold onto this ideal that today's grandmothers were somehow super human nurturers, cooks, menders, and gardeners. It turns out even they cracked under the pressure once in awhile.
One mom can only clean up so much spilled milk or hear "Hey, Mom!" so many times before she starts to feel a little crazy.
We are, after all, only human.

Every Light in the House is On

Remember that country song?
Well, that pretty much sums up our house since the electricity came back on at about 4 this afternoon. The kids and I were all settling in to read another story when we heard the blessed "click."
Did you hear the roar from our direction? It was all of us shouting for joy. :o)

Sledding

It was such a beautiful day today that even I went sledding with Nathan and Teresa this afternoon.
Teresa insisted that she was big enough to go down by herself, but I had to think about it for a moment as I stood at the top and contemplated releasing my baby girl on her own sled. Then I remembered Landen sending Nathan down when he was about that age. He loved it then--and Teresa loved it today.

Now, THAT'S a chairlift!

Such a big girl!

Nathan happy at the bottom of the hill.

Yes!

Now that Teresa has added the word "yes" to her vocabulary, the boys have a fun time hearing her opinion on different topics. They frequently ask her questions such as:
"Do you like Grandma/Grandpa/Mom/Dad/brothers?"
"Do you like your animals?"
"Do you like babies?"
"Do you like toilet paper from Santa?"
The answer to all of the above is always "YES."
The only question that always gets a definitive "NO" is, "Do you like to go to bed?"

This afternoon I heard Teresa making some familiar noises in Grandma Melius' toy room. My little potty trainee, for the time being, has lost all interest in using the potty and she is not ashamed to admit it.
"Teresa," I called down the hall, "are you filling your pants?"
My question was answered with a loud, "YES!"
I thanked her for being honest.

Homemade Ice Cream

I love to read cookbooks. Really, I can take a new cookbook and read it front to back (or sometimes back to front) like a novel, marking interesting recipes as I come across them.
The backs of cookbooks have the most interesting recipes--usually including, but not limited to, play dough, bubbles, garlic pickles, and . . . ice cream. Sadly, I was never able to make the homemade ice cream recipes even though they sounded SO yummy. If you've ever had homemade ice cream, you know how delicious it is. We were at a family birthday party a few weeks ago and homemade ice cream was served with the cake. Landen was in ice cream heaven!
Thankfully, my mom didn't forget my wish for an ice cream freezer even though I forgot to put it on my list this year. Even better, she found us a really awesome one! (I should maybe give my dad some of the credit, too, but we all know who does the shopping.) :o)
There is no mixing or salt involved with this cool little gadget. All we have to do is freeze the base, mix up our ingredients, put it altogether, pour the ingredients in the freezer and twenty minutes later we have delicious homemade ice cream!

Our first batch yesterday was Mint Oreo (tinted green, of course) and today's flavor is Vanilla M&M. Our ice cream production will now be at a standstill until I can get to the grocery store and buy more cream. We all know how dangerous it is for me to have cream in the house--I better take on a few more matches of Wii tennis every day!


Now if I can just get a candy thermometer and a melon baller for Christmas next year, I will be able to make just about EVERYTHING.

With Love From Alaska

We returned home to find a package of all sorts of goodies from our friends Russ & Claudia who now teach school and live in Alaska for most of the year. The boys each received a stuffed salmon and Teresa's gift was a stuffed husky.
As we sat down to lunch, the boys had already made other plans for their salmon.

Home Again!

After a fabulous five-day getaway to Daytona Beach, David and I are back home once again. God sure smiled on our travel plans as a major winter storm was moving in just as we returned to South Dakota last night.
The weather was quite chilly--when you hear the locals pulling out the "I should move to Florida" joke, you KNOW it is chilly--but still sunny and a perfectly relaxing vacation.
I apologize to all of the orange growers who must cringe by now when they hear the Melius couple (a.k.a. Jack Frost's helpers) are coming to visit. Last year we experienced record lows in the Keys. This year we not only shattered record lows, but were also there for part of the longest cold snap in history!
I now present some of the "cool" highlights:

Daytona Beach
They advertise it as "The World's Most Famous Beach," but our Italian breakfast companions questioned the validity of that. After they showed us pictures of beaches on the Mediterranean Sea, we did as well. :o)

Even though neither David nor I follow NASCAR closely, we just couldn't go to Daytona and not to the Speedway. We both thought it was really interesting and learned a lot, such as the fact that the speedway is much, much bigger than we thought and the cars travel at a 30 degree angle on the track. If they didn't travel as fast as they do, they would all be pulled to the bottom.

The Ponce de Leon lighthouse at sunset.

Our Bed & Breakfast--"The Coquina Inn" in Daytona Beach. Oh, how I already miss the Hunts' warm hospitality, the claw foot bathtub, and five course breakfasts featuring Egg Nog Waffles, Herb Baked Eggs, Frittata, and Chocolate Orange French Toast as featured main courses each day. We stayed in the room on the top left and hope to return again, perhaps for an anniversary trip someday.

We couldn't leave without driving on the beach--something drivers are still allowed to do on Daytona Beach along miles and miles of coastline.
Ah, so long sunny Florida days and hello South Dakota blizzard! It is strange, but I could not think of a better day to return than one that was spent with our whole family together watching the snow blow around outside.
Even though sometimes I wish my ancestors had settled farther south in this country, Dorothy was right all those years ago. There really is no place like home. I wonder if Teresa will let me borrow her sparkly red shoes next time we go on vacation. Then I can bypass airport security and get home to hug my babies that much sooner.