Bird watching today

Keith was out riding his bike on the road and when he came back told us he came across some bald eagles. Knowing I'm a huge fan of them, we went out in the car to find them with the kids and camera. Here are some pics I took of them today. Found 3 bald eagles and 2 juveniles! The one bald eagle was downtown CR, overlooking the frozen river on the 1st Ave bridge. Didn't expect to see one there!


I'm hoping we can take a trip to one of the lock and dams over on the Mississippi River in the new couple weeks. One was reporting seeing 400+ adults on Jan 14th! Can you imagine seeing THAT many!! That would be SO cool! If we can't get to one of those, maybe we'll hit the Coralville Dam. Kaden wanted to go down there today, but it would have been dark by the time we arrived. Glad to see the kids love seeing them almost as much as I do. And to think I don't have the Webkinz eagle...yet!

BB game 2 & 3

Kaden had basketball games 2 and 3 today. One at 8am (yuck) and the other at 11am. He got a bit better from last week! In the 11am game he got the ball from the other team mid court and then was like"what do I do now", lol. It was funny! He dribbled it towards his net, but the other team grabbed it from him before he got a chance to shoot. He was able to shoot another time, but was too low. Need to work on the upper arm muscles! Kaden can jump and run no probs, he's great at it! The coach was good with Kaden on giving him directions on which spot he is on the floor (wing, post ect) and for the most part Kaden paid attention to that. He did better with guarding too this week! Only lost his guy about half the time, much better than before!! There are quite some aggressive defense men on some teams! Kaden still like to do the ballerina twirl down the court, but that's only when they are going slow, otherwise he's running back and forth. He was complaining after the 2 games today about being so sweaty, good!

I can ride my bike with no handlebars

I personally cannot, heck can't even ride a bike right now as Salem took mine over, but Salem and Keith can...atleast no handed. Salem had the advantage as he was on the trainer, so locked in, not able to fall easily. Keith was on the rollers and decided to have a contest with Salem to see who could ride no handed for the longest time. Keith almost won when Salem went to grab for the bars and remember, lol. Keith ended up giving in after 4 minutes as it was uncomfy how he was sitting. But that's pretty impressive! Kaden was standing by yelling at Salem to pedal faster. That's after Kaden and I made a yellow cake, yummy!

My back is feeling a bit better today, I laid on the couch most of the day with tylenol and a heating pad. But then I did the dishes and now it hurts again, ugh. I do realize it's from poor sleeping, being uneven when I sleep makes my back out of wack. I'm gonna get a little pillow or maybe just a towel to put under my belly to level me out a bit and see if that helps. I've got an OB appointment on Monday so I'll ask if he has any suggestions for me. It's not so much the babies making it hurt, just the big belly...which I guess is due to the babies, but anyway...

We had yummy goodness tonight for dinner! I had cravings for Sonic burger, tots and a slush and of course Keith said it was fine. Who's to argue with a big pregnant women! He did make me drive and order. I think he just didn't want to order me a bag of their ice! I heard they sold their ice in big bags, but have yet to buy one until tonight. Oh man, it's good stuff!!! $2 for a 8lb bag of their nugget ice, great price. I say it looks like clear deer poop, lol, just so you know size wise. And the ice is SO soft, I don't feel like I'm breaking my teeth chomping on it. And Salem was going to order off the kids menu, but since he eats so much now we're trying to get him to try the "big kids" menu items. So he had a cheeseburger and fries. The Sonic burgers are HUGE...more expensive, but SO worth it! He scarfed it down! Kaden had a jr burger, fries and slush. Keith went with a double cheeseburger with bacon, oh man that bacon was a good idea, should have had that on my burger...maybe next time! And their tots are delicious!! I'm glad Sonic is not closer to us or we'd be there all the time! But then again, I wish they were closer cause it's SO good!

Tomorrow Kaden has 2 basketball games. One at 8am (too early) and 11am. And then Sunday he has practice in the afternoon. But otherwise we have a free weekend. We'll be busy cleaning though. Sunday evening the mom of the twins I'm carrying is flying out for my OB appointment, so we'll meet up with her and visit. She flies back out Monday, quick trip but it'll be nice! Oh and have to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday if only for the commercials!

Uh oh, my cup is empty...need to get more ice!!

Thursday recap

I've lost track of time. Here it is Thursday already! Let's see if I can recap some of this week. Not much has happened. Monday was busy as our Monday's always are. Kaden had scouts, but he also had basketball. We chose BB this time. Scouts was the district fundraiser pack meeting, and the kids were making valentine's. We figure he could miss it. We dropped Kaden off at bb at 6:30, then headed to the cub scout meeting to chat for a few and drop a couple things off to the cubmaster. Then Salem had a meeting with a Troop we're interested in at 7pm, so we headed over that way. Keith stayed until 7:20 then went to pick Kaden up from his practice then came back to Salem's meeting with me. That went on until 8:30. The boys did some stuff with the troop and the adults talked with the soon to be new cubmaster and had questions answered. It was a night they invited a bunch of new potential cubs to join them, so there was quite a few kids. They even let Kaden in on some stuff, which was nice.

We really seem to like this troop! They have a bunch of kids, around 20+, they have a great group of adults and seem to have things together!! Salem also knows a couple kids that are going to this troop as well, so he likes it because of that!

Kids finally got to bed around 9pm, and they slept in until 7am the next morning!!

Tuesday was normal, school and all. Tuesday night was the high school basketball game where the youth basketball kids were to be introduced. Nothing fancy, but we went and Kaden had him moment in glory at halftime. We arrived during the last few minutes of the jv game and Kaden saw some of his team standing on the floor and wanted to go join them saying I was going to make him miss his announcement. I told him no, they would let us know when you are to go, so he had a little fit over that one, ugh! Kids didn't enjoy the game too much, which kind of surprised me. I thought Kaden would be all over it since he's never been to a game. They finally started to really watch and cheer after halftime. I think Kaden wanted to do his thing and then he'd be happy and he was. Marion won, although I can't remember the score. Not sure if we'll go to another game or not. Ended up being another late night, I think it was almost 10pm before they were asleep!

Yesterday they had an early out...a scheduled one, not due to weather or anything! After I picked Kaden up we went to Walmart and used Keith's race winnings from his roller race on Sunday to buy Open Season 2! But the rule was the kids had to have their playroom picked up by 6pm or we wouldn't watch it that night! They farted around for quite a while with me yelling reminders at them. Finally they kicked it up a notch and with a bit of my help got it done. It's not perfect and it needs some more cleaning, but I was able to get the vacuum in there and not suck up all the legos and knex pieces! We need to go through and get rid of some older toys and get it better organized for them. But it worked for then!

So last night we sat down to some pizza and fruit salad and watched Open Season 2. Not a bad movie at all. Not super funny all the time, but very cute. I loved the bunny fight (sorry mom)! I'm sure we'll watch it again and the kids will watch it even more often!!

I've gotta run now to go volunteer at Kaden's school for a bit, then a friend of ours is in town and she's stopping by for a bit. We're also in the process of cleaning the house, ugh! It's gotten too messy and needs to be done head to toe. Like spring cleaning, but in the middle of winter. Alright...until next time!

Kaden's 1st basketball game!

Kaden has his first game today! (notice today is Saturday) I think he's the only kid who has not played the game before on his team. One other kid is kinda iffy, but the rest are pretty darn good for 3rd and 4th graders. Kaden has been improving though and I have to say for his 1st game he did very well! He even shot a basket! Missed, but he shot for it! He did say beforehand he wasn't sure how bb is played or how the games goes. In practice they do drills and such but have not tried a practice game, so he was a bit lost. I guess we need to watch some bb on tv or get a book or something to help him. He gets the concept down...especially where the point and wing are supposed to stand. He runs to that spot on the gym floor and stays there, kinda funny like he is glued to the floor! He had a hard time remembering who he was to guard form the opposite team. But the kids are all wearing the same color shirts (different colors each team) you have to look on their back to see which number you need to be blocking, it's kind of hard for them all. The coach told the kids to block whomever is blocking you, so that kind of worked a bit better. We've been wanting to work with him on his skills, but it's SO darn cold out, we don't have any place to practice. We do work with him inside a bit on a few small things with an inflatable ball. They have games on Saturday, practice on Sunday and Monday.

Overall he did a great job and we're proud of him for trying SO hard and keeping at it! They don't keep score at this level and don't keep track of fouls, unless it's obvious one kid is doing a ton of them and then it's the coaches job to handle it. They do get free throws for certain fouls. And double dribble and traveling are called...sometimes. It happens so often that the refs let it go alot, unless it was quite obvious. The refs were 2 high school bb kids who also were helping the kids on the floor out, telling them where to stand and assisting them a bit. So that was kind of nice to see.

Keith video taped it so we'll have to get that up for those to see sometime. For now enjoy a couple pics.

My head hurts!

What 3 letter word is EVIL and makes heads hurt?? TAX...okay I guess you put it as a 5 letter word...TAXES! Either way, they are a pain in the butt! Ours are pretty simple, basic filling, no extras really, but I seem to have to prepare them on atleast 3 different sites to see what they all come up with, and then I have to fill out a paper form as well. And do you think I get the same amount on them all?? Normally not on all 4. There comes the headaches! I go with the one that gives us the most amount back and least amount to pay, makes sense right! Add in the kids keep trying to talk to me and it's a mess. So now I'm going to wait until they are in bed and try to figure it out without ripping too much hair out, lol.

Mall of America Trip highlights! (Day 1)

I don't know if it's because we had such a blast or I was so exhausted from the trip that I never got around to writing about it. But Keith yelled at me (along with others) so I figured I better get something in writing!

Let's see, we were ready to go, Keith went to start the car to warm it up...remember it was -50 or so that morning! He comes in and tells me my car tire is completely flat! He just put some extra air in it the night before, ugh! So we have to wait until Sears is open so we can run over there and get it checked out. Thankfully they were available to look at it and fix the problem. What was it?? A stinking NAIL! Darn those things! Even more thankfully we had gotten road hazard when we bought the tires so it was covered for free! Got that fixed and we were on the road at 9am, 1.5 hours later than planned, but no tire worries.

The drive up was long, 4 hours or so and Kaden and I spent most of the time scrapping off the ice off the INSIDE of our windows! We passed SO many semi's that were stopped along the side of the road. I guess they don't run too well in -50 degree weather!

Finally we arrived and the kids were SO excited!! We parked at the Lego entrance, saw the big Lego blocks, but didn't stop for a picture then, too excited, must go shop! They were in awe over the Lego store, over the amusement park, over it all! We checked out the legos for a short time, not buying any yet, we'd hit it on the way out so we didn't have to carry it through the whole mall. It was after lunch when we arrived so we went to the 3rd floor to grab some grub. Kaden had to have some A&W and Salem, Keith and I had some Sbarros, yummy! We were able to check out all the rides from up top and the kids decided on what rides they would and would not hit the next day.

After that we had full tummies and ready to shop till we dropped! Started at the 3rd floor and went floor by floor. First stop was a Hallmark store that had their Webkinz ornaments 75% off along with some clothes! Kids picked up a couple of each. We walked by alot of stores that did not interest us. Kaden was really wanting to hit the Build-a-Bear store, but that was on the 1st floor. Salem didn't have a specific store he wanted to hit, but was eager to check them all out. We found a candy store, oh so bad! Kids got some Lego shaped candy bricks, I got colored Swedish fish and Keith got some sugar strip things (can't recall their name). I also found Ice Cubes, had to get some of those!!! (Yes mom, I might even save some for when you're out here!) We hit some other stores, Salem bought a pack of Star Wars cards from a game store. I found Archiver's scrapbook store. The kids sat outside with Keith while I looked. They came in a couple times to tell me my time was up, lol. I did get to check out the whole store, and didn't even spend much (much to my disappointment and Keith's surprise). Kaden was ready to shop again in the stores he wanted. Keith and Salem found Oakley, but walked out empty handed (much to my surprise). FYE had some webkinz sales and the kids each picked up an outfit for b1g1f! Somewhere in there we found a DQ and decided to grab a pick me up slush! Keith and Salem shared a cherry and Kaden and I shared a lemon-lime :) We also found a Tollhouse Cookie Cafe and got some delicious cookies! We sat outside American Girl and topped up our sugar levels and gave our legs a rest! Keith stopped in Vans, but didn't buy anything. He would return the next day to pick up a pair of new shoes. Where else did we go? Stopped in some other stores and walked out empty handed. Finally we found BAB for Kaden and he was loving it! He picked out a lot of stuff he wants on his b-day list and bought a dog collar/leash and sunglasses for his dog Max that he won at Jingle Cross. When he paid he was so excited he got to use the card machine with his gift card and sign his name right on it. The other places had a receipt he needed to sign, or some didn't make him. The gal was so friendly and nice, gave Kaden a raok $3 gift card for next time to their store.

In the end we ended up back at the Lego store. They went back and forth, each picking out 1 thing they knew they really wanted and then contemplating what else they could buy with the money they had left. Tough decisions were made that night!

We got out of there and to the hotel at 7pm, just in time to check in and grab some snacks at the manager's reception. I love hotels that have them! Free snacks and drinks. Nothing big, they've all been popcorn, chips, veggies and such. They have free adult drinks too, but neither of us had some. They also have free soda, so the kids were happy to have some sugar before bed. Took the stuff back to our room and we all collapsed! I don't think we did dinner that night, just the snacks, extra cookies from the mall and some stuff I brought with us.

The kids crashed hard, they were out cold within minutes of hitting the pillows. Keith and took a bit longer. Keith blamed it on the airplanes that kept flying all night long. I fell asleep and didn't hear them, I thought they stopped, but I guess not. I kept hearing a train horn at night, but not sure where that was coming from. Ends up there is an electric train that runs right outside our hotel and when it comes to the intersection it has to blow it's horn. Didn't keep me up too much, I was too tired.

Got up the next morning and was able to relax a bit. The mall didn't open until 10am. We were able to have a nice breakfast, the hotel was awesome. They had made to order eggs, pancakes, french toast, bacon, sausage, juices, fruits, muffins and mini donuts and cereal. Plenty to eat!! And all free! We stuffed ourselves!

Salem could never remember our hotel room number last night. It was an easy number and we said it many times, so when we sent Salem to go get some ice and as a joke he walked right past our room, laughing the whole way. So Keith locked him out, lol. Yeah we did let him in, I wanted my ice! But he got a big kick out of it!

Oh wait, I'll go add a new post so this one won't be SO super long...

ANOTHER snow day!

Holy cow they have cancelled school AGAIN for tomorrow!! Not like the kids were going anyway due to our trip, but still. They've gone 1.5 days this week!! They've even told the teachers not to report for work day that was planned in some schools. Salem's school was a teacher work day and Kaden was to have school. Now both are off, which means I'm not really taking Kaden out of school for a trip to the mall. Good!

We've reached record cold temps in the area! Temps dipped to -29 this morning at 7:30am, the lowest ever recorded on weather history in our area! And they are calling for just as cold if not colder temps tonight/tomorrow morning!! This morning at 5am they were saying the wind chill was -51!! While we were at -29, the north pole was -16 and the South Pole was -18! How's that for a perspective! It's COLD here!!!

It's off to finish packing so we can leave bright and early and frozen in the morning to Minnesota! The kids are so excited to go shopping and check out the mini golf and roller coasters!!

Seriously this is not cool...it's bitter!

-38 right now!! Windchill temps are expected to reach -50!!! That's like...I don't know, horrible! And poor Keith has to work outside in it too. He does stay in his truck (with heat on high) as much as possible, but he does have to get out and work in this stuff. He says he stays warm expect for his hands. Next week it's supposed to be above freezing and we cannot wait for those days!!! Not so unusual for Iowa to have these bitter colds temps, but not enjoyable or wanted! We went to the store tonight and when you step outside it takes your breath away! I think we all were hoping for an easier winter since last year was so tough.

They have already cancelled school for tomorrow. Which is good and bad. Good that kids won't have to walk in the bitter cold to school. Good that on normal days we would be able to stay warm inside. Bad for a couple reasons, I have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning that will take almost 2 hours. Debating whether to leave the kids home alone (probably not), bring them with me (after calling the dentist to make sure it's ok) or to reschedule (best idea). Appt is at 9am though so I have to get up early to call them. It's nothing too major and it can wait. Just getting a cavity done and temp crown placed.

Very bad for Kaden though. He has his invention convention final judging tomorrow. Don't think I've mentioned anything about this before. Salem did it back in 3rd grade as well. Every Tuesday since Dec 2nd Kaden has an invention meeting after school, but due to poor weather they have only been able to have 3 meetings. The kids come up with an invention to make something new, or improve on an exsisting idea. Tomorrow was the final day where their original inventions were due and they had judges coming in to talk to the kids. Kaden has worked very hard on his and came up with a great idea! We finished it all tonight. His project is done, his poster, his speech cards, all set to go. And then we find out no school tomorrow :( The poor IC had been doomed since the beginning. We'll see when they reschedule it for, hopefully on a nice day!

Kids are out of school Friday as well. Salem for a scheduled day, Kaden we are taking out. We're going to Mall of America Friday and Saturday!! So geez the kids will only have attended 1.5 days of school this week. That's horrible!! We're going to be going to school till mid June!

BRR it's cold!! (and preggo update)

-30 was the temp this morning when Salem walked off to school! It was only -29 when I took Kaden. And it didn't warm up too much after that! Not looking for a warm up for a few days either. Which stinks because we're getting another 3-5 inches of snow tonight and being so cold, no way will I let the kids outside in those temps!

They were outside the other night and made their snow hill into a crawl through fort. Keith even fits through it. Not me, I'll get stuck in the middle, lol. They broke the bikes out too and were trying to ride them through the HUGE snow piles. Didn't work too well, I think they ended up having more fun plowing into them and getting stuck than wanting to ride through them. I've got pics from their fun in the snow. I'll post those tomorrow.

Our squirrel is getting quite greedy!! It used to be just Mr. Fatso and now he has brought a friend along to fest on the corn so they go through it twice as fast. The one will eat an ear of corn in 2 hours, max! We keep the corn in a 5 gallon bucket on the porch, the lid off a tad to keep air so the corn doesn't mold. I caught Fatso yesterday taking ears of corn out of the bucket and burying it in the snow around the yard!! I saw him take 3 ears before I yelled out for him to stop, and I put the lid on a bit more with a heavy object on top to weigh it down. I watched him come back and try to knock the lid off and get into the bucket for more corn. Stinker!!! Now there is no more corn in the bucket and he's out of luck! I'll go buy more, only because it's so humorous to watch them!


Had an OB appt today. Everything's looking good. So far it's been much nicer than last time. Different small issues, but nothing big. Got a bunch of pictures from today. The ultrasounds techs are so cool at this office, they love checking the twins out! Baby A was being a princess posing for all the pics and covering her brother's face everytime we tried getting a pic of him. He seemed tired as we caught him yawing a bunch. Could be because he was up bright and early kicking, darn him!

Last night Baby A was kicking a bunch and Kaden was around so I had him put his hands on my belly to feel her kicking. He sat here for about 10 minutes feeling her, smiling huge everytime he felt her. Too bad she calmed down a bit and it was bedtime for him. Salem was more interested in catching snowflakes on Webkinz world, which is what I was doing as well.

Otherwise we're all doing fine here. We'll see what tonight brings weather wise!

Snow much fun!

Here are a couple pictures from today's fun on the snow! Ignore the blue tint to the pics, I had my new camera on the "snow" setting and it turned it blue, not sure why.

We made a big sledding hill for the boys. It wasn't packing snow, so wasn't the best, but they sure had a blast with it!! And that car in Salem's pic was parked (illegally) in front of our house, so it was not moving (don't freak people!)

The sledded for a while and then Keith broke out his bike which caused the boys to as well. They had fun riding around the yard on paths Keith snowblowed, or on the sidewalk, or Kaden rode down the driveway with no brakes into the snowpile at the end. Keith then had everyone trying to "endo" into the snow, he did it the best. Salem and Kaden would ride up and fall over sideways, which was quite amusing as well!

It wasn't too cold out today so we played outside for a couple hours! Nice day, lots of fun!!

Oops, too much snow!

Maybe I should have only put 1 "let it snow". We were only supposed to get 2-4 inches of the white stuff over night. We've now got close to 6-8" of the stuff!! And it's still coming down!! Kids are loving it though!! They're out now sledding and playing in the snow. Keith and I will go out later to toss them around in the snow and get some videos and pics. But for now they can freeze on their own!

Keith was supposed to carpool over to Bettendorf for a roller bike race, but he called the guys this morning and said he wasn't going. Keith noticed my rear car tire was quite low this morning. It's been known to look low, but we fill it with air and it's fine. He said this morning it was very low. So we'll have to take it over to Sears later today, maybe tomorrow and see what it's issue is. I'm sure it won't be covered under whatever warranty we got when we purchased them last year, growl.

Anyway...that's all for now!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

SNOW!! Finally more snow!! Of course we pick tonight go grocery shopping in the sleet and then snow, but hey that's alright! It does make it easy to bring in the groceries. We load up the sled and pull them to the front door, lol. I guess we're getting up to 4 inches or so. Radar shows a bunch more coming, so we'll see what we end up with. I was sick of seeing the icy grass and roads, the snow will be a nice change. The kids are super happy with it! We picked up Domino's for dinner (and breakfast and lunch tomorrow) and they played outside while we unloaded the groceries and the pizza cooled off. Kaden tried playing in the snow when he get home from school, but there was only an inch or so and he said it wasn't much fun yet. But now we've got a couple more, so they had a blast sliding down the hill in the front yard and even the driveway! That will end once Keith snowblows it tomorrow, but we've got other hills to use. Driveway's not the safest anyway. I just hope it's not so bitter cold that they'll be able to enjoy it for a little while. If not they'll go out for short periods at a time. They don't mind bundling up, smart kids, they know how to dress for winter!

As you can tell, not much going on!

Yup, nothing too exciting here. Cold cold and more cold...oh and ice! You'd think with such little excitement the house would be spotless and everything would be hunky dorey, yeah it's not! Well everything is pretty good, nothing really wrong, so that is nice. But we've all been lazy and not doing much cleaning or anything. I did laundry today only to realize afterwards our city is on a restricted water use today. Oops! They had some malfunction last night, so water pressure is really low and they want us not to use so much so it gets back to normal. Helps if I might have read this in the morning, not in the afternoon after I had clothes going.

Our fish are super happy now. We bought them a new 5 gallon tank last night! They are out of their tiny little bowl and can swim around more. They seem to enjoy it. Keith had to buy a bubbler thing that goes along the bottom of the tank and well, blows bubbles. The one fish has been spotted floating in the stream of bubbles, lol. We don't have any plants or decorations in it yet, we wanted to get it set up and make sure the fish lived a few days before spending more $$ on them. Ugh and to think they were only supposed to last a few days...that was back in October! They have been fun, kids and us adults get a kick out of watching them.

Kaden has started basketball up! He is super excited! He had practice last Sunday...super icy day. We noticed he is not very skillful in the sport compared to his teammates. But Keith is working with him on some basic drills so he can get better. Important thing is Kaden kept trying at practice! The ball would get away and he'd run for it and right back to what he was to be trying. Gotta give him credit for that! He has practice 2x a week and then 2 games on Saturdays. Wow, that's a bunch! It's only until the middle of February, and then we'll see if they have another season or not.

Salem is...well he's 11 now. Not doing much. He loves the Wii Fit, too bad he lost electronics today for not going to bed. Kaden did too though. Salem has been riding the trainer with Keith at night, couple times a week. Trying to get his leg muscles going!

I'm doing well. Worked Monday of this week. Was a nice easy day and good to talk to the adults. Otherwise I've been having a couple dentist appointments. Had one Tuesday for a filling and they referred me to a specialist for a crown on my molar that had d root canal done a couple months ago. Darn they are expensive! I mean I know when I had the 2 last year they were alot, but man the specialist guys charge way more. But I also expect them to do a much better job! Atleast I have insurance again to cover a tiny part of it. Started up scrapbooking again. While Keith rides, I scrap, works out well.

Keith is doing fine. Been riding his bike on the rollers a bunch. Outside of that he works. And besides that he tries to kick the kids butt in Wii Fit games...sometimes he wins...sometimes he looses! I guess he's going to a roller race this Saturday with some other HBA guys. And then next Sunday is the local one here.

See, not much excitement going on, but wanted to post so people didn't think we fell off the face of the Earth! Maybe slid off is the better term these days, lol.