Travel Wisconsin is a website that advertises interesting places and leisure activities that our state has to offer. Right now they have a Winter campaign going on, called Winter Becomes You. In various places around the city there are billboards advertising fun Winter sports. Here is an example of one of the billboards that I see everyday...
I'm not sure if many previous attempts have been made advertise Wisconsin's Winter weather as being an appealing experience, but I do know that they could not have chosen a more aptly titled campaign to describe the kind of Winter we're having this season.
I feel like we have had plenty of opportunity to become one with the cold this year. Every time I step out into a parking lot the cold seems to wrap it's arms around me and it doesn't let go, even after I have returned to my car and turned the heat on full blast. For the most part, the girls have enjoyed it and Rebekah is determined to go ice skating 100 times this year, so we'll see.
All of the photos below were taken in January, but as I sit here typing there is a great flurry of white flying by my window.
No, Emma! Don't eat it!!
Ugh, she ate it. I can't blame her, it's as close as she'll get to a Hawaiian shaved ice around here. But watch out for the yellow snow, Emma!
Nearly knee deep snow for the tiny one.
Snow fort fun.
Ice skating on a day when we were the only ones crazy enough to be out there.
No matter how cold it is, we can't leave Red Arrow without the girls wanting to play on the red arrow.
We went back with some friends the next day when it was only slightly warmer and the place was packed.
Trying ice fishing for the first time.
And a little bit of hockey too, another first.
Don't let that bright sunshine fool you, it was very cold on this afternoon. We were at an urban ecology center event and I overheard a man saying, "The colder it is, the happier I am." Well, he ought to have been good and happy that day because my fingers felt like they were about to freeze off as I took these pictures.
Rosy cheeks tells me it's time for some hot cocoa!
I may complain a little bit about the cold, but I can't imagine living somewhere where we wouldn't have at least a couple of good snows each Winter. It's fun to play in {if only for a short while} and there is nothing more peaceful than looking out to a quiet, white, fresh blanket of snow covering everything outside and knowing we can stay inside to bake cookies and watch movies. I guess it would be the places to go and things that need to be done in the snow that are the most challenging part.
I took some pictures of our snowy backyard that aren't actually that great of photos, but Alyssa was having fun putting sepia and soft focus filters on them. She said she wanted to make her own "snow post." I'll definitely share it if she gets the chance to finish it. Here's to hoping that Spring is hiding just around the corner...
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Sometimes I put lots of pictures together and call it a blog post...
February already! How did that happen?
Even if no one else noticed our quiet start to 2014, I know all the grandparents would like see some new pictures up here. I can't exactly count these as "new," but here are a bunch of photos that I have meant to be more timely in posting...
This is Rebekah at the end of her Pee Wee Bible Quiz season. I remember when Alyssa was in Pee Wee and I would chase little toddler Rebekah around at the quiz meets trying to keep her quiet in the hallways while the quizzing was going on. It doesn't even seem possible that Rebekah has now completed three years of her own quizzing! I am so thankful for their teachers and all the time the girls have spent learning the Bible in their years of Bible Quiz, it's a wonderful program!
Super Hero dress up day at gymnastics. Can you guess who her favorite super hero is?
Winter weather in all of it's cold glory has pretty much been the story of our lives here since mid-December. We have not had a shortage of the white stuff this year.
At the annual Trim the Tree party at the Rep.
Family picture night at A Christmas Carol. All the great pictures Dave took this evening really deserve a post of their own. I hope to get to it soon. Alyssa is so completely in her element when she's performing at the Rep, she absolutely loves it.
A few pictures of our house under construction, these were all taken back in early December...
The area that used to be a small kitchenette and bathroom.
The framing for Alyssa's new room.
Future bathroom and the pipes in the floor underneath it.
Now that the upstairs is pretty well put together again, I hardly remember the days when this is what it looked like :-)
Dave working hard. He had just finished putting in a bunch of insulation, that's why he has the mask on. If you've never worked with fiberglass insulation before, it's pretty nasty stuff that you would not want to breathe in.
This is probably one of the last photos taken with that door in place. We closed up the exit since we rarely used it anyway.
About a week after the photos above were taken, and after a lot of hard work hanging drywall by my Uncle Ray and Uncle Ted this is what the same area looked like:
The top left is a sitting room area and there will be a desk that runs along the length of the back wall. The top right and bottom left are views of Alyssa's room, the middle is right at the top of the steps. The bottom right is the area I just mentioned above where there used to be a door. Uncle Ted and Uncle Ray also did an awesome job of painting this whole space seen above. I can't wait to share those photos next!
Christmas craft day, or basteltag, in Rebekah's classroom. She was so proud of this little skier she made. She gave it to Dave for Christmas telling him that it was him on some blue glitter skis.
Emma's classroom Christmas party was the same day and was less about crafts and more about filling the kids with a crazy amount of sweets and singing silly songs in front of the class.
The Kingdom Kid's Choir Christmas Musical, We Three Spies...
Rebekah loved all the songs and dance moves for this musical! She had a little cameo two-line speaking part as "Kid #1." So proud of this once very quiet little munchkin.
Emma played the role of Ms. King. Ms. King was a fun, sassy and excessively fancy character, that honestly was a bit of a stretch for Emma to pull off. To quote Ms. King, "I feel a song coming on..."
I was very happy and excited for her. Emma has tried out for a drama role in Kingdom Kid's Choir for every musical from 1st grade to 5th, and she has often ended up with a singing solo, but she had never been cast in drama before this play. In the end, she put her own little Emma twist on the character and I thought she did it perfectly.
Getting to ride across the stage on a bike that she is much too big for may very well have been her favorite part.
Post show, celebratory photos with friends.
For the first time ever, we didn't put up a Christmas tree this year. There just wasn't any space for one with all the remodeling. I think I took photos of the girls in front of any public Christmas tree we could find to make up for the lack of one in our home.
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas season and a sweet start to 2014! I hope to be back with a January photo re-cap later this week!
In the meantime, please allow Emma to recommend a fun site. Start with episode 1, if you like. Emma showed me this website last night {as things usually go, we may be the very last people to know about it, and it may not be anything new to you}. She had fun following the directions and seeing what would happen next and she thought her cousins might like it too :-)
Even if no one else noticed our quiet start to 2014, I know all the grandparents would like see some new pictures up here. I can't exactly count these as "new," but here are a bunch of photos that I have meant to be more timely in posting...
This is Rebekah at the end of her Pee Wee Bible Quiz season. I remember when Alyssa was in Pee Wee and I would chase little toddler Rebekah around at the quiz meets trying to keep her quiet in the hallways while the quizzing was going on. It doesn't even seem possible that Rebekah has now completed three years of her own quizzing! I am so thankful for their teachers and all the time the girls have spent learning the Bible in their years of Bible Quiz, it's a wonderful program!
Super Hero dress up day at gymnastics. Can you guess who her favorite super hero is?
Winter weather in all of it's cold glory has pretty much been the story of our lives here since mid-December. We have not had a shortage of the white stuff this year.
At the annual Trim the Tree party at the Rep.
Family picture night at A Christmas Carol. All the great pictures Dave took this evening really deserve a post of their own. I hope to get to it soon. Alyssa is so completely in her element when she's performing at the Rep, she absolutely loves it.
A few pictures of our house under construction, these were all taken back in early December...
The area that used to be a small kitchenette and bathroom.
The framing for Alyssa's new room.
Future bathroom and the pipes in the floor underneath it.
Now that the upstairs is pretty well put together again, I hardly remember the days when this is what it looked like :-)
Dave working hard. He had just finished putting in a bunch of insulation, that's why he has the mask on. If you've never worked with fiberglass insulation before, it's pretty nasty stuff that you would not want to breathe in.
This is probably one of the last photos taken with that door in place. We closed up the exit since we rarely used it anyway.
About a week after the photos above were taken, and after a lot of hard work hanging drywall by my Uncle Ray and Uncle Ted this is what the same area looked like:
The top left is a sitting room area and there will be a desk that runs along the length of the back wall. The top right and bottom left are views of Alyssa's room, the middle is right at the top of the steps. The bottom right is the area I just mentioned above where there used to be a door. Uncle Ted and Uncle Ray also did an awesome job of painting this whole space seen above. I can't wait to share those photos next!
Christmas craft day, or basteltag, in Rebekah's classroom. She was so proud of this little skier she made. She gave it to Dave for Christmas telling him that it was him on some blue glitter skis.
Emma's classroom Christmas party was the same day and was less about crafts and more about filling the kids with a crazy amount of sweets and singing silly songs in front of the class.
The Kingdom Kid's Choir Christmas Musical, We Three Spies...
Rebekah loved all the songs and dance moves for this musical! She had a little cameo two-line speaking part as "Kid #1." So proud of this once very quiet little munchkin.
Emma played the role of Ms. King. Ms. King was a fun, sassy and excessively fancy character, that honestly was a bit of a stretch for Emma to pull off. To quote Ms. King, "I feel a song coming on..."
I was very happy and excited for her. Emma has tried out for a drama role in Kingdom Kid's Choir for every musical from 1st grade to 5th, and she has often ended up with a singing solo, but she had never been cast in drama before this play. In the end, she put her own little Emma twist on the character and I thought she did it perfectly.
Getting to ride across the stage on a bike that she is much too big for may very well have been her favorite part.
Post show, celebratory photos with friends.
For the first time ever, we didn't put up a Christmas tree this year. There just wasn't any space for one with all the remodeling. I think I took photos of the girls in front of any public Christmas tree we could find to make up for the lack of one in our home.
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas season and a sweet start to 2014! I hope to be back with a January photo re-cap later this week!
In the meantime, please allow Emma to recommend a fun site. Start with episode 1, if you like. Emma showed me this website last night {as things usually go, we may be the very last people to know about it, and it may not be anything new to you}. She had fun following the directions and seeing what would happen next and she thought her cousins might like it too :-)
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