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Sunday, March 23, 2014

how to know the Ackermanns are going on vacation

Notes everywhere (please excuse the sideways ones… forgot to turn them around).





And you might be sick of my weather shots, but here is one more.  Today is one day when you are happy to see this kind of weather - the day you leave for Cancun!!!  Ya, baby!!
 And the weather in Cancun?  Ya, baby!!
It has been nice for a few days this week and the kids had some fun with the ice.  I'll just feature these - it is easy to appreciate them when we are leaving them for a week.  Ya, baby!!








See ya later, snow and ice!

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

spring may be real

It may happen.  Spring may really come.  Yesterday it was plus 4.  Yes - as in above freezing!!!  It is kind of bizarre how when you've had ridiculous temperatures for so long it is shocking to remember that the seasons will change.... spring will come and even.... wait for it.... summer!!!  
And boy-howdy, there is a spiritual/life lesson in that.
The snow on the roof has been slowly pushing over the edges and Eric knocked it down yesterday so that is would stop dripping on the stoop - that could just turn into a break-your-neck-opportunity.
After school the kids were in full play-outside mode.  It was fabulous.  The younger kids had been making snowmen during recess and lunch break at school already - the school ground is littered with them.  So fun.  And now our yard - front and back, has an entire Mennonite family reunion going on.


Lucy had a friend over to play with after school.  She was trying to avoid the camera and I got her mid-jump.  Mia and Brooklyn also went for the first slurpee run for the season.  And Cade was working on his self-control.... not throwing a snowball at his beloved mother.




It still may be a while until spring is actually here.  But we have a reminder of hope.  And I'll take that hope any day.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

must be a thursday

School is cancelled and there is a lot more snow on the ground.... it must be a Thursday.
It has been uncanny how almost without fail, Thursdays, the day Eric delivers the newspaper, is the worst weather of the week.  We've had most days of school-cancellations on Thursdays and it is almost always either the coldest day of the week or the one with the most snow.  Makes delivering newspapers not really seem worth the 23 cents per paper!
But my husband is too tough for all of that - not rain nor hail nor sleet nor ice storm nor -50 can keep him from getting the residents of Steinbach their beloved Carillon news!
Because school was canceled, Mia and cousin Brooklyn helped out.  Lucy desperately wanted to, but was ordered back-to-bed, due to continued illness.  She was not happy!
Side note:  I spelled the word cancelled once and canceled once.  Neither came up as spelled wrong.  So which is it?  One "l" or two?

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

stay away

We are a mess of sweaty, snotty, bodies.  All on our little sofa.  I'm sitting (barely) here with a sick Cade on my left and a sick Lucy on my right.  We all have fevers, aches, chills, dizziness, coughs, sore throats and some runny noses.  The blinds are closed because our eyes hurt from the light.  There is no music or other noise because it is just plain irritating.  No stimulation at all. Even typing this is rather annoying, but I'm kind of going crazy, so I'll put up with it for a while.
Last evening Cade sought a little of his own space on the floor.  He slept most of the evening like that.  Before that, the 4 of us (including Eric - he is fighting it) were all huddled on the couch leaning all over each other.
On my right is my sick little Lucy.  Lucy is the ideal sick person.  Sweet, undemanding, affectionate, good disposition.... it is almost a pleasure to have her sick - although of course she is still miserable.  So we don't want her to be miserable, right?  She didn't want me to take any photos of her though.

And me.  Charming sums it up.
Maddy got it last Friday and ended up being miserably sick for four days.  It hit fully for the three of us yesterday, although Lucy and I starting feeling it on Monday.  Maddy still has the cough, Mia has some sniffles and like I said, Eric is feeling it, but fighting it.
Don't come to our house.  You will be happy you didn't!!

Sunday, March 2, 2014

weird, wacky and wonderful

A bunch of those things going on at our house.
First - games - wonderful.
Lucy had an assignment where she needed to make a game using magnets - for a study on forces.  She wanted to use her magnetic littlest pet shops for her game, so she made a game called "Leap Frog".  Using magnets underneath to move the frogs ahead spaces, you would draw a card to tell you how many spaces your frog could move.  You also had to make sure you stayed on the lily pads.
We used a cardboard box and left little legs to hold the game up.  You'd slip your hand underneath to hold the magnet under your frog and then move it along to move your frog.  Very cute.


The day that they were all due, everyone in her class got to play with everyone's games.  That evening Lucy came home and made up a bunch more games - target games ("darts"), question games.... and there they sit on our fridge.  In case you are wondering, the clip magnets with straws stuck in them are the darts.....

This one is from work.  I'll just let the spine label speak for itself (please, please note that I am not saying this to you, the reader!!!!!!!).  I burst out laughing when I read it for the purpose of shelving it.
As for the weird, we had some leftover Diet Dr. Pepper from last Sunday when Maddy had a whole whack of friends over for lunch.  We kept the half-consumed bottles in the garage, where it was very very cold.  I went to go and pour some for myself - it was still liquid - and it instantly froze when I poured it!  Weird and wacky!  It felt kind of like gummy candy consistency - so bizarre.  It thawed in a minute or so and then was fine.  Also odd.... once I opened the bottle, the stuff inside started to get solid as well.  Gotta look up that science.
Definitely wacky.  Cade loves peppers.  Since we were having wurzbroccoli, he asked to have another vegetable instead.  He asked if he could have peppers.  I said yes, but I was not going to slice it up for him.... he could do that.  He took it whole instead.
The creative play in Lucy's room the other day.  I can't tell you how much I love seeing stuff like that.  Who needs big fancy toys when you can make a great play-place out of books, hats and wall-hangings.
It still has been ridiculously cold and I was very surprised to see a picture that I took on the website when I looked at it to see the weather the other day.  This photo was used without permission or my knowledge (I submitted some for an article they were doing on Mia's 7th grade trip), or photo credit.  I sent an email suggesting that this change in the future.
And last bit of oddities.  We finally finished clearing out mom's place yesterday - moved the last of the furniture and boxes.... trying to find places for a bunch of it and hauling other stuff off to the thrift store.  It was beastly cold, of course, so Eric, Kim and I were miserable.  Well, Eric and Kim were much more miserable as I was inside much more than them.
After the first round, Eric brought me (and Lucy, she went along) back home and went out to finish up.  When he got home, he had a look of "how-bizarre" (saw-pasaw..... private joke) on his face.  So he tells us a story.  He was loading up the BBQ when he noticed a shot of purple in the trees.  He looks up about eye level and sees a little bit of purple string hanging in the evergreen trees.  Looking closer, he sees that the purple is frozen in a chunk of ice.  He pulls it down and this is what it is: 
Mia's headphones that she has been looking for for months!  She thought she had left them at Grandma's but we could never find them.  We figured once we moved my mom out of there, they would turn up.  Well, they did, but not in the way we thought!!
They must have gotten outside - perhaps she had taken them and they fell out of her pocket or something.  Then probably one of the many snowfalls came, covered them up, hiding them from us all. After getting packed down over the weeks, they were finally set free when Eric chipped away at the driveway one day and with a swing of the shovel, they got flung into the nearby tree.
The amazing thing it that they didn't get damaged at all - not severed by the chopping up the ice, not damaged from being driven on or frozen in crazy-cold temperatures, or from being flung up in the tree and hanging there.  Crazy.
Not sure if this last one fits in any of the categories.  I finally got a bunch of fabric I ordered for covering a bunch of my thrift store chairs.  Pretty excited about it.  One fabric in particular, is a cozy addition to our home, albeit not welcomed by most of those dwelling here.  I ordered some white and gray fake fur with which to cover a chair.  I'm so excited about it!!!!  But the rest of the family thinks I'm pretty wacky.  What else is new.  I opened up the bag it was packaged in and big chunks of fur fell out.  
Do we have a large, long-haired dog going through some foul medical treatment, causing clumps of fur to fall out?  No, it's just my future favourite chair.....