Valentines crafts...

The boys made their teachers a Valentine card. Lucius' card looked with this:

On the inside he wrote "the teachers" but I guess I didn't snap a picture of it.

Oliver made one for his teacher (again no photo). When he was done he decided to make a card for his Oma too. I love that he had to make sure she'd open it to read the inside.

 

I was quite impressed how fast they picked up cross stitching. I had to thread the needle several times but mostly they did it all by themselves. I guess they have been working with patterns at both their schools, and that helped a lot when I told them cross stitching was basically a pattern too.

Photography: Night Balloons...

Two weekends ago, when we went to see the Hot Air Balloons was a fun day. We not only went in the morning, but choose to go to their evening event as well. They called it the Field of Fire, balloons illuminating the night sky. It was fantastic. I think the blue Balloon with the fish was one of my favorites from the weekend.

Night Balloons...

Later that same Saturday we decided to go back for their Field of Fire event. Well, Daddy, Lucius and I decided to go, Oliver stayed home with his Mormor because he didn't feel like joining us. It's held after dark (about 6:30pm cause its winter). They fill the Hot Air Balloons and when they send the flames into the balloons to keep them filled, they glow. It's really pretty neat. Over a loud speaker someone counts down and then yells "light 'em up!" and the whole field full of balloons illuminate the night sky.

More night balloon images by yours truly... click here

Photography: Hot Air Balloons...

My Little Misters and I took a road trip to Wisconsin to see the Hudson Hot Air affair. Thankfully Hudson isn’t more than 40 minutes from our house, so waking up at 6am to get there by 7:30am wasn’t too bad. We managed to find a surprisingly close parking spot and walked to the field where one balloon was getting ready to inflate. Two of us watched the guys spreading out the balloon and watched it fill with hot air. We were right up close which was really neat. My other son thought the playground sounded like more fun. To stop complaints we went to the playground and then inside the school building to warm up. When we ventured back outside more balloons were up and we grabbed some mini donuts to enjoy. Although it might have been cool if the balloons had been able to launch, it was still a pretty neat experience.

Hot Air Balloons...

Hot Air Balloons are a real wonder to me and some day I hope to ride in one. Though I'm not going to lie, it would take a lot of courage to take off and fly in one. Last year I had heard about a Hot air balloon launch in Hudson, WI. I didn't go because it was FREEZING outside and much to early in the morning for me to even want to think about leaving my warm bed. BUT I was disappointed that I hadn't tried to go, so this year I knew I was setting an alarm to make it there. I woke up one Saturday morning at 6am, got the boys dressed up warmly and headed out the door by 6:30am. Jerimy was sick, so we left him home to rest.

We made it to the right location around 7:15am and amazingly found a parking spot right across the street from the field where they'd launch the balloons. There were a ton of people but only one balloon setting up. I had read that they'd launch at 7:30am, so I thought they'd be all ready to go. Apparently they were waiting to see what the weather did first and decided not to launch because of winds. Lucius and I watched them setup and fill the one balloon that was there. It was pretty awesome, they really are enormous.

Oliver was being a little grumpy and wanted to play on the playground instead. So eventually we headed in that direction and into the school to warm up.

Once the chill had left us, we ventured back outside to buy mini donuts. When we got back outside we saw that about 8-10 balloons were now filled and up. COOL!!

We ate mini donuts and walked around to see which balloons were our favorites. Oliver had a question so he asked one of the friendly balloonists. I'm so glad we got out of bed to see them, even if they didn't fly. What a fun adventure.

to see more of my Balloon pictures... click here

Uno...

We played Uno one evening after dinner because the boys really wanted too. It was fun...and then after about an hour and 20 minutes its started to get a little long. So we stopped shuffling the cards and Lucius won. He was pretty excited about that.

Friday Evening on the snow slide...

The Last Friday of January the Boys and I took Daddy back to the State Fair Grounds to see the finished snow sculptures. We walked around to see the dragon and other snow creations. The Little Misters took Daddy through the snow maze and then took a ride down the snow slide. Lucius wanted to race Daddy. He had a head start but I think Daddy built up a lot of speed and past him at the end of the slide. Oliver rode down after them.

After seeing all we could see, Daddy took us all out to a restaurant for dinner. What a good evening.