I'm Stuck and other mischief

So, tonight was another first...breaking and entering...I was getting E ready for bed, and as her new habit, she runs away into our bedroom. The door goes shut. After a minute of her not returning, I get up to go get her. I knock at the door and go to open it, but it didn't open. It somehow had gotten locked. I didn't even realize that the door had a lock on it. Lovely. Hinges were on the inside...so that wasn't going to help us out. The window in her room was too small for me to squeeze out of to get in by our window...Meanwhile, she's exclaiming, "I'm stuck!" while alternating with high pitched screams. Jut tried to bust the door open but it wouldn't budge (and I didn't want to have to pay for a new door or for E to get hurt from a flying door so I wasn't encouraging brute force). I knew that our window was unlocked but we didn't have a ladder that would reach it. So, Jut used a couple of screw drivers to jam between the door and lock and got it open. Minor paint damage but no serious harm to anyone or thing. The good news was that the light in our room was on...so at least she wasn't in the dark. After a few minutes of calming down tears, E was her typical happy self. We will see tomorrow if she learned anything about closing doors behind her!

She's been choosing not to nap lately. She gets into more trouble on those days...yesterday I was doing dishes and she was entertaining herself. But, she had gotten too quiet. I went to check on her and found her writing on the computer screen! She climbed up on to the desk and gotten a pen off the top shelf and was happily writing on the screen. Ugh! Now our screen has some lovely scratches all over the bottom right corner. I guess that I need to be thankful that its not over the entire screen!

The dresser is another fun diversion these days. About six months ago, she loved dumping everything out on to the floor and she's back at it again. Picking up clothes and refolding them is getting tiresome again. Is it spring yet??? I think we've had too much time inside.

Answered Prayers!

I'm sure that I wasn't the only person praying for spring last week, but I remember telling God that I couldn't take much more of that bitterly cold weather. I believe that His reply came today with the gorgeous weather and spring-like temperatures.


We walked to music-play group and then spent at least 45-minutes playing outside when we got home. E was a wet mess when we came inside but it was worth the laundry because she had a great time dropping leaves and stones into the puddles. Stomping in the puddles was great fun also. I just hope her boots dry out before winter comes back on Thursday!

It was fun to watch her walk up and down the stairs outside. She's grown so much since last fall! Her coordination has grown by leaps and bounds too. I can't wait to take her to the play areas in the parks this spring...I'm certain it will be a whole new experience for both of us!

The other wonderful answer to prayer was for Jut's mom. She went back to the cardiologist this week and her heart is looking very good and strong. The heart attack was serious, but it didn't do much damage. Praise the Lord!

Hot Chocolate on a Cold Morning

The cold winter seems to drag on, but can you complain when you can sit and sip on some yummy hot chocolate (actually soy milk) with delicious marshmallows after breakfast? E certainly enjoyed it this morning, as if you can't tell by that face!

Fun in the Snow

What wonderful weather that we've been having for the past couple of days! When Jut got home from work today, he took E out to ride on her new sled. She had lots of fun being pulled in the field down from our house. I heard lots of laughter and saw many smiles as I captured some pictures...however, the camera never seems to capture everything.

Jut thought that he had a pretty good workout running through the snow pulling her. They both came in with smiles on their faces ready for dinner.

I'm stuck!

Yesterday, I was sitting at the computer, and I heard "I'm stuck!" coming from the foyer. I went into the foyer and saw E inside of the clothes rack. I'm guessing that Pumpkin, the cat, was sitting in there to avoid the curious little girl and E decided to join her. Anyways, the cat left and E was puzzled about how to get out.

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We also had a bit of excitement yesterday. E went potty on the toilet for the first time. I took her out of the bathtub and she was insistent that she needed the potty. So I sat her down and a few moments later, she 'tinkled'. Yipee for E! We are a long way from being potty trained, but it was a great step towards it.

However, she didn't do it tonight. Instead, she went on my leg several minutes after sitting on the potty. Oh well!

Flegel Family Fun...January 2009

We celebrating Christmas with my dad's side of the family this weekend. It was a fun time. However, as always, there are moments that make it memorable.

One of the nicest things this year was that we got to have my cousin and his family spend Fri and Sat night with us. They live in Indiana and I hadn't had the chance to get to know Kara and KariAnn last year because of Stacey's wedding. So, it was great to have the opportunity to sit in our quiet house (as opposed to G'ma and G'pa's crazy house) and really chat with them. It was just another perk of living in the area!

KariAnn is 12 and loved following Elizabeth around. She kept a close watch on her at G'ma's on Fri night and every time we were at our house. I think she'll make a great babysitter one of these days. E loved her and had a great time showing KariAnn all of her stuff.

We didn't arrive at G'ma and G'pa's until 4ish, and the party was well underway. E needed a nap that day because she was up until like midnight the night before and Jut had an abscessed tooth and also needed some rest. By the time we arrived, the house contained 22 adults and 9 children ranging in ages of 13 to 3 months. I think that poor little Nick was suffering from stimulus overload, but he did pretty well with the clan. The older kids were banished to the garage to play their games...however, Nolan and Ethan (ages 5 and 6) kept the house very noisy all by themselves. Elizabeth was pretty shy at first with all the commotion and people but she warmed up pretty quickly and really was impressed with little Nick.

We had dinner and got ready to play "Yankee Swap" or "Dirty Santa" with our Christmas presents. It was really a pretty boring year...there wasn't very much stealing going on. My present got stolen but I had stolen it from someone else...easy come, easy go. One of the presents was an LED headlamp. Well after the game, Micheal went down to the basement to see how well it worked and found that the septic system was backed up in the basement. So, all the men had to go investigate. Come to find out, they had already worked on it once this week. We knew it was a serious problem when Uncle Duane donned on his coveralls. Well, it was 9:30 and E needed to go to bed, so we headed for home assuming that they could fix the problem.

At 10:30 we got a call that told us that lunch for tomorrow had been moved to Aunt Elaine's. They hadn't been able to fix it. So, after church we headed over to Elaine's. No one was there. So, we ran out to the farm and it was semi-organized chaos. Everyone was packing up all the food, tables and chairs to go to Sheila's house instead. So, we grabbed what we had left at G'ma and G'pa's the night before, and went to Sheila's. As I pulled into her driveway, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that E had nodded off. She had gotten up at 5:30 that morning. So I pulled back out of the driveway and kept driving for the next hour...not an efficient use of gas, but she needed that nap. Anyways, I picked up Jut from church and went back to the party. We had a great lunch and conversations. Jut and Uncle Duane played backgammon...the kids with Aunt Elaine and Bernadette played apples-to-apples. It was a fun afternoon.

At 3:00 when the party was starting to break up, the men decided it was time to tackle that septic system again. Fun, fun. Long story short, they were unable to fix the problem. They've given G'pa advice about what needs to be done...but we'll see if he takes it or not.

Last year...they blew fuses left and right because of the wacky way the house is wired and this year the septic system stopped working. What does that leave to go wrong for next year???? It is always an adventure!! ;-)

Thinking of jello and "Uh-oh"

Just to warn you, this is a random post.

I've been making Knox Blocks lately because both E and I love them. But, I may need to stage an intervention soon. I think she's getting a little to hooked on them. She heads out to the fridge constantly saying "jell-o". She's pretty funny.

She is learning to say recognizable words more and more. Last week, I tried to capture some of her words on video....with the last word being "jello". Hopefully, the video will make you smile. It does me every time I watch it...however, I do realize that she is my kid and so I am predispositioned to think that she's adorable. Her word count is steadily climbing. Her newest words are jello, door, broke, drink, grandpa, grandma (but not mom or dad...go figure!).

Okay, so that video was too big and wouldn't load. Too bad...it was cuter. However, this is of her saying "uh-oh". She would unzip her sweatshirt and exclaim "uh-oh" each time. This was the umpteenth time that we'd played this game that day. "Uh-oh!" is still one of her favorite words. She even puts different inflections to the word sometimes. It cracks us up.