Valentine's Treats

I was told that making these pretzel treats was a great activity to do with the kids...

...but we ended up with less treats than I expected. Can you see why?

Getting these kisses out of Katelyn's hands was like getting Buddy the Elf to stop eating cotton balls. She is quick and clever!

But we had a great, yummy time - and have done these again, with less chocolate eaten! Is self-control developing? Or did mom do a better job of encouraging/bribing?!

Snow Days

Our first big snow fall of the year came...and with it came LOTS of school cancellations. The snow fell just at the right time on two days to make it safer for Daddy to stay home too - yeah!

Josh helps Daddy with the shoveling first thing in the morning.

(Katelyn was still in bed sleeping at this point!)

Josh waiting patiently for Daddy to take him sledding.

Later Katelyn came out and contributed to the snow removal efforts in a non-conventional way!

Josh and Katelyn were really into making snowballs and eating them!

Josh ventured into the backyard and asked to put his excavator in the snow. He had a great time digging around - who knew this was an all-seasons toy!

Uncie's Pancakes

This morning we made peanut butter - oatmeal pancakes. This conversation followed:

Josh: "You know who loves these pancakes?"

Mommy: "Who?"

Josh: "Uncie loves these pancakes." :)

VICTORY!!!

Over 120 hours after the first dig, the infamous gas leak was found and capped! As much as Josh and Katelyn will be devastated not to see the big trucks, excavators, jack hammers, and what felt like never-ending noise...there are dozens of parents that can't wait for a good night's sleep!

For those wondering how this saga ended, you'll be surprised to hear that the leak wasn't even on our property! The leak was from a T-bracket that extended to our neighbor's house across the street. It was leaking beneath an old unused water pipe that extended toward our house. The gas was running up the water pipe toward our mailbox which caused the high readings. So, now we just have to wait to get a new driveway.

In case any of you were wondering, Jeff has been posting all the gas leak updates. :)

Come out, come out, wherever you are...

Entering Day 5 playing Hide and Seek with the Gas Leak...I won't bore you with all the details, but they still haven't found the source of the leak. They've dug seven holes (in five different locations, four on our property), and their digging schedule doesn't take into consideration our sleep schedule. But, the work crews have been very nice and have admittedly been humbled by this whole ordeal.

If you're looking at the picture and wondering, "How is Jeff going to get his car out of the driveway with those two 5' wide, 5' deep holes?" Well, this picture was taken at midnight last night (we weren't going anywhere at that hour), and they had steel plates covering the holes this morning when we got up.

As I told a friend, "the kids love it...excavators, jack hammers, big trucks with flashing lights, etc. The neighbors hate it...mud, noise, excavators, jack hammers, big trucks with flashing lights, etc."

Josie

We celebrated our final Christmas last weekend with Baby Josie, Natalie, Dana, Aunt Jodi, Uncle Dave, Gigi Gallo, Grandma and Pop-Pop. It was a fun afternoon complete with opening presents and making a fort under the dining room table.

Josie is super cute and Josh liked squeezing her cheeks. She was not crazy about it. Katelyn managed to share with Josie some of the time - otherwise Katelyn just layed across all of her toys to keep Josie from taking any! :) We're working on it.

Josie is going to be a big sister next month to TWO little brothers or sisters (or one of each)!!!!

It was bad enough that the Ravens lost, but...

Our hearts nearly fell when we returned home last night to flashing lights in front of our house! Fortunately, it was only a leaky gas line - UNDER OUR DRIVEWAY (and we don't even have gas!). The kids thought it was awesome, sitting at the front door watching the excavator and jackhammer at work.

Spending over 12 hours to even find the leak (they STARTED jackhammering at 1:09 AM this morning!), they "shot a missile" under our driveway to bore a tunnel and replaced the leaky pipe. Or so they thought - BGE just stopped by to take some more readings, and they think that there's a second leak. Josh and Katelyn will be SO EXCITED if they get a front row seat to watch our front yard torn up again. The "simple pleasures" in life...

Week in Review

We arrived home last weekend with gifts under our tree from Santa. We invited Melanie, Chris and Miles over for lunch and to play with our new Wii!!!

Miles is getting so big and his laugh is contagious. He's adorable!

We told Josh and Katelyn how we used to hold them on our laps like this and their feet rested on our belly buttons. They have grown so much!

Procrastination does pay off - it's environmentally friendly!

The pumpkins on our back deck have now become squirrel food and we are enjoying our upclose view of them eating breakfast!