The heat is on

Our power is back on! Yea! We are so thankful to be home but know that many are still without electricity. Some of our friends from the church are still without power. Say it could take another week. We really appreciate Ben and Elizabeth Mills for putting our family up for two nights after our one night in a local hotel. We hope to be able to put some people up or at least have people shower or do laundry here since we know how it is to be without. The sun was out today and the ice started to melt but they say we may get 10-12 inches of snow Monday night. Oh my. You can see pix from the ice storm on my picasa page...http://picasaweb.google.com/TammyMatte/KentuckyIceStorm?feat=email#

Still in exile

We still have no power. This is our third day. It's really something to see all the ice and snow everywhere. It's beautiful. We are still at our friends' house. Here are a couple of pictures of Mallory and Malachi playing earlier today. We built a snowman this morning and have some other pix of the ice but I will post those later. Here are the two superfriends...

Katrina on Ice

We have been hit with a big ice storm and have had to flee our house due to no electricity. I told Paul it seems like Katrina all over again. We went to a hotel last night and tonight we are staying at some friends' house. They are so nice to put us up. They have a son who is Mallory's age so they are playing away. It is just too cold to stay in our house with the babies. We have two fireplaces but have never used them so we aren't sure they are fireproof.
Will post some pictures soon.

Water soup anyone?

We had another snow day today but it was sort of that wet, icy, not real fun to play in snow so we stayed in all day. This morning we watched our Prince Caspian DVD, a Christmas gift we hadn't seen yet, and really enjoyed it. Rent it if you haven't seen it. I love all the symbolism, makes me proud. (guess pride isn't really a good thing but you know what I mean in this case) The kids got in the sink and played in the water a while making water soup as Mallory called it. If that doesn't sound too appetizing, Paul also made a gumbo which we will be enjoying tonight and for the next couple of days! MMMM good. We had some guys come by who wanted to shovel the driveway so we hired them. We still don't have a snow shovel, guess after three years here we should invest. Then Paul got out and put salt on the drive. Mallory has dance tonight. They never cancel. The show must go on. UPDATE: they did cancel dance tonight, that's how bad it is out there, they just never cancel so this is unusual.

Michael's new ride

Michael got a new red wagon for Christmas from Oma and Opa. Paul just got it put together today so he took the kids out for a chilly maiden voyage! Try saying "going on a red wagon ride" five times fast!!

Playdate!

Today some of my friends from MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) came over with their kids for a playdate. We had six moms and eight kids. It's really nice to get together with other moms and also for the kids to have some other kids to play with. I have been involved in MOPS since we moved here and always enjoy the monthly meetings. Michael just cries and cries when I drop him off in the nursery. He even started saying "no, no" when we pulled in to the church parking lot for the last meeting!

New compter on the way!

Well, we ordered a new computer yesterday. We really needed it as the other one was done and we weren't able to use it for some of the things we would really like to do. One thing is Skype. If you aren't familiar with Skype it is a way thru the internet you can call long distance for really cheap and also use a web cam to talk to people way far off like my dad in New Zealand and my mother in Alabama. My parents want to be able to see the kids and even read stories to them, etc and they have the capability to do that but we didn't. Hopefully with the new computer that will be possible. I have an aunt in AL who reads to her grandaughter in Georgia before school every morning on the computer. So neat I think. Keeps you close even when you are miles apart. So Grandaddy and Oma, get your books ready!!

Our computer is sick.

Our computer at home is really sick. Paul is doing all kinds of surgeries on it but it isn't getting any better. We have called in hospice. Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I might just have to write some things until we get a new pc. It's hard to function without a computer nowadays! I will do my best to keep this little blog a going!

Fun with Hayley

Last night our friend Hayley spent the night. Mallory loves having her to play with and Michael is so cute saying Hayley. They played with a paper airplane and painted a wooden doll craft. It snowed in the night, not that much, but enough to look pretty. Paul and I counted five or six deer from our front door last night. They were just out in the road across the street. I tried to take a picture but the camera focused on the snow falling up close instead of the deer.

Baby it's cold outside

This morning we woke up to -2 degree weather. Needless to say we didn't leave the house all day. It's supposed to be as cold tonight and tomorrow. The kids have been good sports about playing inside. Mallory is feeling better and Michael enjoyed the "pillow brick road" Mallory made tonight!

Our sick little girl

Mallory has been sick for the last couple of days. She threw up twice yesterday and has been just lying around a lot. This morning when she got up she said she was all better. She said, "No more medicine, no more talking about throw up, no more trash cans." She is so clever. I just laughed and laughed. She's eating some breakfast now. As one who got thrown up on yesterday, I sure hope she can keep it down! UPDATE: When I went in to the kitchen from writing this post earlier this morning Mallory had thrown up her frosted mini wheats. She is now in bed resting, still sick. Bless her heart. More trash cans today.

Putting up Christmas

We are finally getting our Christmas decorations down and put up. We were in Alabama until January 5 and have just not done a good job of getting it taken care of. I love getting it all out and decorating but it's nice to get things back to normal also. Especially since it's January 14th!

A good day for hot chocolate

Our friend Martha gave Mallory and Michael some cute mugs and delicious hot cocoa mix for Christmas. The kids and I took a walk and came back in from the cold and Mallory said, "let's have some hot cocoa to warm up!" So we broke out the mugs and I let Michael go for it with his own grown up Santa mug. He really did great drinking out of it!

A scary night...

Last night we went to Lexington with our friends John, Tuyen and little Jon. It all started out great. We had pizza at Brooklyn Pizza on Man O War, really yummy pizza and highly recommended! Then we went to Fayette Mall so the kids could play in the play area there. John, Tuyen, Paul and I were all watching the three of them. We kept putting our eyes on them and then I guess we would talk a little because we looked up and Michael was GONE! We had just seen him crawling thru this big bottle and thought he was in there. When we checked again, no Michael. We went running down the mall and people were pointing down the way and saying "he's down there", etc. We found him WAY down the mall with people around him. It was so scary and awful to think of what could have happened to him. One lady chastised us saying, "You guys need to watch him better, I followed him a long way just watching to see what would happen." At first I was kind of offended but she was right.

Football and Barbie

Paul and I are watching the BCS championship game tonight. I decided to straighten up Mallory's Barbies and line them up on the hearth. There are 29 and one still in the box from Christmas.

I thought they could cheer on the Gators... or the Sooners. I keep going back and forth on who I am for. Florida because it's an SEC team and I love that Tim Tebow with his John 3:16 eye things. And Oklahoma because I was born there, went to school at OSU and have lots of family in there. Well, right now they're tied at the half so we shall see...

A neosporin testimonial...

As you may have seen Michael took a nasty spill last week and really scraped up his nose and upper lip. We put neosporin on it several times a day and it worked wonders...

See how much better it is today, just a week and a day later! Sure hope he doesn't have a bad little scar on his nose. Bless his heart.

Michael is 19 months old today. He celebrated by finishing off some Wind and Willow Sante Fe dip with pretzel sticks.

He loved it! Happy 19 months Michael!
For those of you interested in seeing more pictures from our trip to Alabama and my dad's wedding you can by going to the the following link ...
http://picasaweb.google.com/TammyMatte/NewYearTrip0809?feat=email#

Not again.

Every year I drag the kids all over Frankfort to get their picture taken with Santa. All kinds of places do these free shots and I think it's fun to get them in various outfits. Last year we actually did five or six, I think, and on our way to one of the last ones I told Mallory we were on our way to get their picture with Santa and she said, "Not again." Here they are at Coldwell Banker downtown.

This one was taken at a local breakfast with Santa event.

This is the "official Santa pic" of the year and was officially a total rip-off at the mall in Louisville. Below was taken at Commonwealth Credit Union. I kind of think they do it for the children of the credit union members but it's open to the public I guess.