Bunk Beds

 I have been looking for a set of beds for the kids for a long time.  When I was growing up the set of bunk beds Shelly and I shared had a nice set of drawers underneath the bottom bed and then book shelves as headboards on each bed. They could be bunked or both on the floor.  I thought the bookshelves were really nice, as it allowed us a place for our alarm clocks and fans (and other junk) when we got older.  So this was my vision for the beds I wanted to purchase for Gracie and Zach. We could bunk them or leave them down, but I wanted bookshelves to again eliminate the need for a night stand in years to come when they want an alarm clock.

To my surprise my quest was not as= easy as I thought it would be.  There certainly is bunk beds out there, the cheaper ones being at Wal-mart and Target, the more expensive ones at a furniture store.  But none with bookshelves.  I even have a couple of furniture stores call there supply places and again no luck. I guess they just don't make them anymore.  Maybe they are not safe? Anyways I still wanted them so where is the next place to turn:  A google search on the Internet.  Well turns up that 2 places make them, one being "bunkbedking.com" and then another place.  I spend a few more months thinking about these options and then finally settle on "bunkbedking.com".  I was a little worried as you really only see a small picture of them and really don't know the quality, and most scary is that most likely it is going to shipped in several boxes and we will have to assembly them all our selves.

My assumption was right as it did come in several boxes and assembly of everything is required. Marty and I don't usually have good luck with this type of stuff. Usually the directions are somehow wrong, there are pieces missing, parts are damaged in the shipping, or the pre-drilled holes are not where the directions say they should be.

The boxes sat in our entry for a few days and finally Marty concented to helping me and we start one evening after supper. We lay out all the pieces, take deep breaths, and slowing start to get to work.

After night number one we had the bookshelves together and it amazingly went fairly well. The usual problems we generally have, hadn't happened yet... deep breath again for night two.

Now the kids are so darn excited about these beds that the next night we have to continue on with the mission. They are eager to help, although it usually isn't to helpful on my or Marty's end, but we try to find some jobs for them, so they are happy and feel involved.

We get the beds side by side and then with some heave-hoos we get them bunked.

Mattresses and bed sheets next and PRESTO we have fully furnished bunk beds.  And Gracie's room becomes Gracie and Zach's room and Zach's room becomes the toy room.

They snuggled into their new beds so cute that night, so I needed to capture the moment of them sleeping.

Zach gets the bottom bunk and Gracie gets the top bunk.

We have had them up for about a month now and they haven't fallen down...So I guess "bunkbedking.com" gets my approval and my recommendation.

Eating Crab

Marty got suckered into buying something we have never bought before... crab legs. They stayed in our freezer for sometime and finally we thought we should tackle the adventure and make these bad boys for a meal.  Neither of us have made crab legs, much less eaten them.  I think we had them once many years ago at a restaurant.  So we do some searching on the Internet and get started.

We let them thaw, then did some washing of them... then into a kettle of boiling water.

Amazingly they did as our research said, and started to turn the pretty crab leg red.

Next the butter and garlic that is needed for dipping the finished product.

We don't really have the tools to crack crab legs, so we use a nut cracker. It kinda worked, but we were not quite having success so we bring out a scissors... and then we were in business.  I know this probably goes against all the 'proper crab eating' but we were hungry and the kids were too!

The kids seemed to like it...

The finished product we get out.  It sure takes a lot of work to get a small pile.

Then add the butter... ummmm yummy!

then we have the very end... a big mess!

  ...but very good tasting!

Ice Skating Show

Gracie had her first ice skating show last weekend. 

She got to preform in 2 songs and then the opening and the finale.

I was so proud of her. She really has progressed since we started lessons in October.

 This is the group of kids that were in the show.

 We each needed to bring a poster to display with the name of the skater... so here is Gracies!

 In the picture above Gracie is the skater on the far right.

Below is a clip of one of her performances. They got to hold dollies and then they gave them kisses.



We can't wait for next years show!

Maybe she will be twirling by then, well maybe in a few years.

Doll House

Gracie some adorable dollhouse's from her Grandma's for Christmas.  She actually got 2 dollhouses for Christmas, one from each Grandma.  One is the 'big one' and one is the 'little one'.  You know a girl does need 2 dollhouses these days, so we consented to keeping both, in which she loves to play with each.

 These photos are of the big dollhouse. I thought it was adorable when I went to look one day at her dollhouse and how she had it set up. 

 So particular as you can see from the photos.  Babies on Mommy and Daddy's laps.
 Everyone around the table.

She did this all on her own, unpromted or unassisted. Dollies all organized.

Marty says we in are in for trouble as she may end up like me and drive her husband crazy because she likes everything a certian way!  I say... I hope so!

Hair Curlers

This is more photos from Christmas time.  When I was a kid the night before a big event, such as Christmas or a special wedding, my sister's and I would put the sponge type curlers in each others hair to make us look fancy for the event. Or I think it was more like Wendy and Christy putting them in Shelly and I's hair.  We would sleep in them and then the next day, WALL-A, beautiful curlly hair.  Now as Gracie's hair is starting to loose some of the natural curl she had in her first couple years of life, I thought it was time to make the purchase for 'sponge curlers' for our house and try them out for the Christmas celebration 2010.

She did really well with me putting them in.  I don't think she quite understood what we were trying to accomplish, but she went along with it.

Then of course what ever big sister Gracie, does, little brother Zach, needs to do too, so against his father's protests his mother puts in a few curlers and Zach is happy!

And if you can see in the picture of Gracie looking in the mirror, Barbie needs some curlers too.

My Princess and her first curler experience. 

When we get all the curlers out and she sees herself in the mirror, she says all excited:

"Mommy, look! My curls come back!"

And then of course Zach wants his picture taken too... so this is him with his hair slicked over.

(we didn't let the curlers stay in all night!)

Spontaneous Saturday Fun

So a few weekends ago I needed to take our Honda Pilot to a Honda dealership for some repairs. The nearest and most convenient Honda place for us is Mankato. Marty had to work so the kids and I venture to Mankato for the weekend. Honda is open on Saturday's so this works out nice for us, since we are 1 1/2 hours from Mankato. We have our appointment at 8:45am to drop off the vehicle and then Shelly and her boys come pick us up. We really didn't have plans for the day. The main agenda was getting the vehicle looked at and hopefully fixed before the end of the day. So the Cornish clan comes and pick us up. We illegally put our four kids in the back seat of her vehicle. Zach and Joe in the car seats and Gracie and Jesse are sitting in between the two outer car seats and we buckle them in. Originally we had decided that if we just drive straight back to Shelly's house, which is just a little ways away, and drive very careful we could get away with this.

Well, since it was early Saturday morning, we decided the Mom's need a 'good coffee' so we decide we could take a slight detour on the way home and get ourselves some Mocha's and whatnot, we feel we would still be safe with our 4 kids in the back seat sitting illegally. Then we decide since it is going so well and Shelly is a very careful driver (??) and it is still early Saturday morning (not much traffic), and I don't live anywhere near the abundance of stores Mankato offers (I mostly have Wal-mart and Target) we could venture to Old Navy. Besides it is just a couple of blocks from the coffee place.

So we are in Old Navy.  And the kids are being half-way good.  Us Mom's are looking at the clearance racks finding some steals for next years winter clothes for the kids.  We kinda take turns keeping an eye on the kids... Then we are suddenly pretty involved in our shopping and then there was a conversation kinda like this:
 "Where are the kids?" 
"I am not sure. I thought you were watching them."
"No I was looking at these clothes. This is a really good deal. Do you think this is cute?"
"Yeah it is cute. You should buy it."
"We should look for the kids."
(A little searching, a little more searching.)
 (Good thing it is early Saturday morning. We are the only ones in the store.)
"Hey look, here they are!"
"Oh, isn't that cute. Did they do that all on there own?"
"Yeah, I didn't tell then to go under there."
"Oh, what good kids we have to all four crawl in the clothes rack and sit so good."

So the adventure continues and we decide since the kids are being so good and the Mall is on the way to the Cornish house we could stop there and let the kids play at the indoor playground.

We venture to the mall and the kids have a blast. 

 I even give in and fork some quarters over for the rides next to the playground. 

The Cornish's know all about this stuff since they live in Mankato, but us Malecek's are from out in the 'sticks,' so all this is great, new fun for us.

So then Shelly says, lets go to Barne's and Noble, they have a kids area in there too. (She know all the good kid places, I think she has done this before!). Here we find a choo-choo train and millions of books to look at and a very nice kids area. 

We all have a blast again and even do some educational things such as read a book.

Well, by now it is about lunch time, so we might as well eat lunch in the food court. We order KFC for the kids and sit down at the kiddie table. They amaze us again and actually do pretty good eating together at the table. Joe and Zach of course both had to spill half their cartons of chocolate milk on the floor, but over all we are still doing pretty good... Moms are staying sane and actually are enjoying themselves too.
(If you don't quite know what I mean, sometimes going places can be a little stressful with 2 little ones or in this case, 4 little ones).

Since we are all still keeping our cool and having fun, we might as well go on a Merry-go-round ride which is in the mall too.

We have Joe and Gracie.

And below are Jesse and Zach.

By this time the Honda people called and the Pilot is ready to be picked up. 

We head back over there, pick up the vehicle, get everyone back into legal sitting arrangement with car seats and now finally head back to Shelly's to get the kids down for a nap.

After naps, we decide to go visit Great-Grandma Sohre who has been in a nursing home for a couple of weeks. We play some cards, eat some ice cream sandwiches, and again have a good time.

I don't have a picture of the next event, but after visiting Great-Grandma we all go to Godfather's Pizza to meet up with the rest of the Sohre family (the Hodgkins, the Daly's, and Grandma/pa Sohre) and devour some good pizza and play hard with the cousins.

I have to say when we started this day there was no plans in place except to go to the Honda place.  It ended up being a wonderful day of fun!! 

 Lesson Learned:  Sometimes the best days happen spontaneously with no thinking or planning involved!!!