Sledding with the Daly's

So as I mentioned in the previous post we got the pleasure of having a visit from the Daly family (aka my sister and her troops).  They usually come and stay over night once in the winter and once in the summer. We always have such a great time. Since we have this abundance of snow this year, what a better event to do than to show them our sledding hill.  Well, this is our second sledding hill, as the first one is pretty much ice right now and just slightly dangerous.

The girls:  Paige, Gracie, and Maddy.

Below we have Christy and her youngest girl, Kate.

The picture above is the girls getting tired of walking up the hill, so they start to play kitchen in the snow. They had cake baking, lettuce salads, maybe even some raisins (aka deer doo-doo!), regardless they were were having fun using thier imaginations.

 I think Ted was getting tired too, so he took his break as well.

And good 'ol Will, he never tires. He could go forever when everyone is outside playing with him.

Marty and his little buddy Zach.

Pictures from top of the bluff looking down on the creek. Amazingly the creek is not frozen.  It is only 1-2 feet deep.  I guess this is was the wildlife thrive off of.

Walking up the hill, for another good ride down. 

Then we have the Malecek clan too.

Thanks for the fun visit Daly's! Can't wait for your summer visit.

Visit from Grandparents x4

This last Sunday we had a great visit from Mom and Dad and they provided us with the pleasure of bringing along my Grandma and Grandpa too.  So the kids had 4 Grandparents visiting.

My Grandma and Grandpa Sohre have never been to our house so this was a big treat for us.

Grandma was in such a great mood. She was so much fun and Grandpa was too.

This happened to be the weekend the Daly's were visiting too, so we had a house full. 

Their was no intention of having all the company over, it is just how it happened to go. It goes to show once again good times sometimes just can't be planned, they just happen.

When everyone was there I commented we should have had an early birthday party for Gracie or something, as we don't usually get this much company in one day.

We all enjoyed playing a card game of spoons with kids and grown-ups.

Can't turn down the opportunity to take a picture of all of us.

We have Grandma Lela Sohre, Gracie, Zach, Myself, and Grandpa Elmer Sohre.

We should have had my Dad too, then we would have had the 4 generation picture.

Grandpa says he's going to come back when the grass is green... so I hope he keeps his word.

GUESS WHAT??

Marty and I are pleased to announce we get to show off one of these again! 

We are expecting Baby Malecek #3.

We have an estimated due date of August 28th, 2011. 

This makes me a about 3 months pregnant right now.
These are week 12 pictures of the ultrasound that we had this week.
(these are pictures of the print off, so I apologize for the slight glare)

It is amazing because in actuality this baby is about 1 inch big right now, but on the ultrasound you could see the arms and legs just a moving. It was like it was doing a little dance almost.  We saw the heart swooshing away too at a beat of 160.  So amazing! 

So far everything is going good.
 Normal pregnancy things such as being tired, some nausea, being tired, some nausea
 (oh did I mention that already?). 

We are excited to be pregnant again and look forward to giving Gracie and Zach and little brother or sister.
Gracie thinks the baby is in her tummy though
and the baby pretty soon just 'crawls out'!
 I wish it was that simple.

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!)