1 Down, 2 to Go

Taylor's mural is near completion. I still have some more butterflies to add, and possibly a few flowers within the grass area, but for the most part it is done.


Here is a zoomed in picture of one of the butterflies within the clouds.

This is a zoomed in picture of the description on the main tower of the castle. Tay always wants me to add flowers or hearts wherever possible, so I even incorporated them into the name of her castle.

This and past murals can be found on one of our other blog sites: http://www.bigbrimurals.blogspot.com/

You can also find Amy's wonderful talent of cake/cupcake decorating at http://www.amystreats.blogspot.com/

Next up is Kinnick's mural, which will include Bob the Builder and several "diggers". I have began drawing this a couple of weeks ago but haven't had a chance to add to it since.

The Joy of Singing

This past Sunday the West Branch Daycare, where the boys go to pre-school, had a winter gathering involving a board meeting for the parents, a potluck dinner, and a wonderful program of singing done by the kids (ages 2-5). The boys had been looking forward to this all week, continually telling us that they couldn't wait for their "party". Of course, a majority of that excitement was based on the fact that the kids got to watch a movie while the parents were in the meeting.

We had a great time and the kids did a wonderful job with their singing.

The program was very impressive as the children sang five songs, with one of them being all the verses to Puff the Magic Dragon. The highlight of the show was the kids singing the ABC's song backwards, which I happened to somehow miss with my recordings.

Everyone Loves Disney

This past Sunday my parents took all their grandchildren and children to Disney on Ice, in what has become a wonderul annual event. The show was wonderful and the kids had an absolutely fabulous time. It is truly a gift in life to watch the joyous expression on your kid's faces when they see something like this.

This year's show consisted of scenes from Cars, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Tinkerbell.

Of course it is Disney, so Mickey, Minnie and the rest of the gang were there as well.

Thank you Mom and Dad!

Welcome Home Butch!

As with every dog we have adopted, we have searched for the one that would fit into our family best. After meeting 3 or 4 dogs over the past few months, we finally had one steal our heart. We welcome the newest addition to our family, Butch! Butch is 2 years old and is a black great dane/labrador retriever mix. While our Butch is unique, his story is not. There are far too many dogs and cats that could tell the exact same story. Even so, as advocates of adopting animals from a shelter, we feel compelled to tell Butch's story. Warning: graphic photo of animal neglect below.

Here is our Butch as we know him today: happy, healthy, mild mannered and just a big teddy bear. The great dane breed is often described as a gentle giant and Butch lives up to the name.

When Butch and his brother Sundance came into the shelter, they were 7 months old. They had an owner but were victims of animal neglect. Lucky for us, someone had the courage to call the shelter and report the so called Owner. Below is a picture of when the brothers came into the shelter.

And Lucky for Butch and Sundance, the Heavenly Pet Sanctuary in Fairfield, IA (situated on 34 acres) took them in, nursed them back to health (with a combination of holistic practices: fresh food diet and vitamins/supplements), gave them love and showed them how to trust humans again. Here are the brothers again only 2 months after being at the shelter. Looking pretty good huh?

Butch has been home for 3 days and is doing great. He and his brother were completely unsocialized so we were prepared for challenges after bringing him home. He is shy and is taking time to get used to all of us. But as we have done this before we realize all things related to living in a house and being with a family with 3 kids and 1 dog are all new to him. We are giving him his space but also not letting him hide from us. The first day he spent a lot of time in the hallway by the door to the garage. Gradually he has moved a little closer. Yesterday he laid in the kitchen just across from the living room (where we were) and today he came into the living and laid down on his own. It's so amazing to see this type of transformation in just a few days. He doesn't jump, doesn't lick and has that wonderful "big dog" trait of leaning into you when you are petting him. Amy and Butch are often nose to nose or forehead to forehead. He just loves being loved.

FYI - If you do come visit us, he is shy but will warm up to you, we just have to not let him hide from our visitors. So by all means, come visit, the more visitors we have the better it is for Butch!

Welcome Home Butch, we love you already!

Who knew?

Our kids can skate! Well, they can at least stay on their feet on the ice. Most of the time.

Still in catching up mode with the blog, I thought I would share with you our visit to the local ice skating rink with our kids and Amy's sister's family. Inspired recently by the Dreyer's blog, we decided that the kids were now old enough to give ice skating a shot. Actually, it was Amy and I that should have had the most concerns being that we haven't skated in 20 years or so.

Anyway, as a whole the experience went really well. The kids did a wonderful job for their first time. Tay was really starting to get a hang of things and all of them were going on their own by the end of the experience.

Kinnick really seemed to be a fan of the skating, and has since gone again on his own with Mom.

We Love Art

While I was painting Taylor's mural the other day (pictures soon to come!), Taylor decided she too wanted to paint with me, using the same acrylics I was. As some of you may know, Taylor loves all kinds of art, and painting is certainly one of her special interests and talents.

The mural I am painting in Tay's room consists of a castle, flowers, etc. She started by saying that she was going to paint something similar to what I had on the wall, but once she began she decided she would change some things and make it her own. The result is amazing!

Prior to the painting she was doing some drawing and coloring on her own. The picture below was one of her masterpieces, in which she had a detailed description of everything on the picture. The blue is the water (ocean), orange the sand (beach), green the vegetation, etc.

I love her mind!

When Cold Becomes Too Cold

After clearing the snow from the driveway again the other day in below zero temps, I went in and took a hot shower to warm up.

I jumped in and instantly complained to Amy that the water was really hurting. In which she replied:

"Well, you have to wait for your skin to thaw first."

That my friends, is when it is too cold out!

Old Man Winter

So, we absolutely love living out in nature where we do. However, we have noticed it does have some disadvantages in the winter. Tonight when we came home from work, with the kids in the car, we were unable to even attempt to get into our driveway due to the fact that it had drifted shut.

The two following pictures are what the driveway looked like when we left for work Wednesday morning and after I had snowblowed the 7" of drifting snow.

When we got home Wednesday night, the pictures below are what we found. This picutre directly below is looking at the driveway (somewhere in there) from the road.

Looking back toward the road from the garage area of the driveway.

We had to keep the cars out on the road and carry the kids in through the drifts of the front yard. I then ventured out later (after starting a fire!) to snowblow through the monster drifts in the frigid cold temps.

It is really beautiful out here though in the snow and we wouldn't trade it for anything! Well, except for maybe some snow fence.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

This year we enjoyed Christmas Eve on the Naylor (Amy's mom) side of the family in Ankeny. It was a great time and was particularily special as EVERYONE in the family made it to celebrate.

Our kids really enjoyed getting a chance to play with their cousins that don't get to see too often.

As a surprise treat to all, Santa appeared from the backyard later in the night....baring gifts for all the little children. It was absolutley amazing and a treat to see all of the kids faces and expressions as Santa entered the house. All the kids were jumping up and down as they followed him to his seat.

Christmas Preparations

A little late on the Christmas blogging (and blogging in general for that matter), but better later than never right?

So, we can't have Christmas without the traditional decorating of the sugar cookies. This year we enjoyed sharing this experience with Amy's parents as well as Amy's sister and her family. It was a great time and the kids did a really good job. As tradition goes, we are resposible for decorating a cookie with everybody's name on it from the Naylor family to disperse at the Christmas Eve celebration.