2011-12 Basketball Wrap-up

Another sports' season over! JrMsS's team finished their season with a tournament in Harlan at the end of January. I made team cupcakes!

2012 State Wrestling

This was the first year we've gone to State wrestling. It was quite a learning experience for us, but now that we have one year under our belt, we'll be a lot more prepared for the coming years (I'm sure we'll be there MANY more times if Mr S has his way).

We drove out to Des Moines on Friday afternoon, while Mr S and JrMrS went with a group of people to the weigh-ins, I took the kids to the pool (LMS didn't go with us this year - she stayed with a friend and played her basketball game).

They look like they're having fun :)

Valentines Day

We didn't do anything too extravagant for Valentines Day this year. We only really had a time for a few projects, some gifts for the kids and an early Valentines Day dinner for Mr S (he wasn't with us for Valentines Day).

Valentines Project #1: Hanging Hearts

I'm not really sure where I got the inspiration for this one, must have been a REALLY boring day with Mr S gone.

Step 1 - cut out cardboard hearts.

Another Birthday

They come every year, but it still always surprises me when it comes. So...I'm another year older and hopefully wiser than a year ago.

My group at work was really sweet...although I got in to the office before 6 am on my birthday (had to go to a bunch of meetings out of town that day), my group had my desk all decorated and presents on my desk. I work with the best group of people :)

Mr S got me a really sweet card....

Catching up...again

We've been super busy the last month +, there really has been NO TIME for blogging. But we're in a lull now with sports and activities (for us - I'm sure many people would still think our schedule is insane), so I thought I'd spend the time catching everyone up.

1. We finished up basketball for the girls yesterday with our final tournament
2. We finished wrestling for the boys last weekend with two trips to State Championship Wrestling
3. We celebrated Valentines and did a couple of projects.
4. and we celebrated my birthday this week :P

We also have a had a few other odds and ends over the last month.

• Mr S FINALLY finished his heavy traveling for work. He was gone most of January and February on various projects and conferences. I'm SO glad to have him back. It's really tough to not have him here. While he was gone, I did a few fun things with the kids (at least when the boys were around - they stayed with their mom a lot when Mr S is gone).

We did Movie Night a few times...

We also had "make your own pizzas" dinner...

(bad picture, but the only one I have all of them in)

• Jr. Ms S now has contacts! She's going up so fast into such a pretty young lady.

So cute :)

• We've only had two storms this winter that warranted pulling out the snow blower. Its been such a WEIRD winter and now we're starting off a pretty violent spring (1st ever recorded tornado in NE in February). One of Mr S's trips required him to come home in a bad blizzard. I was upset that he drove all night and pushed it to get home in bad weather, but he was right in that if he hadn't, the interstate would have shut down on him and he would have been stuck.

(You notice how ALL of these are taken inside - it was ICY!)

The snow ended early this day and Mr S's grandfather came up and cleared our road with his tractor so we could get out and go for dinner at Fernando's - unfortunately...the road was still too snowy (and icy) that we couldn't make it back up the hill. We ended up walking (which I guess is good for us since we had a HUGE YUMMY dinner to burn off)

• My sister's job: Sadly, my sister's old company was morons and decided to lay her off (stupid!). The good thing is that my company is AWESOME and she has now been hired in another department there. So, although we're quite separated, we still are close enough to have lunch every once in a while, she has much better benefits, and now she has a reasonable schedule that allows her to actually do stuff in the daylight hours.

What have you been up to the last month?

Last Man Standing

While Mr S has been away the last two weeks, I've been catching up on my shows. I FINALLY caught up on 'Once Upon A Time', then I started on 'Last Man Standing' (now I'm onto 'The Firm' - Don't tell me what happens!). Mr S REALLY needs to start watching this show. This is TOTALLY our life (except the boys are here half the time). I have literally cried from laughing so hard. You HAVE to check it out!

And what's REALLY scary is that I can TOTALLY see LMS do something like this:

What are some of your favorite shows?

FINALLY Catching up - January

Sunday, Jan. 1, 2012: Un-decorating sucks...not only is it a HUGE pain and a HUGE mess, but then the house looks so bare and empty :( I have the BEST sister though :)

My sister stayed over New Years and she was such a HUGE help with getting my Christmas decorations down and reorganized in the mechanical room. We had fun reminiscing about the year we left the decorations up well into January and there was a fire in one of the apartment buildings next to ours. Although our building was fine, the best way to get to the other building was through ours. THEN a news van drove into the parking lot and was setting up to shoot pointing DIRECTLY at our apartment – Man, that tree came down SO fast! Nothing like fireman motivation.

Friday, Jan. 6, 2012: Long, long week...no rest this weekend though...tournaments both days and LOTS of work to get done before Monday :(


Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012: Lo-Ma 6th grade girls played really tough today! Its so neat to see how much so many of them have developed over the last couple of years.


The girls played REALLY well and got 4th place at a tournament in Council Bluffs – last year they came in like last, so they’ve improved SO much!
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Just bought future relaxation for under $150! Two trips (although we'll have to sit through 1 time share presentation)

In between games and before lunch, we decided to waste some time at the Bass Pro shop in Council Bluffs. We were just wandering when a guy walked up to us about a contest for a truck – okay sure, we’ll sign up. In the next few moments he sold us not one trip, but TWO! We’re such suckers. Our first trip will be to Wisconsin Dells, WI which we’ll take the kids and have to sit through a boring timeshare presentation. Luckily, Mr S is pretty strong-headed, so I think we’ll make out okay. Once we finish that presentation, they’ll hand us two cruise tickets for a Caribbean cruise!! So although it’s not booked yet, we’re looking forward to some pretty neat trips in the next year or so.

Catching up...December Posts

Since I'm SO behind...I thought I'd give you a snapshot of our life lately...

Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011: Shopped for "Eygpt" project supplies this am, LMS had a GREAT basketball game, it took us an hour to get home from Underwood because of slick roads, then LMS got her kitty! she was so funny when she realized we had picked it up :)
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The girls were SO excited we had plenty of snow at home so they could try their new sled/snowboard. Weird how there was like nothing down in CB/Underwood this morning.
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WHY does wrestling have to take SO long?!?! I want Mr S and the boys home NOW so I can take Christmas card pics while the snow is pretty :(

Okay, so can you tell I was SUPER bored? We got the snow and I wanted family pictures for a Christmas card SO BAD! I think Mr S got a little annoyed with all my nagging. The problem was that he was leaving super early in the morning to work out of town for a week or more – so getting a picture with him was time-sensitive. In the end it worked out and I finally took a chill-pill J

Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011: LOOONNGG morning...up at 530, got the husband packed and on the road, cooked breakfast for the kids, took family pics, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed floors, laundry and folded the laundry for yesterday, put a ton of clothes away and gathered more stuff for this Egypt project we have to still work on this morning....I'm exhausted already :P

It was a VERY busy day – probably the neatest thing that happened was that the Jr's SLED down the hill to Mr S;s grandparent's house to help shovel their walks – What I would have given to do something like that as a kid.

Home Decorating Part 1

Honestly, I don't know how many posts this will take, but hopefully by the end of next year I can get this house looking great! Ever since the girls and I have moved in, I haven't done much in the way of decorating even though Mr S told me many times he didn't really care what I did to the house. I need the ghosts out though, it's been long enough and I can't live with the stupid ex's bad decorating.

So, for Christmas I asked for paint for our bedroom and bathroom. The day after Christmas, Mr S, the girls and I begun the makeover.

Our Bathroom:

Before - Yucky yellow and stencils - gross

More stencils.

A Very Merry Christmas

The Snowflake family had a nice Christmas, how about you?

Celebrating at Mr S's mom's house. Little cousin was SO cute - he had to eat JUST LIKE the big kids.

Opening presents...

First Major Snow!

This winter has been SO weird. Until this weekend, we've only had 3 snow storms with measurable snow. This is the only storm that was actually really good. As much as a non-winter person I am - I really am missing the snow this year.

This started with rain and ice in the morning. LMS had a basketball game in Underwood and when we came out, the snow had begun. It took over an hour to get home, but the girls were SO excited to  finally get their new sleds out and use them.

JrMsS snowboarding.

A Project and a couple of Shows

In addition to everything else our bunch does, we've also got many school responsibilities.  This year the Jr's had to worrk on an Egypt project. JrMrS chose to do a pyramid and JrMsS chose to do museum exhibits...

All of the materials they needed for the prjects.

JrMsS working on the styrofoam pyramid.

JrMrS's First Deer

I know everyone feels differently about hunting. In the Snowflake household, we hunt. It's not excessive and we always use the animals we take.  So this night was very exciting for JrMrS. He's been trying for two years to shoot a deer and has gotten cold feet until this time. He's so excited :)

Let me introduce....

...the Snowflake's newest member of the family....SNOWBALL!

About an hour after we brought him home - he was a scared kitty :(

Getting Ready for Christmas - Home Decor

I love Christmas! As much as I hate the work of decorating and undecorating - I love the decorations I have (except my tree - MUST get a new tree next year), however I did make/buy a lot of new things this year to mix with my old.

JrMsS got a new stocking from grandpa (grandpa buys all of the stockings)

My WRECKED kitchen and hearth room.