Jeron's Notes

Jeron is learning to read and write. His favorite thing lately is writing notes and tickets for his parents. Tonight, rather than interrupt my bath...again...he wrote me the following note and slipped it under the bathroom door. I'll be interested to see who can translate...

Feel free to post your guesses...the real translation will come at a later date!

Greetings from Iraq

Our Uncle Tim's friend, Laura, is currently serving in Iraq. She is a platoon leader of 38 soldiers. As Military Police Officers, their job in Iraq is to teach the Iraqi police officers how to do their job. Jeron did a little service project in December and sent her platoon some Christmas packages (with the help of his Kindergarten class, Wal-Mart, Grandma Rita, Jadee, and Mom). Last Saturday we received a surprise package in return. It was better than Christmas! We wanted to share some of the interesting things she sent to us.

This is what the soldiers get for change at the store on base. It is too expensive for the government to ship coins over there, so they use cardboard coins...does anyone remember pogs? That's what the soldiers call them.

These are some patches...flag, Military Police brassard, and Laura's battalion patch: the 728th Military Police Battalion.

These are temporarily stuck...the patches come with the sticky side of velcro. Jeron has been plotting for me to sew the other side of velcro on some of his shirts so that he can wear the patches and not lose them.

Laura also sent this turban...I think we are in serious need of some turban tying instructions, but we did the best we could for being clueless! They look pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

And the BIGGEST hit of the package would have to be the glow-in-the-dark Chem Lights! Jadee was quite the riot trying to crack the inside vile! Jeron has been keeping careful track of how many he has and how many he's used...they are, apparently, a very valuable commodity!

Thank you, Laura, for Christmas all over again!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Jeron's observation of the day: "Hey, Mom! The dishwasher sounds like it's snoring! (chuckle, chuckle) Just like Grandpa! (pretend snore, more chuckling)"

Jadee's favorite movie these days: "Ratatootie"

SNOW DAY!!

We had a beautiful BLIZZARD on Friday, January 4 with very low temperatures and snow that has stuck. This resulted in a SNOW DAY for Jeron today...NO SCHOOL! He has spent the majority of the day outside playing...he's still there! Jadee went out for about 5-10 minutes...she is our fair-weather girl.

Jeron and I tried to build a snowman on Saturday afternoon...

As you can see, the snow conditions were less than ideal! (Jeremiah shed a few tears for the missed ski day...apparently bad snowman snow is great skiing snow...) We couldn't get it to stick together to save our lives...aw, yes, the powder that skiiers dream of... Jeremiah tried to shovel in slushy snow from the culdesac, but that didn't work, either. In the end, we were left with a pile of snow with a carrot nose. It started to snow on us as we were giving up, er, I mean, finishing up. You can see the snow flying in the picture.

The sun is shining today and Jeron came in earlier to report that the snow is sticking together. I went out when the little ones went down for naps and this is what we came up with...

YAY!! What a gorgeous snowman, complete with a carrot nose, Hershey's Kiss eyes and mouth, stick arms and legs (compliments of Jeron and his needle nose pliers and the "dead" bushes out front), mittens and a scarf that we could only use for the picture (Jeron didn't want his Auntie Heather scarf left outside) and a zip tie lock of hair. You can see in the background that we have PLENTY of snow left over!

Now, I must include the following picture as proof that I was the helper in the snowman project.

Jeremiah was kind enough to take pictures of me on Saturday...as I am usually the picture taker and never to be found in the actual pictures! After we finished with snowmen, Jeron and Jeremiah went sledding down the rocks across the way...they claimed that there was plenty of snow...