And this is supposed to be March?!

With temps in the eighties, it feels more like June or July than March. We've also had lots of sun and strong winds. We're enjoying it! Bare feet, emerging green grass, tulips and rhubarb poking their heads up, short sleeves (not Eliott's cup of tea! He sometimes gets upset that he can't pull the sleeve down to his hands!), SPRING!

On Sunday Jere finished up his Wisconsin refresher training, passing all his tests. Now we're both scrambling a bit to get enough extra hours to keep up our national registry certification. Wisconsin doesn't require us to keep that up (we need 42 hours a piece more than what the state requires to keep up the national) but the way it's heading it just seems like a good thing to keep it up as the requirements are getting tougher all the time. Means a lot of studying for us, but then that's something I really enjoy anyway.

Leanna rolled from her back to her front today! She's rolled from front to back twice, kind of by accident, before, but this was deliberate and hard work to go from back to front. But she did it--twice! I measured her too, as it seems like she's growing like a weed, and she measured 25". An inch a month. One of these days I want to take her in to be weighed. All I know is she's a solid little chunk and those creases are only getting deeper.

Whisper is doing quite well. She's terribly shy and it's taking some work to win her trust, but now she's coming up to me of her own free will with just a little coaxing. She's made fast friends of Kodi, and enemies with the cats. Typical puppy! :-)

New addition!

We have added another member to the Hege Hill Zoo! Wednesday evening after church we left for Missouri, driving all night and arriving at our destination at around 7:30 thursday morning. And we picked up a new puppy! A registered female Alaskan Malamute to "replace" Kira, our previous dog we lost last summer. "Whisper" is the tentative name for this puppy, and we haven't figured out her full registered name yet. Anyway, here's some shots from our trip. We turned around and drove straight home again, arriving home around 11 last night. LONG trip, but it went very well. The last hour was the worst as Eliott was a basket case from being in his carseat so long and was trying to sleep but couldn't. He was GLAD to be home! Not like the rest of us weren't, but for him being away from home is a miserable experience to start with. Leanna was a jewel and if she made any noise it was giggles. Well, a messy diaper leaked all over her seat, but if that's the worst of spending almost 26 hours traveling with a four month old I sure can't complain. Jaron was a trooper and as usual loved all the interaction and excitement and, of course, the puppy! :-)

Our next project

Our next big project consists of giving our main living area a make-over. I'm VERY excited about seeing things brighten up and change! Here are some "before" pictures of our living room. I was about ready to start working at it, when I suddenly remembered I DID want before and after pics so I quick tidied up for the shoot. I can hardly wait to show off the "after" ones, but it will be 3-4 weeks till we're planning to be done. Not sure if I'll be able to sneak in some "tween" pics in or not. :-) It's gonna be a big job, but worth it!

Shopping trip

Well, yesterday we went to La Crosse shopping! What LONG day. Jere wanted to make it to the Contractor's Breakfast at Menards, so we got up at 5:30 to get everyone ready to go and get up there on time. Then after breakfast and halfway through our shopping there, we realized we'd lost the shopping list somehow. It was the master copy with everything we needed to buy/look for that day! So we winged it the rest of the day and I only remembered 3 things so far that we missed--two of them semi-important but not real bad. :-) The biggest deal of the day was a whole new set of dinnerware! (Pictured above.) 64 piece set with 12 place settings. I'd been looking for something for quite awhile to replace the tin dishes we'd been using that were starting to bubble with rust under the enamel. I just couldn't find anything that I thought would fit till I saw this set. It's a Pfaltzgraff, a fairly decent brand, and after the rebate was only $40 for the whole thing! I like the white--will go with any color tablecloth and serving bowls. I like the design--will go with any decor pretty much I think when we re-do the kitchen and/or move. The biggest problem: when we got home and unpacked it suddenly the cupboards looked way too small! Not only is everything in this set bigger than the previous one, there's more stuff. So today's project? Re-organize my kitchen to make this stuff fit! ;-)

Jere's EMT refresher

Jere's EMT refresher is now half over! He has one more full weekend in two weeks. Jaron got to help during one of the classes--pediatric immobilization! :-) He loved it! He was so excited when he came home and could tell me all about it.

Cute li'l Leanna

Here's a picture of Leanna I just took this morning. Isn't she the CUTEST?!!!!