Snowblowers and Christmas gifts

Well we got another 8 inches of snow Friday night and Saturday morning...When is it going to stop?!?! Anyway, my parents thought that it would be a wonderful idea to drive 2 hours to Des Moines to visit Danyel, Rick and the kids on Saturday morning immediately after the snow storm. Surprisingly they made it there without any problems....But we all know that I would not be typing up a blog for no apparent reason. I guess 5 minutes after they arrived my mom (go figure) started feeling nauseated and spent the rest of the day and night in bed with the flu...Poor Mom! When Danyel and Rick called to tell me the good news I thought I would be nice and snow blow my parents driveway...At little surprise when they got home, you know something nice. So I started what seemed to be an endless task with this so called snow blower they have. This thing is basically a 5 inch circular blade with two handles, a cord and blower. It literally looks like a fisher price toy. After realizing that it wasn't something that Walker had left at his grandparents house, I thought well this must be it. It didn't take long to turn the thing on....I mean, anything that runs on 2 AA batteries is pretty simple. Once I got it started, I pushed the thing up and down the driveway about 3 times and then all of a sudden the blower fell off. I put it back on and started my business again but it fell off again. Basically I had broken the stupid thing. So instead of surprising my parents with a freshly snow blown driveway, I gave them 3 lines of a snow less patch and an unusable snow blower....SURPRISE!

I have also been meaning to blog about this train set that Slade got from his grandparents. Yes, I break their snow blower and they buy him an expensive train set. Doesn't seem right does it! Anyways, my mom really wanted to get Slade a train set for his first Christmas but of course being psycho mom, I said that he was too young. Tom had mentioned to my mom that Slade would love a train set so my mom ended up buying him one....She says it was for Slade but I think it was a little bit for Tommy too. Slade and Tom (and I have to admit, I too) love this thing. It is actually a blast. Slade loves to hear all the noises the trains make, Tommy loves pushing the trains around the track and of course Mommy gets mad when even one piece is out of place. I thought I would share a few pictures of this thing..... Keep in mind that Slade is 1 year old and this train set came in about 200 pieces and took both Tom and I over 2 hours to set up.


The processes


Box number 42!


The final job! I put the tracks together :)


We had to move the train set down to the basement with all the other christmas presents Slade got from family members. He also got a big blow-up ball pit with 300 balls that he loves...Well before the 300 balls were in it, he really likes only about 100 balls in at a time (Yeah, ONLY 100 balls). The rest of the balls he likes on the floor so he can run through and kick. When he is not playing with that he is mowing the carpet with his handy dandy lawnmower he got from grandma and grandpa Buckheister. I will have to get a picture of him doing that he loves it. He also got a pretty cool busy ball popper choo choo train from his great aunt and uncle Bryce and Marla. It is soo cute to see him play with this. To match that he got a busy ball popper from my parents. Don't even get me started on all the birthday presents that he got from everyone. We have been watching Horton Hears a Who that he got from him grandma and grandpa Buckheister.
To top all of that off, he got some wonderful books from everyone, He loves to read all the animal books he received from his great grandparents (Dahm). Not to mention the supply of money toward his college fund from everyone! He also has an endless supply of toys that we keep getting out of our Toyorama that we received from his cousins Walker and Ryan. Each day he seems to get a new toy!

Slade Thanks everyone for the gifts! Mom and Dad say......next time you all come over, it is your turn to pick up all the toys!