Our "lady"

The cutest bunny on the block belongs to us! Lady is our first pet ever as a family, and we think she's adorable. She's the perfect pet, too. Takes up very little space, just a little food and water and an occasional excursion through the back yard, and she's happy. Abby and Jimmy especially love Lady.

Daddy loves to tease and tell us her name is "Dinner" because some day she'll be in our stew. But we know he really does love her... he bought her a little chew log and some nice fluffy bedding.

She likes to nibble on marshmallow weeds and grass, rest under the wagon, and hop up and down the back stairs. She's a great addition to the family.

Graduation trip

I really enjoyed taking the children down to Provo to see Valerie and Ammon graduate. You will see that the children did not quite enjoy all five hours of graduation ceremonies... but nevertheless they were pretty well behaved. I came away with a profound respect for a college education. All the sacrifice, dedication, learning and growth that comes through working toward a degree is wonderful! Of course it's just the first step to a fulfilling life, as Ammon and Valerie will probably agree. I never attended my own graduation ceremonies, because I finished in December and by April I was pregnant, and working in Idaho, but now I'm glad I did finish my degree and wished I could have enjoyed my own graduation activities. Still, I was very happy to be there with Valerie and Ammon.

On the way back to Idaho we stopped at Temple Square and took a little tour and took some pictures. I realized that my children had never been there. It was a little cold that afternoon so our tour was short, a little under an hour (and $5 to park near temple square!). Someday we'll go to conference and really feel the spirit of this wonderful place.

I also visited Marian and Vern and their beautiful new baby, Janessa. She is so cute! We love having more cousins in our family! We had a great dinner at Rachael and Clay's house, had some family pictures with all but our Wisconsin cousins, and as a real bonus got to take a baby rabbit home as a pet! Yay!

Snow! Oh how it snows!

Yes, every winter we are reminded that we live in the "arctic north"! The snow last year began on Christmas eve and stayed till April. This year it started 10 days earlier. We had two big snowfalls just before Christmas, leaving us with about 2 feet of snow.

This is after the first snowfall.

Of course, the city decided to plow our street at 5 a.m., so we didn't move our cars out of the way and they got plowed in. After an hour and a half of shoveling, we made a path... sort of a U-shaped driveway that we could drive in, around the 4-foot snow piles, and out in front of our house.after digging out the cars

The city did us a great favor a couple of weeks later when they built our own private snow playground in the parking lot next door. We had a lot of fun watching this bulldozer scrape and push the snow into an absolutely gigantic mound. As soon as it was done Sam, Abby, Augie and I explored our new funland... sledding down one side, climbing up the other, playing king of the mountain, etc. It was a lot of fun. Standing on the top of our snowpile puts you above the roof line of our house... it's probably 18 to 20 feet tall.

Augie on top of the pile.

Now that a couple more weeks have passed without new snow the pile is getting to be a sad, brown, melty mound. But it will probably stay there till May!

Christmas in Idaho Falls

We had a wonderful Christmas season. Thank you to all who wrote, sent a card, called, or otherwise wished us a Merry Christmas. Here's a little of what we did to celebrate.

Decorations:
We really spent a lot of time decorating this year. We were a little late getting our tree up (usually it's up by Thanksgiving night) but when we got it up, we redecorated the whole living room, too. We took out a couch and a chair, brought up an armoire to put the TV in, moved our bedroom downstairs into the family room (it's so much warmer down there), and at last brought in the Christmas tree. Here's a look at it:
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On the top of the armoire we had some space to set up the traditional Christmas village. Every year James had painted a ceramic house to add to the village, until the stores quit selling them. We found 3 at D.I. last year and the children and I painted them. However, the highlight addition this year was Fin Fang Foom.

Who is Fin Fang Foom? He is a classic enemy to Iron Man from the early 60's comic books. James has a prized statue of him (it's actually a HeroClix game piece). James thought he looked so cool he could be on display all year long; I jokingly added that at Christmas he could wear a Santa hat. So this year Fin Fang Foom repented of his evil ways during the holidays and brought cheer to the Christmas village.

We also added garland above the windows and across the fireplace, a wreath on the door, and a shelf with Christmas decorations and Christmas sayings on the wall. It was fun to decorate so much this year.

Christmas dinner:
Last year we started a new tradition where everyone gets to pick their favorite foods and we cook them on Christmas eve. This makes a lot of cooking on Christmas eve, but leaves a lot of leftovers for dinner on Christmas. We always have donuts and hot cocoa for Christmas breakfast, too. Below is a video of our Christmas dinner.

Christmas morning:
As the most highly anticipated hour of the year, Christmas morning can't be beat. This year (like every year before it) I was awake every hour from 3:30 a.m. on, till about 8:00 a.m. when the children FINALLY woke up! Augie was the first one awake, and he woke Jim and Sam. They went upstairs, woke up Abby, and we enjoyed the wonder and excitement of discovering what Santa had left for us this year. I also have a video of this moment of mayhem and excitement, as well as some pictures of opening presents.

Opening pajamas Christmas eve


emptying stockings.... Jimmy has the Human Torch figure.. Abby displays the contents of her stocking


Daddy loves his Jack Kirby book.... Sammy got an Air Hockey game from Grandma... playing with the Dean family Christmas night

I guess the best gift of the season (materially speaking) was a car from Clay (it wasn't just Clay but Vern and some other of my family, too, I'm still not sure who) but Clay was kind enough to fix it up, clean it out, and he and Rachael drove it up and presented it to us. We had it licensed and insured the same day. It's a '92 Ford Aerostar, and we think it's awesome! It's got digital displays, captain's chairs, nice upholstery, working heaters, no chips or cracks or rust, four working doors... it's pure luxury! It's humbling to us to realize how much our family must love us to go to such lengths to provide us a reliable, working car. We can't say thank you enough!

On Christmas day our good friends the Deans invited us to share in their holiday dinner. They had quite the feast: turkey, pork roast, stuffing, green bean casserole, yams, homemade rolls, and more. We were stuffed! Later the children all played Cranium Hullabaloo and we had a lot of fun talking and laughing. It was a fun night! Too bad Christmas only comes once a year. There's so much good to be enjoyed that I wish it would last longer.

All sorts of Halloween fun

Halloween is our family's second-favorite holiday (you really can't beat Christmas). But Halloween is celebrated all month long in the Droegemueller household. The father in our home happens to be a HUGE classic horror movie fan, and has quite the collection on DVD. So many, in fact, that we can watch two horror movies each night in the month of October and still have some movies left over for November (and yes, that is what we did last month). We do have some family-favorites that aren't quite horror but have tie-ins to horror themes, like the Munsters TV show, the Three Stooges, and Abbott and Costello. Usually the children preferred staying upstairs and watching a cartoon, but at other times they joined us. That led to some interesting evenings where, after a zombie or or vampire movie, Abby or Augie were scared or had bad dreams. But on the whole, it was good family fun.

The whole dress-up-and-trick-or-treat thing started in August when the children began thinking of their costumes. Abby was the first to pick hers out. Our neighbors had a goldfish costume that was really cute, and she loved it immediately. We painted her cheeks and nose orange and she looked very goldfishy on Halloween. Augie got to choose from his older brothers' outgrown costumes, so he was the Flash. He loved demonstrating how fast he could run.

Sam had a really hard time picking his costume. Finally I had him browse the internet for costume ideas and he chose to be Indiana Jones. We bought a hat and whip, added his own pants and shirt, and the costume was done. He had a little too much fun with the whip before Halloween so it got taken away until Halloween night.

Jimmy was the last to pick a costume. He really wanted to be Iron Man, but we couldn't find a costume in his size. I tried to convince him to be Darth Vader, because we had all the pieces and parts to it, and although he agreed at first, his heart was really set on Iron Man. It was just too sad to not let him be his dream hero this year, so I gave in. I looked at five stores the Saturday before Halloween, with no luck. No one had a costume above a size 8. So we ended up getting a red sweatshirt, some red and gold fabric, and making a costume. Usually I sew them a costume anyway, but this year I was just not in the mood and very busy. But in the end we sewed gold patches on the red sweatshirt and I made the gold and red pants. We hurried and made a mask out of a paper plate 15 minutes before the Trunk or Treat Halloween night, and finally the costume was finished!

Pumpkins are always a big deal at our house, but this year was just so busy that we ended up starting to carve our Jack-o-lanterns at 9:00 the day before Halloween. It was crazy, but we got the guts scooped out and the faces cut out and the mess hauled away before 10:00. Abby and Augie had simple but fun faces on their pumpkins. Sam carved the Green Lantern symbol and Jimmy carved a cat head (Catwoman) then "vs" and a Batman symbol. Daddy's pumpkin was very cool. It showed three ghosts peeking out from behind a tombstone, a spooky tree with an owl, and other graveyard details. He cut it in layers so that with the candles behind the pumpkin shell it had depth and neat little details. He was really excited to use his Dremmel tool this year and that's why he picked a more complicated scene (and he finished much later than the rest of us, but it turned out great!)


On Halloween we actually had two trunk or treats -- one at the church, and one across the street from the church at the greenbelt put on by all the single adult branches. So needless to say our children had PLENTY of candy. Then we came home, ordered pizza, and watched (what else) monster movies.

I had two costumes. On the Tuesday before Halloween our YW group had a reverse trick or treat activity. I dressed up as the Bride of Frankenstein. However, getting my hair to stick up was very difficult and took three hours of frying and crimping and hairspraying. So on Halloween I was the bride of Fu Manchu and wore my Chinese style dress and slicked back my hair. Very simple but good enough for a trunk or treat. It was actually very nice weather, high 50's and warm enough to go without a jacket. Later that night it rained so we were glad we'd skipped the regular door-to-door trick or treating.

Myself as the Bride of Frankenstein, and the infamous Fu Manchu.

Random thoughts

I really have no big events to talk about today, so I'll just give an update on a few things.

Jimmy is doing well with his new "school" which is K-12 or Idaho Virtual Academy. Basically it's still homeschooling, but the curriculum for the day is loaded onto his online account, we print his worksheets, and he uses the books they sent him to complete his work. I like not having to stress about, "What am I going to teach today?" I have seen him improve in a lot of things, and in others he still struggles, like Math. He'll probably move from fifth to fourth grade math soon. He does get to go to a lot of social outings, like a P.E. class every other week and ice cream socials each month. His "teacher" or educational consultant with IDVA said that by the year 2020 50% of students will be educated over the internet. This type of academy is on the leading edge of an educational movement and it has grown by 30% over the last year.

Sammy is at Taylor's Crossing again, and he thrives there. I am a volunteer for his class and I go once a month to help them do Stations on Mondays. He learns so much there, and learns at a fast pace. My only complaint is they don't teach history or art. :( He likes to have more social interaction so the school is good for him, even though I dislike driving him to the bus stop and picking him up again each day. It's also good that Sam and Jim don't compete as much because they are not doing school in the same room each day anymore. Sammy is also having fun in scouts and they will have a bike rodeo later this week.

Abby is starting Kindergarten with "true" homeschool (no online stuff, just what Mom teaches her). She reads pretty good and has most of her phonics down. She can read, "The old man had a coat. The old goat was cold. The fan ran in the sand," etc. She is a great absorber of information. She is also learning about counting and we did a unit on butterflies and insects this month.

Augie is taking some speech therapy and is working on speaking more clearly. He is showing just how smart he is by now being able to express what he is thinking. He is a typical two year old with his tantrums, etc. but he's getting a lot more fun, too. He loves to play with Abby and ride his big wheel. Abby and Augie are ALWAYS hungry and raid the snack cupboard at least four times a day! It would help if they ate their dinner. ;)

As for James and I, we're doing good. I've been reading a lot lately. Some of my recent books:

• Austenland (loved it! What a great romance and fun for the Jane Austen fan)
• The Book Thief (read with a box of tissues nearby--Germany, holocaust, etc. Very well written!)
• Eragon and Eldest (not so well written but interesting... very long!)
• Journey of the Heart (modern boy goes back to Martin handcart company and crosses the plains... not prize-winning literature, and needed a better proofreader, but interesting story for the LDS market.)
• All-Star Superman (yes, it's a graphic novel, but that counts as reading, too! great take off of the classic Superman story. My husband is so good to supply me with interesting reading from his shop.)
• The Princess and the Hound (great twist on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, by a charming writer, Mette Ivie Harrison. I visited her web site and she has great writing tips and I am inspired to write my own novel.)
• I also read the Twilight series, all 4 books this summer, and enjoyed them. Twilight's my favorite. I thought Breaking Dawn was predictable and had a lame ending. But I know most fans will disagree! I am excited to see the movie this December.

Now I'm on to a book Mom sent me called Gilead. If anyone has some recommended reads, send them along. I think I'll read Pride and Prejudice again, first time since 12th grade. I don't even own it, I'm ashamed to admit, so I'll have to go buy me a copy.

Bragging about our children

I mean, really, what else is a family blog for? We want all the world to see how cute and smart and adorable our kids are.

Now after that most un-humble introduction I hope you will forgive my bragging and still read my post. I wanted to put a couple of videos that I took recently. The first one is of Jimmy bowling. We took advantage of half-price bowling one afternoon and had a great time at Bowlero lanes. I even let Augie roll a few times for me (which is, of course, why I never got a strike--never mind the fact that I needed the gutter bumpers just as much as the kids). We all enjoyed it. Jimmy got a spare and I caught it on camera. In the end I beat Jimmy by 3 points.

The other video is of Abigail and her awesome Hawaiian concert. She found a lei, some maracas, and used my music stand to hold her "music" then asked us to come see her concert. The song is completely impromptu! It's so cute. Note how she sings, "I love my parents," of course my favorite part! The sound is a little off but you can get the gist of it.

Enjoy the videos. (By the way, the music stand was out because I have recently started playing violin again. After sixteen years of never playing, I am suddenly supposed to play as part of a quintet in Sacrament meeting. Yikes! So I have been practicing-- a lot.)