It's Mail Time!

Meredith is a huge fan of the Nick Jr. Show Blue's Clues. Here she is singing the "Mail Time" song from the show!

When It's Too Cold to Go Outside

It's cold here in the winter time. REALLY cold. Which means finding things to do indoors to keep an active 3 year old happy. We frequented the McDonald's playplaces and the play areas at the local malls. They also have lots of in-door play places like Kids Town, which is literally an indoor play town where kids can dress up as a doctor or a construction worker or a mail carrier or even a princess. Meredith loves that place. But it's not free, so it can get expensive. So here's some things we came up with at home to keep Miss Meredith entertained:

In-door Camping.
I found this little tent on sale at Target.
It actually came with a sleeping bag, backpack and a
pink head lamp all for $7. I couldn't pass up that deal!
Meredith loves to play and take naps in it. You can
see the backpack that it came with sitting on her kitchen
counter.

The one and only time Meredith has actually
spent the night in her tent. She likes to nap in it,
but at night she just wants to be in her bed. It was
actually pitch dark in her room when I took this.
But my camera's flash makes it look like it's the
middle of the day.

Bubble Baths. With Balloons.
Court brought a bunch of balloons home one night
after home teaching. One of his families had them
leftover from a party. So, the next morning, when
Meredith wanted to take a bath, I went ahead and
threw all the balloons in with her.
She loved it! I was worried that she wouldn't ever
take another bath with out balloons, but she does. Although
she sometimes still asks for the balloons when I'm filling
the tub.

Play-doh Cookie Shop.
Yes, I helped her make these cookies, but the
idea to make a cookie shop was all hers. She had to
have them set out just right and then I got to be
the customer and buy the cookies from her.

Stuffed Animal Hospital.
Meredith is fascinated by the bones in our
bodies. She will often have me feel her bones...usually
by touching her elbows. She also sings a little song about
"a bunch of bones that everyone owns,
Underneath the skin we're in!"
She heard it on an episode of Bubble Guppies - one
of her favorite Nick Jr. shows. So, one day she laid out all
her little stuffed friends and started taking care of them.
She even made pretend meals for them! That pink blanket on
the floor was her "x-ray table" and all of her animals would
take a turn getting their bones x-rayed. I told Court she's
going to have to get a doctor kit for her next birthday!

The Blizzard of 2011

When we moved to Texas, Court assured me that Hurricanes were rare. In his 26 years, he'd only been through one, and his family didn't even evacuate. Hurricane Rita was an anomaly. Of course, in the 3 years we lived there, we had 2 hurricanes! Gustav and Ike. So, I guess it should have been no surprise that our first winter in Chicago we'd experience one of the top 5 worst Blizzards in Chicago history. Interestingly, I was about Meredith's age, living not too far from here when another of the top 5 Blizzards in Chicago history hit. So, I get to claim surviving 2 blizzards in my lifetime! Let's just hope there aren't any more! But I won't hold my breath. I've also been told that tornadoes here are possible, but fairly rare...I REALLY hope I don't have to experience one of those! Knock on wood! But, anyway...

To be honest, the Blizzard of 2011 really wasn't THAT bad. It started snowing about 3:00 in the afternoon. The wind really started to pick up about 9:00 in the evening and it pretty much blew all night long. And the snow never stopped...from 3pm to 9am it dumped on us. I was worried about losing power, but Court reassured me that since most of the power lines around here are buried in the ground, we'd probably be okay. And he was right. The nice thing about the Blizzard was that Court got to stay home from work for the day and we played in the snow, drank hot chocolate and just hung out together as a family. It was kind of nice. Of course, we live in an apartment complex, so we didn't really have to scoop any snow...just enough to get the building door open and to get our cars out. I think it would have been worse if we'd had to dig out a driveway. And, I give kudos to the state of Illinois for their ability to clear roads so quickly. By the afternoon, we were able to get around town without too much difficulty. But there was a TON of snow piled up along the sides of the roads and in every parking lot for quite a while. I got tired of looking at it! Thankfully, all that snow is gone now.

Meredith trying to get through the huge snow bank
right out side our apartment building entrance.

This little natural snow sculpture was right
next to Court's car. If you look closely, you can
sort of see a bald eagle in it. I thought it was cool
looking. Amazing what the wind can create.

Our cars were buried. The snow fell in such a
way that the snow was really high on one side of
the cars, and not so much on the other.

Court and Meredith exploring post-Blizzard. They
plowed the parking lot several times throughout
the night, so that helped to keep the parking lots
easy to walk around in.

Meredith didn't really love getting snow on her face.Little girl in a sea of white.

Later in the afternoon after they got the sidewalks
somewhat cleared. I like this photo because you can
see how high the snow was in comparison to Meredith.
And you can see Court in the background working on
getting our cars dug out.

Fruge Family Happenings

Greetings all! It's been a VERY long time since I posted to the blog...just lazy, I guess. but I'm going to try to do better, especially with the new baby coming. But, anyway...here's a whole bunch of random pictures from the last few months...

This first group was taken at the Field Museum in downtown Chicago. Most of the big museums downtown have days where admission is free. Usually mid-week in the mornings. Perfect for moms and kids. I have a good friend with a little girl Meredith's age, so we often get together and take the girls downtown. It's a lot of fun. The Field Museum has all the dinosaurs and natural history exhibits. They also have a children's area where kids can dress up as different animals, dig for dinosaur bones, do dinosaur related crafts and science projects, and a room with some interesting musical instruments the kids can play. Meredith loves to go there and run around.

This is Meredith pretending to be a turtle.

This is Meredith and her friend Andee. Meredith is
a turtle, Andee is dressed in the beaver costume.

Here are the girls dressing up as Cardinals.

Meredith flapping her Cardinal wings.

This is one of Meredith's favorite things.
The dinosaur puppets. She's sitting in a dinosaur nest.

They also have an area that teaches the kids about how early
man grew corn, harvested it, stored it and cooked with it.
Here is Meredith picking ears of corn (plastic ones).

And this is Meredith and Andee stacking
them in the storage building.

We're learning to love snowy, cold winters...okay, I don't think I'll EVER love snowy, cold winters! But Meredith seems to like them. As soon as she sees snow she wants to get out and play in it. I wish I could have her enthusiasm for it.

Here she is all bundled up to go to the library.
She's holding a couple of videos we were on our way
to return. The library here is amazing and has all kinds of
movies and things that you can check out. We love going
to the library. But, anyway, I think she looks so
darn cute in her little hat, gloves and coat! ;)

Meredith and Court making snow angels. This was
after our first big snowstorm of the season. About a month
before the Blizzard of 2011. Fortunately, Court seems to like
playing in the snow as much as Meredith does.

Christmas Eve 2010.
Opening her Christmas jammies from
Awna D and Geezer (Court's parents).

Wearing her Christmas jammies. We got her that
Christmas Minnie Mouse from Walgreens and she
was instantly attached to it. In fact, we accidentally left the
first one we bought at a friend's house after Christmas
Eve dinnerand she was so beside herself about it, we ended
up stopping at another Walgreens on the way home
and buying her another one.

Christmas morning. Feeding baby Ariel while
wearing her new Cinderella dress. We found the dress at
Kohl's a few days after Halloween marked way down. What a
steal of a deal! Meredith wears it all the time!

We took Meredith to see Rapunzel a day or two before
Christmas and she loved the movie so much, Court braved the
crowds and ran to Toys 'R' Us to get her this Rapunzel doll.
We were surprised that she didn't play with it as much as
we thought she would.

More pictures to come.... ;)