Wii Did It

Yes, the Studer family finally jumped on the bandwagon (only 2 years late!) and bought a Wii. We had lots of fun trying it out with the kids this morning. Not surprisingly, they are better than we are at a lot of stuff. Ellie in particular is some kind of Wii prodigy, and seriously schooled both of her parents at Wii bike racing and sword fighting.

The boys' favorite game is an airplane one, and it didn't take Maguire long to figure out how to make the plane do all sorts of flips and dives. Check out his tongue....

Ellie tried out the canoeing game.

Here she is tearing up the racetrack on the bicycling game.

Alex loved the airplane game, too.

Concentrating soooo hard.....

Check out Ellie's extreme sword-fighting skills. Should we be nervous that she takes this so seriously? Maybe it will help to channel some of her 5 year old rage into the game, instead of directing it at her siblings...

A Bunch of Little Animals...

...and some zoo creatures, too! We hit the Watertown Zoo on Memorial Day for some fun. It's not a very big zoo, but it's the perfect size for smaller kids to spend an afternoon.

Of course, the obligatory kid-face-on-animal-body photo ops:

The best picture we could get of all three at once:

We checked out lots of birds, lemurs, penguins, monkeys, a jaguar, and more...

We had a lot of fun feeding the birds. This picture was taken mere milliseconds before a cranky duck bit Alex's finger.


He was not amused, to say the least.





While Ellie & Alex learned the finer points of milking a water-fountain cow...


Maguire was the only one brave enough to pet some little goats. Check out the man in the white tank top & jean shorts at the edge of the picture, wandering around the petting zoo WITHOUT ANY SHOES ON.

Nasty.

And no, it was not Chris. He only has neon colored tank tops.

Miss Ellie spent a good portion of our visit to the zoo telling the boys to "hurry up....walk faster!"

But they were taking plenty of time walking footloose and fancy-free outside the stroller, smelling the roses......

But how can you be annoyed at a face like this one?

So, Ellie decided since no one else was using the stroller, she'd take advantage of the ride.

The rest of the pictures are totally random and just thrown in for cuteness factor.

We know that all the grandparents just care about the pictures, anyway.

It was a great day, up to almost the last minute, when we sorely regretted the no-nap situation and wished we'd purchased a triple stroller. Live & learn, right?

Guilty As Charged

Songbirds

Someone tell me...at what point will it get easier to have them all do something at the same time? Love how Alex is lagging about 7 beats behind the other two the whole song.

Real post coming soon(ish), with all sorts of random happenings and photographs. The Studer blogging machine seems to have lost most of its steam, but I am hopeful that nicer weather will bring a fresh dose of inspiration. Or at least the chance to go outside.

Let's Take a Moment: Shameless Plug

For those of you who don't know, my youngest brother Nate & his lovely bride Alissa are part of a band called Scattered Trees. Their 3rd album was just released yesterday, and for a month, they are giving away the whole album FREE!!!! Their first two albums are available on iTunes, and this one will be eventually. But check them out! Here's a link to the free downloads with a word from Nate:

http://scatteredtrees.bandcamp.com/album/sympathy?autoplay=true

I don't know if many of you were aware that Scattered Trees was recording another release. Well, it's finished.

I want to let you in on some of what the album means to me. Before I do, I have to say that I think music is in one of it's most powerful forms when it starts belonging to the listener. When it's just you, the music, and what it means to you. Somewhere it becomes yours. Sometimes we share with others what a song means to us, other times it's just too deep. This is what the record is to me. If these songs find a place in what's going on in your life please let them become your own.

For the most part these songs are about my Father who passed away last August. The album is full of conversations I had, or wish I had, with him. Some of the songs deal with the inevitable emotional shit holes we climb out of when we go through something as final as the death of someone we love. This record is full of the heaviness of honesty in times like these. It is a look into my grieving process.

We are going to try something risky. We are going to give the record away for a month. We want to ask you to please spread this record around as much as you can. Go ahead and give it away. Right now Scattered Trees needs you to help us make as many new fans as possible. We need new people at our shows more than we need the money in your itunes account. I hope you enjoy the record. It's called Sympathy.

See you at the shows,

Nate

To Satisfy Your Adorable Quotient for Today

Staying Afloat

Many apologies for the long lapse in posting. Life at the Studer house has been anything but boring the last few weeks. The picture above is of our basement, and yes, that is an inch of water covering the floor. This is our first spring in Huron, and what a wonderful initiation to the flat plains of East Central South Dakota we have received. Massive amounts of snow this winter melting in a short period does not make for a great situation, and we are now the proud owners of an in-house wading pool!

Chris was out of town for work when the water problems started, so thanks to some wonderful friends and their giant Shop-Vac (Hi, Justin & Allison!), we got the carpet ripped up and started the water removal process. Our problem seems to be of the seeping-water variety, so despite our almost daily use of the Shop-Vac, by the next morning we are greeted with an inch of water lining the floor again. The waterproofing contractors have been out for an estimate, and they are confident that the problem is fixable (at no small cost, of course!) but since this is their busiest season, they cannot return to fix it until April 19th! So we continue to plug away with the Shop-Vac and thank the good Lord that 95% of the stuff in the basement was just Rubbermaid totes full of baby clothes. Seriously, if I ever meet the person who invented those things, I just might kiss him/her right on the mouth. And although this would not have been our method of choice to inspire a full-scale basement remodel, we will certainly not be sad to see the nasty dark wood paneling go far, far away. There was only one room of the basement that was carpeted, the remainder was just concrete-floor storage space.

And when we're not busy removing water from the basement, we are busy dealing with this...

Yes, that's right, he can fully escape the crib on his own. Full-fledged battles of the will occur daily at naptime and bedtime, and I am confident that Alex will soon learn that Mommy means business! What's funny about this is that every time he climbs out of the crib, he gets a swat on the behind. And Maguire is there to provide colorful commentary EVERY SINGLE TIME. When Alex cries after a spanking: "Alex, he's very sad, Mommy." Or, "Is it ouchy, Alex?" Or my personal favorite, "You gotta learn, Alex!" Good stuff.

Maguire, surely spouting his knowledge on the evils of crib escape.

And here's some other random pictures, just to amuse and satisfy the grandparents...