et voila!

2 1/2 cans of black spray paint, 1/2 can polyurethane and $2.50 (i found a remnant) worth of nice faux leather and I now have a new modern telephone chair. I sanded it down originally thinking I might just put a clear coat on it, but I didn't like the color of the wood, so I went in the opposite direction and matched it to our entryway chest.

And I am still thinking about buying some copper colored faux ostrich leather I found online for the seat instead. This piece is sort of bland. Now I just need to figure out where exactly to put it...

i know i am supposed to be purging but...

I really really am cleaning house, trying to condense, writing a list of what needs to go at the final garage sale before we head to San Francisco and smoosh into a cozy in-town place, but while I have a garage for the purpose I couldn't resist this cool piece of furniture today. But, for $18 I couldn't pass it up.


It's a telephone table. So very old school for a
family that doesn't even have a land-line and is seriously considering ditching the desktop computer too. But I think after a bit of paint and a cool leather remnant from the fabric store (I am still in the fantasy stage, have yet to go shopping) it will make a very hip phone charging/laptop holding station.

snow days (and days and days...)

We got one of those Mid-western super-storms. It began with freezing rain, which coated my driveway with an inch and a half of solid ice. Then it snowed. And snowed some more. The kids were home from school for two days and everything was closed:the mall, the banks, the schools, everything.

Johannes was delayed a day in Las Vegas because no planes could land in St. Louis for 2 days. Of course we got all the bad weather while he was gone, and he came back just in time for a nice layer of fresh powder. There was much sledding and snowman building to be had.

monkey tee

This morning while I was looking for some quilting pieces, I found a small cache of plain white tees and iron on transfer paper. Jasper and I had a quick morning project. He picked the monkey and I did the rest.

i love macy's clearance sales

i am so giddy about my shopping find at macy's yesterday. while johannes was off skiing and arcadia was at a dance class with girl scouts i went with the boys to the macy's MLK day sale. i was able to use part of my christmas gift card to buy this amazing jacket. it needs to be fitted in the back but i can't wait to wear it. and the collar folds down for a completely different, less severe look. best macy's purchase in a long time. matthijas got a fuzzy skull pillow because he spent the entire hour coughing all over it. but he made me cut off the pink tag.

more phone-y baloney

Jasper is in love with the idea of snow but not the reality. So he likes to wear his snow boots around the house. I think he needs a Vote for Pedro shirt.

My sister sells Scentsy (see right sidebar for link) and they just came out with these new little smelly critters. When they were all coming out of the box the first day the overwhelming smell gave me insta-migraine, but once they were aired out and put in the kids' rooms they are quite nice and if i shut the door the critters work just as well as a candle to help smell up a room. There is a little zipper in the back for a smelly pack and the micro-fiber is very fuzzy.

Matthijas with Elmo
Jasper with Bananas

new winter wreath

In high school Horticulture class I first learned to make wreaths. We had yards and yards of grape vines we wound and twirled and twined, then added greenery and a hand-made bow. It was part of the "in case you use this education to open your own flower shop" part of Horticulture class.

All my wreaths but one I have made by hand. Last year I found this wreath on a blog and thought it was a great idea. So I made this one for the upcoming Valentines day. But, I decided it looks too small from the road, and our house still looks naked and uninhabited.

This week I decided to go for round two and try the larger squarer model.

Oh yeah, and it's made out of Lima Beans!

just how much things change

Matthijas has made so much progress in the past 2 years. Sometimes it's hard to remember exactly how far he's come.

This is a video from two years ago, from the first time he was able to string together a memorized sentence.

http://claushausiii.blogspot.com/2008/10/spooky-eyes.html

2010 End of Year Letter

Dear Friends and Family

As always we have had a busy year filled with the usual combination of travel and day-to-day life. I wrote this letter at the beginning of December hoping to announce where we would be moving next, but we still don't know, so we will do our best to keep you posted.

Johannes has been working primarily in International Law this year. His title keeps changing but he is in charge of Air and Space Law, Mobility Law, International Law, and all things related. This more exciting position has also lead to more exciting travel. He has been to New Jersey and Dallas, but also England and Hawaii and Honduras (Jenean was lucky enough to tag along on the trips to England and Hawaii). He has been a Scout Master for a local troop, pushing his boys through to get their Eagle Scout awards, camping in the hot and humid summer and the icy cold winter. He was also involved in a multi-sport Adventure Race in West Virginia this fall and just over the first week in December hitched a free ride with a pilot friend up to Alaska for a week of snowboarding and sight-seeing. That guy just can’t sit still.

Buckingham Fountain, Chicago IL ** Snowboarding Anchorage, Alaska ** Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Jenean has been busy with multiple projects as well. She of course does the usual, taking care of kids and home, but has added some new activities. Besides being the manager for our assortment of properties, she once again spent her summer repairing and renovating a few in Boise. Since summer only comes once a year, Jenean has taken on a part-time job as music and concert reviewer with a local online magazine (http://www.paperdragonink.com/) and has started her own music blog (http://www.digestibletrax.blogspot.com)/ . On the more domestic front, she has taken on a job as a sales consultant for home food storage (www.shelfreliance.com). In between all that she spends her days with Jasper, and evenings taking everyone to their multiple activities.

meeting rock stars, St. Louis ** Laie Point, North Shore, Oahu * * Stonehenge, England

Arcadia’s biggest change this year is that she got glasses. Now she is back on top in class and loves choosing which pair of glasses to coordinate with her outfits. She had to make a tough choice, but has forgone piano for the year in order to take private art lessons. Arcadia has always been an outstanding young artist but with a bit of instruction her talent is really blossoming. She has done the artwork for this year’s Christmas letter. For the third year in a row, Arcadia has been involved in Girl Scouts, now as a junior, and loves archery, camping, and all crafts. She was just awarded high honors at school for straight A’s on her report card, and always has a book in hand.

Reptile Gardens, South Dakota ** 4th of July at Glacier Nation Park, Montana ** Halloween

Matthijas has continued to amaze us this year. When he was diagnosed with Autism 3 ½years ago, we were told he may never speak more than a few words, may never read or write, or have real relationships. But we have been blessed with an amazing doctor, a life-saving therapist and lots of help and support from his school. After two years of early-intervention and intensive therapy he has fully integrated, and began the year in a regular Kindergarten class, taught himself how to read and write, talks constantly in complicated sentences, shares the funniest observations, and has made so many friends at school that he has become indistinguishable from his peers (except for his inability to sit still, which he inherited from a certain somebody). We can’t wait to see what comes next.

Slip and Slide in the front yard ** playing in the leaves outside of church ** Yellowstone, Wyoming

Jasper has started to become a real person lately. He is working on his potty-training and starting to talk more (which is a bit late, but apparently common with siblings who have speech delays). Jasper is a curious rascal who likes to get into everything, a bit of a perfectionist, makes the funniest faces you have ever seen on a kid and as the youngest wants to do whatever his siblings do, even if he is much too young. He is a very good eater (our 1^st), and has a creative mind combined with a rough and tumble growing boy body, which equals big trouble for mom.

Picking pumkins near our house ** The Rock and Roll Museum, Cleveland, OH ** New River gorge, West Virginia

After spending the summer in Boise working on houses, Johannes joined the rest of the family for a crazy road-trip vacation. We went up to North Idaho for a week, then drove up through Calgary to Red Deer, Alberta, Canada to visit Jenean’s sister, then all the way across the US to meet up with the Hansen cousins in Kirtland, Ohio before heading back home to St. Louis. Along the way we visited Glacier National Park, Banff, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Chicago, the Dutch town of Pella, Iowa and the Rock’n’Roll Museum in Cleveland. We are so glad we got to see some of you on along the way.

Happy Holidays to you all, best wishes and our love,

Johannes, Jenean, Arcadia, Matthijas & Jasper

Meramec Caverns, Missouri ** Mount Rushmore, South Dakota ** Sandpoint, Idaho

Christmas in Chicago

Since we were between tenants and needed to make sure the place was ready for the new guy, we headed up to Chicago for business and Christmas. We packed the back of the truck with all the presents and our cold-weather gear and arrived in time for Christmas Eve.

We met up with Johannes' new friend he met in Alaska, who was visiting older relatives in Chicago but wanted to get out and see the city. We had a jam-packed day. We took him to Navy Pier, took him to the German Christmas market and lunch at one of Chicago's many hot sandwich places.

Arcadia had only packed her Converse and kept stepping in melting snow and tried to freeze off her toes. I never shop at Walgreens unless I am in Chicago, then they become my very best friend, with one on every other street corner you can find anything. We found her some fat fuzzy socks, wrapped them up in plastic bags and shoved them back in her wet shoes. It wasn't as impressive as the twisted plastic bag do-rag/ear-muffs I saw on the homeless guy outside of Walgreens, but it warmed her back up for the rest of the day.

Having narrowly avoided icicle-pops for toes, we were able to visit the Art Institute for a little over an hour and hit all the major points. It is usually so crowded that such a speedy attempt would generally fail, but the crowd was oddly sparse and we could get up close and personal (behind the safety wire of course) with Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keefe, Monet, Picasso, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and other favorites.

Stained glass museum at Navy Pier

One of the most peaceful places in Chicago is in the middle of Navy Pier, one of the busiest, noisiest, overcrowded tourists spot in town.

The stained glass museum is housed amidst the Ferris Wheel, the IMAX, the Children's Museum, the speed boats, the NPR radio station, the shops, the fireworks, the convention center, and still, it is the most relaxing peaceful place.

I especially like to visit the museum in the winter because the light coming through the windows is constantly shifting so the pieces can show off all of their dazzling layers.

They also make really great wallpaper for my phone.

Matthijas' first Christmas Program

Some days I wish I had children who who had a bit LESS personality. Case in point: Matthijas' first ever school Christmas program.

Matthijas has been working hard to learn the songs for his program. He was given a lyrics sheet so he was able to memorize all of the words, and I would catch him sing to himself. We broke out the new Christmas PJs a few days early so he would have publicly presentable pajamas for his program, and he was bursting with joy.

Jasper and I got there early enough for a good seat.

Matthijas lined up nicely, then fell off the platform scaring his teacher half to death, though he didn't blink. Once he was safely secured on the ground, he found me in the audience and waved and blew kisses and, with the inclusion of some nose-picking, looked like all the other kids on stage.

Just as the program began Jasper mutated immediately into a possessed holy terror. I should have expected it. I haven't sat all the way through a church meeting in 5 1/2 years. Why did I even think I could make it through a 15 minute kid's production. False hopes I guess. Anyhow, with Jasper throwing himself prostrate upon the dirty gym floor howling while I tried to watch Matthijas sweetly make antler ears and jingle his little Christmas bells, I was unable to get a decent video of the performance. A friend was there peacefully video-taping the performance that her Kindergartener was unable to attend due to the nasty bug going around. I will try to get a copy, though Jasper's screams will probably also show up.

Anyhow, I really did my best to capture the moment, but was foiled by Jasper's enthusiastic outburst. So, to make up for it I have bribed Matthijas to sing a few songs for you solo.

( The concession was I had to give him puffy hair, so he looks like a "puffle". I will try to get it uploaded from my phone and post here later today.)

Sword fighting at the claus haus

I am stinky at uploading videos. So far this is the best I can do:

The boys sword fighting.

http://picasaweb.google.com/claushausiii/2010102402?authkey=Gv1sRgCPi2jL6A1N2ROA#5557327024302454130

more phone un-clogging

My phone is really overloaded...

Jasper thinks he's BIG. He likes to try to play WiiFit all by himself. This is him trying to feed his penguin some fish on the balance board.

Arcadia dressed Jasper up as Sherlock Holmes.

Arcadia thought she would be brave and watch Ghostbusters, but wasn't brave enough to watch it on the TV, it had to be small screen. So she had the portable DVD player. I peeked in and saw how she was coping...She didn't see me take the picture but after the movie was over she announced it wasn't scary at all, just weird. Yeah right.

unclogging my phone

My phone is gathering up random pictures, a lot are just those that I send to Johannes during the day about our daily exploits. Here is a smattering of pictures of the boys.

Just this morning I was making cookies. I was cleaning up and had taken apart the Kitchenaid. I turned my back to put the dough in the fridge, and a certain someone grabbed the giant beater and started playing tongue gymnastics with the wires.

Jasper likes to dress up as a Viking, and not just for Halloween. I was lucky this day that Johannes came home for lunch, because I was getting a fair number of bruises from berserker attacks.

On parent'teacher conference day we went to ToysRUs to get our wiggles out and the boys were in Thomas heaven.
























Right before it got too cold to go outside, Johannes' office-mate invited us to come watch his rugby game. The boys loved the wrestling + balls.