March Madness--White Family Edition--Final Four Update

Guest blogger Robby here. Losses by Missouri, OU, and Pitt have shaken up the leaderboard in the White family tournament challenge.

With three games to go, four participants still have a shot at the title. Here's who wins, based on how things play out in the final game:

Villanova over Michigan St--Tommy wins
Villanova over Connecticut--Tommy wins
Michigan St over Villanova--Tommy wins
Michigan St over UNC--Forrest wins
UNC over Michigan St--Forrest wins
UNC over Connecticut--David wins
Connecticut over Villanova--Robby wins
Connecticut over UNC--Robby wins

Good luck!

March Madness--White Family Edition

Guest blogger Robby here. With the Elite Eight now set in the NCAA basketball tournament, favorites are shaping up among the contestants in the annual White Family Tournament Challenge.

The remaining 7 games can play out a total of 128 different ways. Tio Tom leads the pack as the winner in 28% of these scenarios, followed by Little Robby (20% of scenarios), and Tommy (14%).

Naturally, things shape up quite differently depending on which team wins the national championship. Here are the family members who have the most ways of winning, given a national title by a specific team:

Connecticut--Big Robby
Louisville--Tio Tom
Pittsburgh--Sharon
UNC--Tio Tom
Michigan St--Tio Tom
OU--Little Robby*
Missouri--Tio Tom
Villanova--Tommy*

* wins no matter what if this team is national champ

Good luck to all!

Jenna says...

As Daddy was leaving for school Jenna says, "Don't crash your car." And then after the door closes she explains to me, "If Daddy crashes his car, he can just get out and tape it and then get back in and drive."

House buying jitters

This week we go out to Iowa to go house hunting. Ames isn't the biggest town in the US, so the selection isn't quite as wide as I wish it were. I must say though that the anticipation of this trip is consuming me. I have been waking up early in the morning with thoughts of which house to buy and how much to spend. I have spent much of the last few days examining and re-examining the list of houses currently on the market in Ames. We have our short list of homes to look at, but I am afraid that there is not one clear winner. Then I have been obsessing in my mind how big this decision is (or at least to me is... I do spend a majority of my time in my home.) I feel like your house defines a large part of your life, like who your neighbors are, who your kids play with regularly, which ward you are in, who you interact with regularly. I have always felt guided about where we were supposed to live, but this time it feels like such a HUGE decision. We don't know how long we will be in Iowa. It could be just a few years or it could me more than a decade, or who knows, maybe the rest of our lives. I know we could always move more than once if were were going to be there for a long time, but I hate the process of moving. I would really like to get this right the first time so that if we wanted to stay longer we wouldn't have to move to accommodate our family. I want the house that is just right. Does it exist? I guess I will have to wait and find out. But, the waiting is driving me crazy!

Thanks for listening. I feel better now.

Kaci's Photo Delights

A while back Kaci sent us the pics she took of us while we were visiting in TX over Christmas Break. I have been meaning to post them, but have been a very negligent blogger lately. All is quiet in my house right now so I have to steal a chance to post these, so you, too, can enjoy them.

As you can tell below, Jenna had the most fun playing in front of the camera for Kaci...

Robby and Kaci had more fun in the kitchen making coffee cake (if you will remember they made hummus together the night before). Delicious!

For the last series of pictures, you get Jenna in motion. Dance, Jenna, dance...

And my personal favorite of all of them...

With many thanks to Krazy Aunt Kaci!

Indianapolis Children's Museum

Ever since we moved to IN we have heard everyone talk about how great the Indianapolis Children's Museum is. I even found a place online where they said it was the "best children's museum in the country!" Whether you believe that or not, we went, and I will say it was one of the best children's museum's I have visited. Which is good because otherwise I would have been really disappointed to spend that amount of cash to go and see it.

The other bonus about this trip was that I got a chance to see an old high school friend of mine, Andrea, that I recently connected with through facebook. When I saw Andrea's profile and saw that she lived close to Indy, I suggested we should get together. We decided to meet at the museum and enjoy a day letting the kids play.

We saw a real live Jenna-saurus sitting on her eggs.

There was even an Olivia-saurus, too!

Playing under the bridge

There were these cool plastic shapes that looked like blown glass that the kids could play with.

Doing what mommys do.

So what would you call a girl who has been knighted?

Our lego-maniac had to have some fun with the lego castle room.

Nap time!

There is a rule somewhere that every time you pass a carousel you have to ride it! (Or, at least Jenna thinks there is.)

I don't even want to begin to think how many other kids have licked these plastic cupcakes, too. (I didn't take this picture, Robby did.)

It was so good to see you, Andrea, and meet your kids! Thanks for a very fun day!

Pi Day!

This year our Pi Day celebration was a little abbreviated due to a trip to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. But, we couldn't let the day pass without a little celebration so here are Robby, Chap, and Jenna about to dig into our Pi Day pie...

This year we will give two Pi Day celebration awards though...

For "Most Spirited Pi Day Attire" we give the award to our good friend Christy for her awesome homemade Pi Day T-shirt!

And for "Best Pi Impression" we award the Sjolseth family for their human pi impression picture. This post made us laugh! Especially since we were glad to send them their Pi Day pie award from winning last year's Pi Day contest (see the post here and the results here).

And don't worry, we are thinking up another fun Pi Day contest for next year!

A Sign of Spring

Courtesy of our resident ornithologist, Li'l Robby...

Woo-hoo! It's warming up!

Happy Texas Independence Day!

Or rather, happy belated Texas Independence Day! I'll share our celebration with you anyway...

First we made a Texas-sized pancake...

a Texas-shaped chocolate cake (Robby's cake pan that he ordered showed up just in time at 3pm that afternoon)...

and I wore my new Texas shirt!

And now for the mystery picture... what is it?!

Let's eat!

Cute moments like this are what make me happy to be a mom. This picture also brings gratitude to my heart for our dear birthparents. Without them, we wouldn't be able to share in such simple and joyous moments.

Go Team!

Back at the end of February, Robby took Chap and Jenna to the last Purdue women's basketball game of the season. They were excited for a night out with Dad, and I was excited for a Mama breather night. Jenna was also thrilled to have another opportunity to dress up as a Purdue cheerleader and dance with the band all night. Looks like they had fun, doesn't it?

I think this pic will go on my list of favorite pics of my kids.

Go Boilers!

They were really lucky that night because they had to walk quite aways to get to where the car was parked, and not to long after they got to the car it started raining hard.

Who knows, Jenna may have aspirations to be on the cheerleading squad in the future.