Guide To Making a Baby Snow Angel

Step 1: Take a cute baby and place her in the snow.

Step 2: Let her smile at you and wave her arms and legs.
Warning, she may fling a little snow on her face.

Step 3: Pick up that cute little angel
and Voila!
A baby snow angel! So darling.

Terribly, Cute Two

We have a two year old in the family. It's strange because she has seemed two for a while so having it "officially" happen doesn't seem to change too much. I find it amusing that her birthday twin cousin also had a bus cake. What are the chances? This was specifically requested by her. Although I wonder why I even bother to make her cake. She just eats the candy off the top and licks the frosting. Its kinda like when she eats a sandwich cookie (aka Oreo) she pulls them apart, licks the frosting off and chucks the cookies. Apparently that was just there to protect the frosting.

We love having Ms. Eliza around our home. She makes us laugh. She is so helpful- sets the dinner table while her brothers whine and moan about being hungry. I like her motivation! She is talkative, talkative, talkative. Although I hear that she rarely speaks in nursery. So surprising! She has her moments. When she's mad, she screams. I had a hard time taking her seriously when one evening after removing her piggy tails her hair stood straight out from her head. She was screaming and I was laughing. Poor girl.

I love that her hair is getting long enough to put "tails" in. I do it solely for my amusement.

Eliza in a grumpy moment. I can't even remember what it was about but I had to take a picture.

Back

I'm not much in love with the idea of sending my son to school all day.
I know it's a necessary evil.
I'm sure he's learning lots of incredible, great things while there.
But the truth of it is . . . I miss him.
Yes, horribly selfish of me, but there are days I really want him to stay home.
He stayed home from school yesterday since Clark was off work and we were still "recovering" from our trip.
I felt like today was slightly reminiscent of the first day of school.
I think a tear or two escaped while I watched him jump from the van and trudge into school.

His childhood seems to be slipping quickly from me.
Wasn't I just holding him and reading a book??
I wish I could have that time back.
I miss that too.

Look at this big boy.
He can hold his baby sister and read her a book!
I have loved this short break from school to have him home.
It has reminded me of his joyfully, tender spirit. His enthusiasm and excitement for life.
And yes, I'm looking forward to the next break.
Or maybe even a snow day!

Putting Away Christmas

I cringed at the idea of taking down this magnificent beauty. Ok, it caused a bit of a headache at first. And required a new tree stand. But this tree was gorgeous. After we stripped the tree of it's ornaments and ribbons I found myself begging Clark to let us keep it up. Then I remembered that it was shedding like crazy and Eliza's birthday is in days and well . . . life needed to go on. It was time to put Christmas away.

But, the feelings of Christmas don't! I'm so, so, SO happy, excited, grateful . . . thrilled that we are studying the New Testament this year. More especially that I have the great opportunity to study and ponder the life of Christ on a day-to-day basis.

My little nudge of encouragement to everyone to spend some time reading and pondering in the New Testament this year.

Happy New Year!

Snow Fun

When you've got a pile full of snow, who could resist playing? Well, maybe some can but not these guys. Although, Jaron is more of the die-hard snow man (hah!) we finally convinced Russell it wasn't all that bad. I don't think Russell tolerates the cold very well. But once you are out playing, you kinda ignore the cold thing. I remember playing in below zero weather.

Tunneling and sledding.

Good thing for older cousins who were willing to put the manpower into these extensive tunnels systems. Thank goodness no cave-ins.

This is one content kid!

Winter

We drove for our white Christmas this year. Yep, we piled all our kids and suitcases bursting with clothes, diapers, and snow gear into our van at 2:00 pm on Christmas day and started driving in search of snow. Well, we did have a destination in mind: Minnesota. And when we got there it looked like this . . .

and this . . .

and this!

Isn't it just so Beautiful?

While there we got to enjoy lots of family (grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles) and also friends. Chaos and fun. Don't these boys look a lot alike? I mean, aside from the matching shirts obviously.

Missing it already. Well . . . some of it!

9:00 am

Just have to share . . .
we moved to 9:00 am church today.
And gosh, it's been

AWESOME!!!

And having an afternoon nap (10 minutes) wasn't bad either.

But just so you don't think I've just been lazying around on Sabbath afternoon I've been cozily reading Jesus the Christ in my flannel pjs. Well, I'm still wearing my dressy shirt but it's too cold to hang around in a skirt all day sans nylons.

So I'll be singing every Sunday, "Welcome, welcome Sabbath morning."

Can you guess I'm excited about this??

(What a great post for the 1st of the year.)