24 inches

What do you do when you have 24 inches of snow?

 send the boys out to shovel

 build snow forts

 try out snow shoes

 entertain yourself by making toothpick structures

 marvel at snowmen people made

 B jumped off the snowbank and landed in waist deep snow.

he threw his arms up towards me and said ,'help!'

 c was in waist deep too. 

she flung herself to her belly and started saying to herself-

while pulling herself forward- 'crawl, crawl, crawl'

 J needed some help too!

 meet our little snowman-olaf, of course.

blast me to the moon

the 'kids' got a rocket for christmas. not sure who was more excited to send it up. dad or them.

(this was before the big freeze)

 excited for the launch

lift off.

it was pretty cool!

it cleared our house and landed on our neighbors shed (about 3 acres away)-luckily a strong gust of wind kicked up and blew it off.

relentless

it's -13 today. again. this cold spell is suffocating. 

baby c has been busy baking....

 on one of the days, when it wasn't in the negatives, maybe 15, the kids ventured out to play.

they were outside for about 10 minutes before they came in freezing.

 g waits out the cold by figuring out how to make Chinese stars.

ps 4-8 inches of snow predicted for tomorrow. which means another snow day. i think it's our 6th. not to mention about 15 late start days (which i actually love)

mr. sun, sun, mr. golden sun, please shine down on me!

road trip and how we roll on sunday

the 3 of us went on a road trip. i think we logged 190 miles before 3 o'clock. we had to pick up some wood finish. luckily we were by a pretty big city. went for trader joes and was delighted at everything else i found. trader joes, chick fil a and wegmans. yeah! shopping. fun shopping. fun times. good food.

 kids were pretty happy about the play place

 my spoils.... everyone else was pretty happy about this!

as a side note, this is how b ended up at church this past sunday.

he has 3 pair of CHURCH shoes, yet, this is how he walked into the chapel-dont judge. 

8:30 departure time and getting all 6 of us ready and  out the door has really turned into survival of the fittest sunday mornings. no matter how organized i am. i always need just 10 more minutes. 

but, we have yet to be late :)

a pretty important birthday

my oldest son turned 12. yep, thats right, TWELVE! unbelievable! 

His dinner-as requested- costco pizza, tator tots, fruit salad, naan bread. 

 he got a few books, a knife, a lava lamp and a pretty cool nerd gun

 and top it off with skor bar cake. his favorite. every year. loves it.

Another reason that this is such a special birthday is that was he was ordained into the priesthood. 

somehow, i managed to get NO pictures of this night. we actually had it at our house, the night of his birthday. Our home teacher came, the YM's president and some other good friends. it was so sweet. We sang praise to the man ahead of time and then a prayer. it's such a big responsibility for him. i think he feels the responsibility of this. he is such a sweet boy. i hope he never looses that.

Some things about him-

-enjoys scouting

-loves to rock climb and mountain bike

-loves to read

-is a great big brother to b and c

-loves pizza

- has a sweet heart

-loves baked goods (cookies, chocolate sheet cake...)

- is honest

he is such a great kid! can't imagine our family without him- his sense of humor, kindness and helpfulness.

happy birthday!

a look back at this cutie