Snow Days!

The kids came home from school on Wednesday all excited, telling me, "We might not have to go to school tomorrow because of snow!". Yeah, sure there was a snow/ice storm predicted, but there have been storms predicted before and we don't get anything. Wednesday was a beautiful day in the 50's, but I decided I'd better go get my grocery shopping done, just in case. Good thing I did!

Thursday morning I woke up during the early morning hours to the sound of freezing rain hitting our bedroom windows. I got out of bed at the regular time and went to check for any school closings on the computer before jumping in the shower. There were a couple of school districts listed, but ours wasn't one of them, so I was just about to get in the shower and then get the kids up (although Courtney & Hayley were already up -- very uncharacteristic for them!) when the phone rang with a recording from the school district that school was canceled for the day. Hooray -- back to bed!

It turned out to be the monster storm that had been predicted. We got freezing rain, ice and lots of snow (and then lots of wind to blow all that snow around into big drifts). It's hard to say what the snow total was because of the drifts, but I bet it was close to a foot. It's the most we've seen since living here.

Our back patio was a great example of the drifting, powdery snow.

The kids spent the morning inside. McKay worked on his paper mache bug science project.

The girls did a little Play-Doh.

After lunch I agreed to let them go outside and play for a bit (they had been begging all morning). It was still pretty cold and snowy and windy, and I figured they wouldn't stay out long. Living in Texas, we don't have a lot of good winter outer wear for playing in the snow -- no boots or water-proof gloves. They put on lots of layers and were ready to go!

First they played in the big drift on the back patio.

They found an old sled in our garage from the previous owners that they tried on the drift (it didn't work so well).

Then the girls were ready to come in for a break.

Love the rosy cheeks!

Then they went back out to the front for a bit. Courtney found another big drift to play in.

Hayley apparently lost her scarf somewhere out in the white expanse. Maybe we'll find it as the snow starts to melt.

Our brother-in-law Brandon spent a little time clearing the driveway a bit with the Skid Steer.

The kids came back in to warm up and decided it was too cold to go back out again. Brian needed to try to get to the Post Office in the late afternoon. He found our neighbor stuck at the end of our driveway -- he was coming home from work and couldn't get down his driveway any further because of snow drifts. Brian talked to him for a minute and then kept going down the road, but decided at the entrance to the subdivision that he wasn't going to make it to the Post Office so he turned around and came back. He changed his clothes and went back out to help our neighbor. He spent a couple more hours out there with the Skid Steer helping our neighbor clear the drifts from his driveway. When he came in after dark, he said his fingers were pretty numb (and a couple of them still were this morning). I guess we really should invest in some good winter gloves and boots!

We got another phone call Thursday afternoon that school would also be canceled on Friday. Everybody was excited! (And it's nice to know ahead of time so you dont' spend the evening getting lunches and backpacks ready and wake up early only to find out school is canceled.)

Today (Friday) is Brian's birthday and he got to spend the morning cleaning up more snow! First he shoveled the front walk -- look at all that snow!

Courtney wanted to help for a bit with her little shovel.

Then Brian used the Skid Steer to clear off the driveway.

McKay did a little more work on the sidewalk.

Now the front walk and driveway are clear!

Brian and I are supposed to go out tonight to celebrate his birthday. We've been planning to go out to dinner and a movie with our friends Brad & Emily (it is also Brad's birthday today) so we'll see what the rest of the day brings. We've heard the roads are still pretty bad and who knows if the restaurant or theater will even be open tonight!

In the meantime, we'll stay inside and try to stay warm!

Black Eye

It's taken me all week to get this up, but I had to record our family's recent black eye. The proud recipient of said black eye would be Courtney.

Courtney got her black eye by playing some kind of "Monkey in the Middle" game in the dark in the basement with a flashlight and her two visiting cousins. Apparently the flashlight was being thrown and managed to hit Courtney in the eye. She told me about it that night but all I saw was the little cut. In the morning, however, when I saw her my first thought was "Why in the world is Courtney wearing purple eye shadow?"

Then I realized it was actually a big ole bruise on her eyelid. She seemed pretty proud of it and had to tell anybody at church she had a black eye. She was even assigned to say the prayer in Primary and included in it that her "black eye would get better." And it did. :-)

Welcome to Ponyland

Every once in a while, my girls remember that they do like animals besides dogs and cats. Last week Courtney and Hayley decided to create "Ponyland" in their bedroom.

It is quite a magical place! There is a waterfall...

... with a secret place behind it where only the ponies with wings can go (at least I think it was the ponies with wings).

... and a special lake at the top where only the regular ponies can go...

There is a Pony castle that their cousin Maison helped them build.

There are beautiful trees and forests all around...

And a few extra surprises too! Like an upstairs computer room:

And a lake where you can rent canoes and life jackets:

And even a pound where you can adopt puppies (of course those puppies had to get in somewhere!).

I didn't get any pictures of the actual ponies, but they were made out of paper too.

It's truly a magical place! (And unfortunately, it started to overtake the bedroom a little too much so it had to be relocated to the basement.)

Hannah's Birthday

So it's taken me more than a few days to get this post up. It seems like my week has been consumed with my first experience selling stuff on eBay. Maybe it shouldn't be so time-consuming, but it sure seemed to eat up all my time. (We were selling some security system components we acquired through our apartments, i.e. a tenant who was way behind on his rent and to avoid getting evicted just left and we found this box of stuff, which legally we are entitled to after a certain time period as part of a landlord lien for unpaid rent.)

Anyway...

As I mentioned in my last post, Hannah celebrated her 9th birthday this past Sunday. I say it every birthday for my kids, but how do they grow up so fast? She was very excited and couldn't wait for me to get home from my meeting after church to open her presents.

Since Courtney is obsessed with dogs these days, Hannah has taken the cat route. She wanted all kinds of cat stuff, and she ended up getting a set of short books about cats ("Catwings"), a card game featuring cats, some Littlest Pet Shop cats and a custom CD with a few songs about cats (I downloaded several other "new" songs for her as well as the cat songs).

I also ordered her a few other books that ended up being backordered and didn't arrive in time for her birthday. One (a Jr. Cookbook) I just printed a picture of and the other two (Shel Silvertein poetry books) I checked out from the library and gave her the library copies in a box. Is that lame?

Grandpa and Grandma sent a new scooter which the kids had to test-drive all over the kitchen afterward.

It was no surprise that she wanted a cat cake this year. We found a picture of one that she liked and I tried to make a few modifications to it. Sometimes I really wonder how these cakes are going to turn out, but I've learned over the years to not stress over how perfect it looks. The only opinion that matters is the birthday girl's and she told me it was "gorgeous" :-).

I always try to write the birthday kid's name and age somewhere on the cake. I put Hannah's on the side and decided to add nine 9's around the edge as well since she's 9 and cats have 9 lives. She thought that was pretty funny.

Time for blowing out the candles! Think hard about that wish...

And she got them all with one blow!

Happy, Happy Birthday Hannah!

Binary Birthday

Tomorrow is Hannah's 9th birthday. She is our "binary baby," born on 1-10-01 at 11:11am. I told her tomorrow is a "binary birthday" since it's 1-10-10! (And next year will be an even bigger binary birthday for her when she turns 10 on 1-10-11.)

I'm sure I will have lots of pictures to post in a few days of her birthday celebration and cake. But for now I wanted to share one of the little projects I did for her. She has enjoyed watching some of our old home video recently and even put some of it on her new Walkman to watch on the bus ride home (and in bed late at night...hmm...) One of the other things I did for her birthday was find some new songs for her to listen to on her Walkman. One of the songs I found is called "BYou" (by Sabrina Bryan). I thought that the song really fit her personality and her uniqueness, so I put together a little video montage of Hannah through the years.

She is truly one-of-a-kind! We love our binary girl!

Snow and Cold

The last several weeks have brought a fair amount of snow and cold weather, at least in terms of Texas standards (or at least it seems that way to us!). I don't remember last year being so cold and snowy/icy in December. (I do remember that the biggest snow storms came in late spring, so we're not done with snow yet!)

It's not like we've had a ton of snow -- just a few inches here and there -- but it's enough to give everything a good coating. And then it hasn't warmed up enough to melt it quickly (like it did last year), so it melts a bit and then turns into ice.

For the most part, I like the snow (when I don't have to be out driving in it). It's a nice change from so many years in Houston and also not so overwhelming that we have to get out and shovel sidewalks all the time. But I could do without the freezing cold (especially that cold wind that goes right through you). We're still struggling with heating issues in our house, due to poor insulation and remodeling still in progress and heat pumps that aren't working well. We decided to try a propane heater in front of the fireplace instead of building fires in the hope that it would be a more efficient heat source for the family room. So far it's been working okay, although there are areas of the house that never do get very warm. We just make sure to stay bundled up!

Christmas break is over and the kids aren't sure how excited they are to be going back to school in the morning. I don't think any of us are very excited for the alarm clocks to have to be set again. One trick I've learned, though, for prodding the kids out of bed on the cold mornings is after I initially wake them up, I throw their clothes into the dryer for a couple of minutes. Then they know if they hurry and get up, they can put on nice warm clothes!

Christmas Day

Christmas was pretty quiet again this year, which was nice. I really enjoy just spending the day with our little family.

Santa did manage to find our house.

Santa has to leave the stockings on the couch because our mantel isn't strong enough to support them once they're full.

One of our traditions is that the kids have to get dressed before they cane come out of their room. They were SO excited to show us that they all coordinated and chose red shirts with jeans to wear.

Another tradition is that we all choose our "spot" in the family room and then the kids pass out all the presents to everyone.

Last year I started a tradition of having the kids each make a gift for their siblings. It worked really well and they were all excited to do it again this year. Of course, I had a lot harder time trying to think of ideas for them to make that wouldn't be too expensive or too difficult or too time-consuming. They were a little simpler than last year, and probably not qutie as practical, but it still turned out well and they all seemed to enjoy it.

Courtney was the only one who knew what she wanted to make -- fleece scarves for everyone.

McKay put together a little craft kit for his sisters of pom-pom dogs and cats that can be attached to backpacks.

Hannah chose a little plaster-of-paris figure from the craft aisle for each person and then painted them herself. Courtney is holding the little dog (of course!) Hannah picked for her.

And Hayley decorated craft foam bookmarks (we've got a lot of readers in our house!). I didn't get a picture of just the bookmarks, but if you look closely, you can see Courtney's and Hannah's in their big piles below.

We take turns opening presents -- the kids complain about this at times, too, but I tell them one of my favorite things about Christmas is watching them open their gifts. I also make the kids pose for a picture with all their loot after we're done. As you can see, books seemed to be at the top of the list this year, along with Webkinz and a few Wii games. (And, sadly, Courtney did not get her real live puppy this year, but just about everything she did get had something to do with dogs.)

The girls couldn't wait to name and "adopt" their new Webkinz (you'll notice that Courtney's are all dogs, while Hannah's are cats -- Hayley got a mix of a dog, a unicorn and a seal).

And check out some of the new books.

Since then, the kids have done more reading and have had fun trying out their new Wii games (MarioKart and Mario Party are big hits) and the kids and I have all tested out my new Wii Fit Plus. Now to just keep with it through the new year!