FIRST SNOW!

 The first snow of the season was a GREAT one.  We got a good covering on the ground at a time when we could go out and play in it.  WHOO HOO!

 The kids loved it.  They were throwing snowballs at me though.  Not a huge fan of getting hit in the face with snowballs.

 It came down in HUGE flakes.  So neat.

 It looked great on our Christmas lights.  Way to go, Andrew.  Our house looks amazing.

 After playing in the snow, we had to have hot chocolate with marshmallows.

 Clap if you LOVE hot chocolate!

Stick out your tongue and pretend you're asleep if you are worn out from playing in the snow.
Yep, that's what I thought.  Good times.  Tis the Season!

Polar Vortex of 2014

The Polar Vortex was coming and Andrew was going to be gone all week so the kids and I packed up and went to my parents.  I didn't want to be stuck at home by myself with two littles during this disaster.  It was a good thing too, as you shall see… 

 The kids moved into my parents house and pretty much took over the place right away. :-)

 Grandpa fell asleep watching Robin Hood for the 4 billionth time with Tommy.  Yay Netflix!

 Charlotte was so tired but she still wanted to see if Robin Hood ended up with Maid Marian.  Must. Not. Fall. Asleep. Must. Watch…

 Grandma got out Uncle Adam's old toys and Tommy had a ball! Teenage Mutenant Injun Tuttles!! Batman! Legos! Jets! Planes! Cars! Where does Grandma have rooms for all these bins of toys???

Mama got to play with toys too.  Grandma got out my old American girl doll collection.  So cool.

 We spent a lot of time under blankets watching movies.

 Charlotte did too! Only she learned a new trick which you will see in the next post.

 Grandma risked the SUBZERO TEMPERATURES (Liar, Liar) to take a super cool picture of the Sun Dog.

 We took baths! (I seem to remember a similar picture of someone else we know from 3 years ago… )

Here's Tommy taking a bath at Grandma's from 2011!

 Here's Tommy taking a bath in 2014! My, how he's grown!

We all did a lot of lounging while we were stuck snowed in the house.  

Tommy spent some quality time going around and sitting on everything in the shop.  The four-wheeler is the perfect size!

 We also checked out the boat!

Then after the snow emergency was lifted, we headed back to our house.  I wanted my parents to come back with me just to make sure the house was in good shape after the awful weather.  I had a feeling something was going to go wrong (because something usually does when Andrew leaves).  I was right!

During the extreme cold, our furnace had a wire come loose. The house hadn't been heated in who knows how long.  The temperature in the house when we walked in was 40 degrees.  It was like we were still outside.  Everything in the house was freezing!!! The countertops were so cold, you couldn't leave your hand resting on them for more than 5 seconds. I couldn't take off my shoes because the floors were so cold.  My dad was able to fix the furnace and get it running again.  So my parents, the kids, and I all left for two hours hoping the temps would rise quickly.  We got back to the house after 2 hours and it was 44 degrees.  It was going to be a long night.  I got out the space heater and electric blanket for Tommy's room and put him to bed. We had a fire in the fire place.  But man, it takes the house a LONG TIME to warm up from 40 degrees.  In the morning, it was 59 degrees.  Are you kidding me?? Sheesh.

 Charlotte didn't mind.  She wore layer upon layer and was perfectly happy.  Phew!

Something else I discovered before I went to bed were these water stains on the ceiling in the kitchen.  Oh shizz.   I shut the water off and went to bed.  What else could I do?

The next morning, it got bigger. :(
We called a plumber assuming it was a burst pipe and then spent the night in a hotel room.  (Turns out, a lot of people had plumbing issues after the cold temps so we had to wait a day for them to come out.)

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel. They had individual TVs for each of the tables.  Tommy LOVED watching Mickey in his Star Wars jammies in the restaurant.  I'm sure people got a kick out of that. :-)
The plumbers came out and said they believed it was only a leak and they were able to fix it right away.  We were extremely lucky that there wasn't more damage.  We can do the leftover repairs, thank goodness!
So even though it seemed disastrous at the time, it turned out the problems were not that bad and we survived! Whoo hoo!

All I have to say is thank goodness for my parents! Mom and Dad to the rescue! AGAIN. :-)  Thanks Ma and Pa! I seriously can't thank you enough! 

Hopefully the Last Snow?

 Our largest snow storm of the winter was hopefully the last one.  There was a lot of snow blowing to do to move all that snow from our driveway.

 Tommy was right there with his mower, helping out dada.

Copying every move!

You can see the yahoos that tried to go uphill in their truck and got stuck on our road.  There were 5 guys in that truck.  At this point, they put 3 of the guys in the bed of the truck and told them to jump up and down to try to get traction with the rear tires.  It never worked.  They just slid all over the place and looked like fools.  I finally walked over to them and told them to go down the hill and around to the other entrance of the neighborhood because it had been plowed.  They were like, "Oh really?? No way.  Ok we'll try that then."
Glad I could help, you crazy yahoos.

School Fun and St. Patrick's Day

 Tommy's class got to play with snow INSIDE the other day.  Miss Kristin put socks on their hands and they went to town. You can see new student/dare devil Jayden in the back.  Owen and Layla are on either side.

 Miss Kristin snapped a quick pic of the masterfully skilled snowball Tommy made too.  That's huge! Way to go, Tommy!

This is one of Tommy's many St. Patrick's Day art projects.  Very cool. Love the ginger finger beard.

Here's the class having a St. Patrick's Day celebration.  Here's what Miss Kristin told us about their day.

• We had lots of fun during gym time helping the clumsy leprechaun pick up his "Golden Ball" (aka yellow) and put them back in his "pot" (aka laundry basket).
  
  While we were doing that he came in our room and put all our honey pots on the wrong color bee and our shapes on the wrong shape! But the kids did great helping me find the colors and shapes I asked for even though they were in wrong place!

That sneaky Leprechaun!!
You can see the other new student, Simon, in orange. Landon, Owen, Tommy and Layla helped too.

So with two new students, that makes 7 (Landon, Logan, Layla, Owen, Simon, Jayden, Tommy... poor Layla is still the only girl).  With state regs, that means that they have to bring in an extra teacher and she starts this week.  The Easter party is next week. So many exciting things happening at school right now!

Big Ol' Snow in March

We got SNOW! Hooray for snow! (Only because I was able to make it home from work before the roads got too bad).  

Tommy hasn't gotten much snow time this winter so we wanted to make the most out of the few inches we got today. 

 Tommy was elated! Look at all this snow! He doesn't know Lake Effect snow like we've been so used to up north but lucky for us this snow was seriously perfect.

I have never built a snowman with snow that packed so perfectly.  I actually rolled the snow into a ball.  I've never done that before and I've only seen it done in cartoons.  It was very exciting.  Of course Tommy wanted to immediately just shove him over.  No way, Jose!

I found some leaves (at OUR house?? No way!) for a sweet little snowman toupée.  No rocks for a face so I had to give him hair.  

Tommy even got to go sledding!! 

He loved it.  Snow much fun was had by all!!

My Shy Guy

Tommy has suddenly decided that he doesn't like me taking pictures of him anymore. Bummer. 

 So I can either way until he's asleep...

 Or very far away...  (This is Tommy's version of mowing during the winter. Anything he can push around is considered mowing to him)

As soon as I get close, he puts his hand out and tries to push the camera away.  Oh Tommy.  You can't stop your mother from taking pictures of you.

I guess I'll have to be very, very sneaky from now on, Thomasaurus.

Snow Snow Snow!!

 We are just now seeing how much having a child makes everything new again.  Like snow!

The look on his face was so incredible.  He had no idea what it was but he was so excited!

He even did a Michael Flatley Riverdance step (snow makes you want to dance!).

It was about 20 degrees so we only spent about a minute outside but it was enough to capture the look of amazement on his face.  The awesome thing is there is so much more to discover.  I can't wait!