Year 3, November 26th-27th, 2018: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

From 60 degrees F on Sunday to below freezing on Monday and Tuesday, we've had all the kind of weather imaginable, and the aches and pains.  But, seeing the snow makes it worth every time!  And seeing the kids enjoy it is worth every page of a book unread or workbook page undone.  One PEI we could plow through school because there was plenty of snow to enjoy for many months, but here, we have to stop what we are doing and go out NOW to enjoy it because it could be gone in a couple of hours.  But for the last two days, it has flurried all day and we have a little layer of fluffy snow to play in.  The New Orleans cousins are thrilled!  We had them over on Monday and had a ton of fun with them, from jumping on the trampoline to eating s'mores with marshmallows cooked in our fireplace in the evening.  We didn't have hot chocolate, but we can do that another time.  On Tuesday, they went with their mom to the hospital to see their nana and we had a quiet day at home.  I was going to go out and run errands, but wanted the girls along or part of it, plus the roads weren't the best, and my body was protesting, so we stayed home.  Ah, it was on of the those days where I actually felt like I had the time to putter AND snuggle and play with the kids.  Sweet!  Plus, Abishai had a grand time outside in the snow, which wouldn't have happened if we had been in the car.  Well worth the procrastination on picking up ingredients for some candy making science experiments.  The day finished off with piano lesson and the kids watched a history DVD.  Abishai was exhausted and went to sleep quickly.  In fact, he was so tired from the weekend and yesterday, that he snuggled me in bed for 90 minutes this morning!  Usually he's up and down trying to get breakfast while I will myself to get up.  We've had late mornings because we've had exhausting days and later evenings, and we've had the time to sleep in.  Again, it makes me wonder why I make them do so much schoolwork!  Do I truly need to cover every subject every day of every week?  Hm,...again, something to think about.

Now, I'm off to figure out what pictures got uploaded to iCloud and what didn't and how to find them all.  I maxed out my iCloud and refuse to spend even more money for a bigger amount.  Time to do some deleting after some careful backing up!

Nora said her mom wanted her to do multiplication flashcards, so we pulled out our huge stack and Justin helped her with it.  She only got 3 wrong!  And it was all the flashcards up to 12x12!

Feeling the snow outside.  So excited for it!

One of my favorite quick lunches!  Since Everly and I are both gluten free, but she's not dairy free, I've been getting the gluten free mac and cheese from Aldi's to share with her.  And it's an all beef hot dog since the girls don't eat pork.  They don't eat pork because of "religious" reasons.  Sorry, that's all I can think of to call it.  They don't have a sensitivity to it, but sometimes their church focuses on Old Testament values and one of those things is that the Israelite didn't eat pork. Don't ask me to explain it.  But as one who has to deal with a lot of food issues for health reasons, I totally will respect and comply to anyone's preferences any time I am able.  It's not my place to judge what the girls eat.  And Nora did say they've eaten pork at birthday parties before, so they are typically 98% compliant with it.  Anyway, I just love this cheesy combo.  And everyone else did eat it, too, even Justin who doesn't like mac and cheese unless there's something in it.  Abishai couldn't get enough of the peas, either.  That kid likes his veggies and even eats a couple of pieces of lettuce now!  The trick is to keep offering it on their plates and not making them eat it, but letting it be a choice.  I only make a big deal out of it if it's the only veggies that have been offered all day, or meat, or whatever.  Then I won't let them have anything else until they eat some of it (if I know that they usually do it I mean).  Abishai tends to "graze" so I have to be careful to make sure he finishes one thing before he starts eating another.

Time to go play in the snow?! Um, not quite little man.

That's a better idea.  Except, she has no socks and shoes on.  They thought they had to be barefoot on the trampoline until I reminded them that usually you take off your shoes so you don't get the trampoline dirty and you don't kick someone's face with her shoes.

I'm so glad we kept the trampoline up!  They loved messing around on it with the little bit of snow we got on Monday.

See?! Bare toes!!!  Yes, I'm that aunt that lets them figure it out that it's NOT a good idea to do that.  They'll learn soon enough.  Go get dirty!

They lasted 60 seconds.

The bag in the middle is a bag of trail mix and they were trying to flip the marbles up and into the bag while I read aloud to them.  Oi!

And these girls played with the play mobile.  Mrs. Shiela on PEI bought them for Keturah because her granddaughter loved them and kept them, even as an adult.  And man do they get played with all the time!  Everly took them to Grandma's house to play with.  There's a kitchen set, a vacation set, and a veterinary set.

The snow keeps falling!

"I'm sleep rolling!"  Abishai found out about sleep walking from a TV show and now puts "sleep" in front of anything!  He "sleep rolls," "sleep eats," "sleep drives," "sleep talks," etc.  It's so cute!  He thinks if he says, "sleep ____" then he can have his paci and blankie all the time.  He's a tricky one!

Snow in the garden!  And because it flurried all day on Monday, I made the decision to stay home and have Jared pick up gluten free graham crackers so we could have s'mores.  I have the best husband I could ever want.  He really goes out of his way now to do this sweet little gestures.  And he lets me know if he can't and I don't get mad anymore.  I used to do all the little stuff like pick up this or that, or drive the kids, etc. but I think we've realized that because I do other things at home, these types of things are easy for him to do and contribute to the family.  I don't want him decluttering or doing taxes.  This ebb and flow works out awesome right now.  And he has to play taxi driver again on Saturday for me.  Typically it's the mom who does all the taxiing but it interrupts my workflow at home, plus with the cold weather it literally hurts me, and it reduces my anxiety because I'm not out and with people.  I'm one blessed wife!

The girls helped us decorate our tree!  It was a bit harder this year to decide on what goes on the tree because I didn't want breakable things given Abishai's rough personality.  Also, it's a new to us tree, so I didn't know how much room we had.  I think we ran out of comfortable space!  It's eclectic, that's for sure!

Finishing touches! And then I also put out the Christmas lines and hung the wall hangings.  Until we read more of our library books, there's no more space for my snowmen, so they will have to wait or I'll skip them this year.  I do need to find the glass tree shaped plates I use for candy though.  But, I'm pretty happy with what we do have out right now.

"I want to put them higher!"

Caught you, Nora! Now, what's under that blanket?

The lump grew!

What?! All the cousins were under there!  Goofballs!  Socks says, "You guys are weird!"

S'mores time!

I tried setting up a little "station" but they manged to make it back to the kitchen to eat their s'mores.  Smart kids.

Humongous marshmallows!

Too big for their mouths!

Precious!  I actually took an excellent photo for once!  Look at the beautiful 11 1/2 yr old Everly!  She tends to favor our side of the family, don't you think?

And check out that smile and we can actually see the face of that beautiful just turned 9 year old Nora!  Sweet!  She looks a lot like Shauna's family.

S'mores!  Everybody was so excited for it!  And Jared patiently helped everyone with their marshmallows.  I'm really glad we have older kids/nieces now.  I don't have to worry so much about helping them with every little thing or making sure they stay out of the fire, etc.  They are all very independent.

Super excited about it!  Except the marshmallows were gigantic and he couldn't get his mouth around the s'more!  So he took it apart and eat the pieces one by one.

Yummy!

Super expensive gluten free graham cracker ($5 for maybe a sleeve worth of the other kinds, so maybe 10 full length rectangle crackers), a little bit of chocolate we had in the fridge just for this purpose, and gigantic marshmallows we also had bought a long time ago just for this purpose.  Yummy!

Whoops!  Check out the bottom of that bucket!  The fire from the night before hadn't fully gone out when we went to build a new fire for the s'mores.  But Jared still put the ashes into the bucket and it melted the side of the bucket! He had put the bucket in the garage with the garage door down and when he went out there to get more wood, you could smell the melting plastic.  Whoops!  That's why you have to be super careful with fire!

Abishai's been so super tired, so we've had a ton of snuggle time each and every morning.  He's pretty clingy, too, especially when I've been busy the day before with church or the girls.

And as always, the Canadian explores the snow first with his bare toes.  It's kind of a tradition now because Jared did it a few times in Canada.  It's also more of a boy/man thing, "who can stand in the snow the longest?" type of challenge.  It makes me smile.  Get dirty. Don't overprotect them.  Let them learn.  And let them challenge themselves and have fun!

Keturah, not to be upstaged by boys, did it, too.  Proud of her!

Justin, the hot one, in shorts and t-shirt and bare toes.  (shaking my head; facepalm) My kids are crazy!

It snowed even more on Tuesday!  Yes!  Love it!

Oh....my.....heart.....little baby piggy toes in the snow!  Aren't they the cutest?!  And some of you are judging me thinking I'm not a good mom for letting them outside without the proper gear.  Believe me, they came in and got the proper gear.  It's childhood.  I want them to not be afraid to try new and different things.  "Run wild, live free !" as the For King and Country song goes!

Baby toes and puppy paw prints.  Babies and puppies, they make my heart melt.

Puppy prints!

A boy and his dog having the time of their life in their favorite play stuff: snow!  Abishai kept calling out: "Socks, come here, come here, puppy, come and play with me!"  And then he put snow on the dog's head and back and he just stood there taking it like the great gentle dog he is, protecting his baby.  I think Socks is just happy to have a playmate outside with him.  And he loves the snow, too.  I'm sure he misses Canada in his own way.

Abishai had the time of his life sliding around on the trampoline!  Again, I'm so glad we left it up!  Sometimes procrastination and/or busyness is a good thing!  Abishai rolled round and slid around, pushing the snow in all kinds of directions.  When he would jump, the snow would fly up and settle right back down where it was.  Abishai also tried to put snow up against the net, but of course it stayed in the net.  What fun!

Look what Abishai found under the snow near the swings!  His favorite blue rain boots!  I'm guessing he left them there the other day.  At least he brought them inside without me asking him, too.

He loved throwing snow up on the window and "washing" the window.  He kept cackling at us.

Very red cheeks!  But he said he wasn't cold.  He also got his snow pants on all by himself, including zipping them.  He was wearing short sleeves under his coat and no socks.  And of course, he's wearing his Grandma Howell knitted hat.  Cutie!

That face!

Hanging out with Mommy, eating some of her nighttime snack: nuts!

He likes the "banana" ones, i.e. cashews.  He does not like almonds though.  I miss the days where I would be holding him as he slept in my arms and I would be typing on the computer.  Now he's too wiggly and big and slips off my lap!

Tuesday's snowfall.

I love how the trampoline net caught the snow!

One happy boy ready to go play out in the snow!  This was Benaiah's jacket and snowpants and boots! I think the hat was made originally for Justin.  He looks so adorable in it all!

Abishai put snow on Socks head and back and Socks stood still and let him.  So sweet!

Um, yes, that's Justin in a t-shirt and shorts and my pink crocs.  Yes, it didn't last long.  But yes, a fun memory was made!

Keturah's turn to jump with Abishai.

Snow in the windowsill in the little entryway between the sunroom and fireside room.  It's the only outside window without a screen, so sometimes I"ll open it to take pictures and videos while staying inside.

And Socks decided to jump up and peek in.  The hallway is about 6 inches higher than the deck.

Old snow dog.

He was trying to smile, lol.  He wasn't in pain, I just caught him at the wrong time.  But check out those red cheeks!

On Wednesday, we decided to have a day out and about on the town.  We went to the cheap theater and saw the new live action Christopher Robin movie.  We were the only ones in the theater!  And Shauna and the girls came with us!  We laughed and awwwed because it's a very family friendly heartfelt movie with lots and lots of one liners that those who grew up on Winnie the Pooh would recognize.  A. A. Milne has an interesting backstory, a little controversial, but his stories are the best!  Abishai was scared at many parts, or really concerned when things like important papers were flying all over the place or it was dark and gloomy.  He actually shed tears a few times, poor thing.  He's so observant and so in tune with his feelings that it was so sweet to know he was taking it all in like that.  Because it cost less than $18 for 7 of us to see the movie, we bought popcorn, too, which served as part of our lunch since it was a late morning movie.  We did pick up some McDonald's afterwards, but Abishai and I had to go get Benaiah from school and take him to church for leadership meeting.  Shauna took the other kids back to grandparents' house so they could eat and wrestle and play.  After we dropped off Benaiah, Abishai and I hung out with everyone at the house, too.  Then Everly and Shauna went to the hospital to see her Nana and we took Nora with us.

We picked up a few groceries and found gingerbread house kits at Aldi's for $8 a piece!  That's really cheap compared to what I found online!  So, we bought 3, and 2 kids will work on one of them.  We also finally went into the store next to Aldi's on Washington St. called Five and Below, which is a kind of dollar store, but for more toys, room decor, some clothing, knick knacks, games, candy, etc.  I told the kids that we would just look and not take the time to make decisions and purchase (they had the money they earned from Grandpa with them) but they were able to take it all in and quickly make decisions, even Abishai, in under 45 minutes! Mission accomplished!  I was also able to get everything we needed for the candy experiments, so we're all set!  Well, I did have to borrow cream of tartar from Leah's cupboard, which was a chore because her spice cupboards make no sense to me, but that's another story.

We came home, quickly cooked the pizza we bought, ate, and then the boys, Jared, Justin and Abishai went to church for Bible Bowl and the girls, Keturah, Nora, and I, went to Keturah's basketball practice.  Ethan's mom trasnported Benaiah back and forth for D-group.  Then we all literally converged at home around 8:15pm.  Actually, I had stopped at Gary and Leah's to pick up some leftovers, and Lisa had dropped Benaiah off to their house because he left his house key there. So he sneaked up on the girls who were in the van and scared them while I was in the house.  Then he crept inside the house and scared me, too!  He was so proud of himself!  Then he jumped driver's seat in the van before I could and pretended to start driving away.  What a goofball!  I love this side of him! And wish he was around more so I could see it more often.  Nora ended up sleeping at our house because Everly and Shauna stayed at the hospital until 11pm.  I don't think she was terribly happy about it and asked to go home first thing the next morning.  Everly stayed the night with Shauna's sister, and the girls will probably spend the next couple of days with her, which is fine because I've got a ton of work to catch up on.

It was a lovely, productive day out and about, but I started to feel panicked by the time I sat down at my computer.  I take way too many pictures and don't delete them until they are properly backed up, and I let it go too long.  Therefore, my computer and my iCloud are too full and now I have to focus on that for a bit.  I also have to prepare for a busy weekend and maybe do some school stuff.  Thankfully there are no obligations Thursday and Friday.  We will go to gym day if I make major progress on Thursday, especially on the blog.  I'm glad we got to go out and enjoy some relatively cheap things.  I've also spent my fair share on Christmas and non Christmas items.  I have a couple of more ingredients to pick up and perhaps GF rye bread, and maybe one more bag of candy.  Oh and stocking stuffers.  Eek! That's next month though.  I never plan well for Christmas, although I did spread it out a little bit this year over the last couple of months.  Sigh.  Anyway, onward and upward!

Abishai declared that he had a fish family! Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, siblings, etc.  Adorable!

Walking in a winter wonderland!  Cold, but oh so pretty when the snow stops, the skies are blue, and the sun makes the snow sparkle!  We had so many of those kinds of days on PEI.  And now, this snow will be gone by tomorrow afternoon because it will be just above freezing.  So sad! But on PEI, 35,000 homes/businesses are without power because of two snowstorms in the last week and now huge winds.  Oh how I miss it!  The real winter!  My body aches though and my knees are protesting even more fiercely this year.  Copiaba and Deep Relief essential oil to the rescue!  Plus slow release tylenol.  Sigh.

Oh so pretty.  And no, we don't shovel or salt.  In a couple of days time, it will be clear and dry.  No need to waste time or money.

If only it would stay this way!

Jared's handiwork amazes me sometimes!  Sure, it's odd to have this concrete pad in the middle of the side yard that everyone can see from the street, but if it makes him happy, then go for it.  And the real wood fires are awesome!

Crunchy, sparkly snow!

Dark movie theater but we thoroughly enjoyed "Christopher Robin"! Shauna, Evelry, Nora, Justin, Keturah, Abishai and I.  It was nice to see a non violent/dramatic movie for once.  I don't watch many family friendly/kid movies these days, so it was a nice brain break.  I just prefer movies that make me think and have deep characters.  And actually, this one did make me think!  Sometimes the simple mind of a child and character can say more than a deluge of words.

Bad lighting.  Cute kids.

Abishai got his own seat with a booster!  And he sat there for 2/3 of the movie.  He was in my lap for the "scary" parts that he cried through.  He wears his heart on his sleeve.  And he likes to wear his pj shirts all the time!

Abishai was very antsy after sitting almost still for 2 hrs so he bounced around to the different games in the arcade at the movie theater while Shauna and I decided on our next course of action.  Nora helped him with the game.  Actually, they were just watching the demo.

Crazed Abishai shaking the panels at McDonald's.

At Grandma's house, playing in the snow.

"Washing" Grandma's sliding door window like he did ours at our house.  And again, he cackled all about it!

Everly riding the horsey! Aka Justin.

These guys getting their wrestling on after sitting in the car and a movie for 3 hrs total.  At least they moved the table first.  When the cat's away (Leah), the mice will play (children).

This girl is always escaping to a good book!  Well, I don't define the Diary of a Wimpy Kid a good book, but to each their own.

Basketball practice time!  This poor girl needs her own hoop at home.  She's putting in the effort at practice, but you can tell she's behind some of the better players who have been playing of a few years.  There's other newbies in the group and I can tell the coaches are being as fair as they can be and giving her as many tips as they can, however, she needs to be practicing at home, too.  I have put a request in for a basketball goal/hoop as a family Christmas gift.  We could all benefit from having other outdoor equipment, that's for sure.  Her first game is this Saturday!  Whoop! Whoop!

The End