Globetrotter

We have a little Christmas snow globe collection.  Little Molly loved it. Every chance she had, she would have us wind them up and play them for her.  She even found a favorite - it had a little red truck that drove around the base and she would squeal with delight whenever the truck came into view.

And, amazingly enough, we made it through the entire season without her breaking one.  

Our House

No thanks to my help, our house is coming along. It's all framed up. We have a porch and the framework of a deck.  The plumbing is coming along. It's time to order doors and windows and choose the cabinets and flooring.

{the walk-out basement makes it look like a monster from the back - eesh!}

It's definitely rewarding to see it as a house and not just a piece of paper or computer program image. 

 Good job, Floyd.  I think we're gonna like it.

The January Blah's

January is definitely my least favorite month of the year. Except for the fun I have organizing in the after-Christmas purge, I don't like much about it.  But, my kids are doing their best to convince me it's not so bad.  Here are a few of our January adventures...

Ice Skating

Ice Cutting (a new hobby brought to us by the movie Frozen)

Snow Shoeing

More Ice Skating. Someone's taking lessons.

Skiing (or snowboarding, in Cole's case)

Dreaming.

And then there was this nonsense. Who knows what to call it, but it wore them right out for bedtime, so I liked it.

I suppose January has been treating us good this year.

But still, I'll keep on dreaming of spring.

Christmas Snow

 When I was a kid, the thought that we wouldn't have a white Christmas was gut-wrenching for me.  I loved snow and always wanted a white Christmas. But this year, the pleasant weather throughout December was fine with me. I got in some lovely runs and we made progress on our house and I decided it would be fine if we just skipped winter this year.

My kids didn't feel the same and Annie especially was quite devastated that we weren't going to have a white Christmas.  But then, the weather forecast started predicting a Christmas day storm.  I didn't want to get my children's hopes up, but when I went to bed on Christmas Eve and it was gently snowing outside, I felt a little giddy inside. 

And sure enough, we woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland.  After we had sufficiently enjoyed playing with our new stuff inside for a few hours, we ventured out to have some fun in the snow.

The digger came.  Turns out digging in the snow is a good substitute for a sandbox.

The girls came.  They had lots of fun splashing through the snow.

Cole came too, but somehow didn't make it into any of the pictures.

And that pretty Christmas snow made for a gorgeous Christmas sunset later that night.

Christmas Morning

There were lots of presents...

and lots of smiles.

We had a few expected presents show up...

{Molly played with this horse set in at least three different stores and knew exactly 

what it was when Cole started opening it for her}

And a few surprises

{Floyd requested that Annie trim his nose hair for him so she surprised him with a pair of nose trimmers}

There was laughing and playing and relaxing and eating (both stocking candy and toys). And there was joy.  Lots and lots of joy.

But mostly, there was digging. Lots and lots and lots of digging.

Hope your Christmas was very merry too!

Christmas

Just because I like family fighting so much, I made my family dress up after church one Sunday to take some pictures with our Christmas tree.  They were thrilled. Such a good way to get in the Christmas Spirit. 

But, we found a patch of snow and everyone managed to at least look at the camera at the same time, so we called it a success.

And then took a few extra pictures of the girls since they were semi-cooperative.