SNOW!

Oh my...  As wonderful as it was to have woken up to a white Christmas - this certainly did top the surprise scale!  You see the weathermen often spout of storms and spin tales of frightening weather conditions that have people wishing for basements (tornados!) or in the case of the last few days wishing they hadn't left their snow shovels and sleds behind (like we did when we moved to Alabama from Ohio!)  However, this time, all those crazies who scoured the store shelves for that last prized gallon of milk or that coveted last loaf of bread actually were right on the mark!

We woke up to find 8" - Yes, you read that right, I said 8" of snow blanketing our yard!

 
Since the weathermen we so sure this storm was coming, our school system canceled school for Monday, the 10th and so we had Katies friend Audrey Curtis over for the night  - which turned into several night lucky for us!  She is such a sweet girl!

 The girls played games on the Wii, watched movies, and of course played in the snow!

The dogs were quite fun too!  Sugar wanted nothing to do with the snow which resulted in this...

Bear however LOVED the snow which resulted in this....

A little bit later Joe & Tyler Brown came over and more snow play ensued with periods of warming themselves by the fire, drinking hot chocolate and enjoying some snow cream!  YUM!  Plans were made for more snow play but unfortunately that never happened :-( 

As it turned out the kids ended up being out of school all week since this area isn't prepared for this kind of weather and travel was pretty treacherous at times.  I think everyone is quite ready to be back to school on Tuesday!

Though Katie was elated with the snow she was also a bit bummed because she was supposed to start her job at Joann Fabric & Crafts on  the 10th but because of the weather she wasn't able to have her first work day until Thursday, the 13th.  She seems to really enjoy it so far - I will post a pic of her in her uniform soon!

Why do they grow?

This has been a hard week for me as a mom... Though we know it is our job as parents to raise our children to mature adults that find their own legs and at some point start their own lives - I was NOT ready for this day....  Drew moved out...  I am so happy for him that he is making his own way in the world but still feel uncertain that I accomplished all that I needed to in order to prepare him for leaving the nest.  He is now living with 2 roommates in an apartment not far from home but still...  As he was packing I realized just how much his room needed painted so now his room (our future guest room) sits awaiting a new paint job - we chose a light gray called Silver Leaf - now we just need to find the time to paint!  Hopefully I'll be posting pictures of the completed guest room soon.

Happy New Year!

Last night for New Years Eve Howard, Katie & I went over to our friends home to ring in the new year!  The Holcombs were wonderful hosts as always and we had such a good time.... until I started not feeling well.... so we went home at 11:30 and brought in the new year all warmly snuggled in bed!  We were so glad we got to spend the night with Shawn, Hope, Zach, Ranoah & Skylah Holcomb and Hope's brother Sherm, Ben & Alisa, Kylee, Jacob & Dylan Henrie,  Jonathan, Shay, Trey and Hannah Brock (Lauri was home ill :-(  so she couldn't come) and Charles Cozelos (Jonathan's step-father)

We played games like Hullabaloo, Bang and several different games on the Xbox 360 using the Kinect games.

We also made homemade ice cream for root beer floats!