Let it snow! (Day 2)

Here is what we woke up to on Friday morning! It snowed the ENTIRE day on Thursday, and overnight covered up most of our tracks from the day before.

 

It even covered up our snowgirl we made the day before!  She’s got on a pink cowgirl hat, but you can’t tell!

 

We all (mostly my hubby!) worked hard in the front yard to built a snow fort.  The plan was to make it taller, but Bug and her friend from next door decided it should be a slide, so the plans got redrawn!

 

 

Bug had a blast with her good friend from next door.  We are blessed with some of the most wonderful next door neighbors!  This little girl is their granddaughter, and she and Bug just adore each other.  They played in the snow for hours before I finally lured them in to decorate cookies and warm up.

 

Finally, they wore out enough to sit still for a movie….for all of 30 minutes….before getting back up to play!

 

It was a wonderful day! We are very blessed!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! (Day 1)

For many of you, snow is just a given at this time of year.  However, for us in Texas, these past few days have been a real treat!  For an area that deals with temperatures in the 100’s for so many days in the summer, it’s nice to experience the colder side of things from time to time.

DFW just set a new record with over a foot of snow falling in 24 hours!  We built snowmen, ate snow ice cream, snow cones, went sledding, and just all around enjoyed it!

If you aren’t from Texas and you are wondering why we are so excited it’s because it is a RARE treat that we get real SNOW.  Usually it’s this icy, slushy, mixed with dirt stuff that Texans call snow.  But this was white, fluffy, powdery, genuine snow!

Here are some highlight pictures!

 
    

January Jumble

A little of this…a little of that.  Here is what January looked like for us.
Playing our new favorite game, Super Stretchy ABC



Playing dress up

Doing yoga with Daddy


Trying new foods (sardines & oysters!)


Earning a FREE PIZZA with the Pizza Hut Book It Program!


Sleeping on the floor UNDER her bunk bed. What kid doesn’t love a good ol’ fashioned “pallet”?



Riding a new bike! Thanks to a great friend, we received a hand-me-down bike for Bug.  (LOVE hand-me-downs!)   Her knees were hitting the handlebars on her old one, so it was time to move up.  This was a huge blessing!

Leaves! Leaves! Leaves!

Emily could NOT wait until the leaves all fell off the tree! I think she asked almost daily if we could rake the leaves “now?”.  She was so excited when Daddy finally agreed to make some leaf piles!  My little “sensory seeker” was on cloud 9!


Hubby filled up the slide for Bug to slide down – Weeeeeeeeeee!


Then he tried it with the cat.  She was not as impressed, but forgave him quickly!
 

Happy New Year!

Just a month late!  January was a busy month.  We started the new year at my mother-in-law’s house.  She lives near the beach in Galveston, and we always have a great time hanging out with her. 
We celebrated New Year’s Day with our annual Ice Cream Sundaes! We even get dye-free maraschino cherries from Whole Foods! Somehow, I was too busy enjoying the ice cream to get any pictures of it this year.  Oh well!  We also played plenty of Wii games to burn off the ice cream calories.

We can’t go to Galveston without going to the beach, even if it is the middle of winter!  We bundled up and headed to the beach for a shell-collecting mission.  Of course, we weren’t there for 2 minutes before Bug was playing in the water.  She was enjoying herself like it was summertime.  Crazy girl!  Her pants are wet all the way up to her coat!



Bug drew this picture of a bug all by herself!! LOVE it!
One day, Bug decided she wanted to be a mouse, so she enlisted Grandma’s help making a costume!
 

Unfortunately, on January 2nd, we received a call from my mom that my grandmother (my mom’s mom) had passed away.  We knew it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier.  We loaded up and headed home so I could be with my mom.  While we miss her very much, it is also a blessing to know that she is with our Lord and no longer in any pain.

We had my parents over the next day for dinner and some game play on the Wii.  We wanted to give mom a night of fun and laughs in the midst of her stress.  I think it worked!

Mom getting a little instruction from my Hubby!


Getting serious about it!


Meanwhile, Bug enlisted Grandad to play dolls with her!


A few days later we had the funeral, and it was short and sweet.  Praise God she’s in Heaven! She’s no longer in pain!  I heard a couple really great stories about my grandmother at the funeral.  One relative told me that my grandmother once spent her last $1 to buy her a pair of shoes because she didn’t have any to wear to school.  Another relative told me that once she didn’t have any shoes, and my grandmother took the shoes off her feet, gave them to her, and went home barefoot!
Wow.

I hope that those stories stay in my mind forever, and that I can shoot to live my live like that…..truly loving others and putting them before myself.