Our annual Christmas gift from Todd...

I don't have much time to share because we're getting ready to go to Grandpa's house right now. I just wanted to share pictures of our special gift from Todd, Stephenie's husband. Every year he builds a special gift for all of his friends and family. The gift is always made from the heart and comes with a special story that he includes in a letter with the gift. You can tell he always works very hard on the gift and the letter and our entire family looks forward to experiencing opening the present, reading the letter, and playing with the gift. This year he sent a wooden truck, painted with left over paint he found in the garage and built with scrap wood.

The kids' first question was "Can we play with it?" and it actually took John a few minutes of thinking about it before he grudgingly told them they could. Amanda immediately snatched that baby up and moved it into her bedroom right next to her bed because she was going to be the FIRST ONE to sleep with it. Hmmm, sleep with a truck? Whatever works. Tonight is Nate's turn to play with it and we'll see how long it takes Nicole to wrestle it away from him. Thanks for our incredible gift, Todd! We've enjoyed receiving all of your gifts over the years!

We are now proud owners of a Wii!

John and I finally broke down and bought a Wii. Geri and Grandma bought several games and controllers for the Wii and we were set! We waited to open the Wii for the very last present and the kids opened the games and controllers while I opened the Wii console. I made everyone look at me after I got the paper off and you wouldn't believe Nate's reaction. He looked at me in disbelief, then he looked at the Wii, then back to me and everyone else in the room as his face lit up with joy! He yelled "WE GOT A WII!" and immediately ran downstairs to set that guy up. He's been playing it for three days straight and there's never a dull moment. Even Daddy and Mommy have gotten into playing and we've enjoyed it immensely. All three kids agreed that this was his best present ever!

Merry Christmas!

It's snowing again! It seems a little more special since it's Christmas today. For the first time in years, we're having a white Christmas! The kids are incredibly excited. They've already gone through their stockings and are going to start opening presents right after breakfast. I'll post pictures later...

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Snow, snow, go away! Find someone who wants to play!

Like Sis! I think Louisiana could use some of this wonderful snow...

This is too much... It's snowing really hard again. Just when I thought it was going to clear up it started up again. It's filling in the one lane that has been plowed on our street and filling up the path we made to the front door. This has been an incredible week!

Would you believe more snow???

Guess what the forecast is? Yep, more snow. The good news is that the snow we have is slowly melting. It got up to a whopping 33 degrees today! The bad news is that more snow is moving through tonight, which should change to rain by tomorrow afternoon. Maybe after tomorrow we can get back to more normal weather.

Today we finished our beautiful puzzle, cleaned house, and frosted Christmas cookies with Grandma! She brought groceries with her so I can cook Christmas dinner. What a lifesaver!

The kids enjoyed a day inside today after spending much of the day playing in the snow yesterday. I think they've finally gotten over the excitement of the massive amounts of snow and they are really ready for Christmas! It still looks like we'll be having a white Christmas this year...

I'm starting to sound like a broken record...

We had more snow again last night. We are well and truly stuck up on this hill now unless we want to walk to town. John took the Blazer into work again and will pick up the groceries for Christmas dinner on his way home. The kids are loving every moment of this fabulous snowstorm. I can't remember when they've been in such a good mood. I've gotten tons of great pictures and I've enjoying having the kids home for an extra three days. John's enjoyed testing out his recently restored Blazer in this challenging weather!

Yesterday, we watched several Christmas and Disney movies, we put a puzzle together, and the kids played games throughout the day. John and Amanda even went Christmas shopping in this amazing snow!

As much fun as we've had for the past week, all I can think of is how I'm going to get ready for Christmas since I can't get off the hill. I guess the answer is that I'm not going to be able to do it on my own. I'm going to have to rely on other people (John, Mom, and Brenda) to bring things with them if / when they come. We may have to seriously reschedule Christmas if nobody can make it over.

Can I just say "Enough with the snow already"?

Last night brought yet another storm and, you guessed it, more snow!!! I think the kids sang "Let it snow!" a few too many times! We have another few inches of snow outside now. The road is completely covered and impassable now. This snow storm also brought high winds that created snow banks up to 4 ft high. It's going to take a while to get everything uncovered this time. The worst part is that the temperatures are not supposed to increase any time soon so it won't be melting off very quickly. I just hope it clears in time for Christmas so that our honored guests can make it over for the celebration...

Snow, snow, and more snow...

It snowed all night last night and all day today. We have a pretty good accumulation. School was cancelled so I sent the kids outside and they played in the snow for hours in the morning. After lunch we hiked down the hill to the green van (affectionately known as "Goofy"), cleaned it off, and headed into town. I bought a pair of snow boots for Nate (he was wearing a size 3 on his size 5 feet), a snowsuit and pair of gloves for each of the girls, and a few more Christmas presents for our friends and family. We also loaded up on groceries.

The forecast is calling for more snow starting Sunday and not really ending until Christmas Eve. It's also supposed to stay pretty cold so there won't be any big thaw coming any time soon. It really reminded me of Alaska! Tomorrow is another day out of school for the kids. So far this week they've started two hours late on Monday and Tuesday and been out of school for Wednesday, Thursday, and now Friday. They got a nice early start to their Christmas break!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We had over four inches of snow last night on top of one inch of ice leftover from Sunday night's snowfall. Nate, Nicole, and Amanda got to stay home again with me today. They are so ready for Christmas break that it's going to be difficult to get them motivated to finish the week out if the weather clears up. It continued to snow throughout the day with an additional few inches of accumulation. The kids really enjoyed playing outside in the softly falling snow. Unfortunately, I didn't get outside with them to take pictures. I'll make sure to get some tomorrow.

Who knew walking to the bus could be dangerous?

I woke up this morning and seriously thought that school would be cancelled. Any idiot could see that having a thick layer of ice on every stretch of concrete did not make transportation easy, right? No such luck. The school district made the decision to hold school two hours late, which normally makes sense, but not today. The ice has no hope of melting today because it has only gotten colder throughout the day and it's expected to get colder instead of warmer. I can't even get my van out of the driveway right now because there is too much ice. Even if I could, there's no way I could get it down the hill without having to use houses for brakes. Since the kids have perfect attendance so far you gotta do what you gotta do, so off we trudged down the hill to the bus. If you look closely you'll see Nate falling in the background (in the middle of the street!). We pretty much had to skate down the hill on a solid sheet of ice. Since cars were doing the same thing all around us, it was a scary experience!

When we got the bus stop, the kids played hockey with a nice sized snowball that Nicole created just for the occasion.


Of course, they spent more time laying on the ice than actually moving the snowball around, but I never said that my kids were awesome hockey players, did I?

Nate was his usual goofy self and spent more time laying on the ice than actually playing. He enjoyed trying to figure out how thick the ice was, how much it would take to break the ice, and how fast he could run before he fell down (not very fast right now!).

Amanda was content to just stand with me and wait for the bus, making sure to look cute for pictures. That's my princess!

They made it on the bus safe and sound and I'm assuming all the way to school since I haven't heard any different. I'm stuck at home trying to reclaim the house from the weekend of being stuck inside. I've got Christmas gifts to wrap, pictures to go through, a house to clean, several loads of laundry to finish, and toys to muddle through. I've definitely got enough to do to keep me busy for more than the week I'll be stuck here.

I'm not even going to think about having to trudge back down the hill in three hours to pick the girls up...

It's our turn for snow!

We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland! We had a few inches of snow and lots of ice under the snow. The kids really enjoyed playing outside all day and building a snowman.

The last two weeks have been incredibly busy. I've been busy getting the last of the Christmas gifts taken care of, catching up with my friends, and getting the house ready for guests. John took last Friday off and spent the entire day with me. We had a great day!