From Let it Snow to Let it Ice

Not to be outdone with our Seventh Year Snow in January, February decided to bring in ice.  Two inches of ice.  Shut down our city and our power.  We were only without power for less than a day but we knew people who were four days plus without it.  Or they would get it only for it to go out again.

Thankfully, we did not have any lasting damage.  No problems with trees snapping or hitting our roof or fence or any thing else.  We were very blessed.  And, we all learned that snow is waaay better than ice.

 Looks pretty but…

It was all ice.

 Zoe was getting icicles off the dome.

 And she also left her mark in the ice.

 Trying to de-ice the rabbit cage.

 The greenspace behind our house.  We got to listen to the sound of snapping trees for a couple of days.  Not fun to hear.

I believe the dogs loved the ice and snow more than anyone.  We had a lot of trouble trying to get them to come in when the temps went well below freezing.
So here is a re-cap of the weather that week.  
Monday:  70 degrees.  So beautiful I took the kids to a local walking and nature trail and we were sweating after a mile walk.
Tuesday:  Colder but tolerable
Wednesday:  Ice
Thursday:  Still icy
Friday:  A bit easier to travel but still icy.  Oh, and an earthquake.
Yeah, not kidding.  Mark and I were watching a video that evening at about 10 when we heard a rumbling and then the house shook.  Every nerve in me tensed up not knowing what it was (Mark was thinking helicopter…I’m thinking an attack on our local army base or something).  We ran outside and neighbors started popping out too trying to figure out what was going on.  One neighbor claimed helicopter as well but when we all looked up in the sky there was nothing but a pretty clear sky.  No sign of any aircraft.  Another neighbor was on the phone with friends who lived over an hour away and they said they felt something too.  Mark and that neighbor both agreed earthquake.  I finally relaxed a bit but ya’ll…that was the first and last earthquake I ever want to be in.  
After all of that, we are now anxiously awaiting a “real” tornado (we usually have the wind blow hard and they call it a tornado) and a massive hurricane.   Finally, all of our natural disasters will be done.  Forever.  I hope.  
This is all so freakishly weird because we live in a very mild area.  We’re about three hours from the ocean and right on the banks of a large river.  We have hot summers and lots of pollen but that is typically it.  Our winters are usually in the 40s and 50s with some 30s but I do not remember having so many 20 degree highs.  Guess we will just blame climate change…or global warming…or whatever.
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Snow Day 2014

Yes, we were hit not only with a polar vortex (new to me phrase) at the first of the year, we were also blessed with our snow day for the next seven years (we hope).  This was a classic southern snow for us:  Here one day and gone the next.

We got about an inch and half and it was enough to play in and keep Mark home from work.  Perfect.  And a bonus was no loss of power (which we lost when the cold came through but that was only for an hour or so).

After breakfast we walked the neighborhood and the kids enjoyed sliding down a neighbors hill on a real sled.  FYI, a tote box top does not work well for sliding in one and half inches of snow.

 They were so ready to play and so ready to come back in too.  It was very cold outside.

 Our snowman!  He looks so tall…

 but really, he’s sitting on the picnic table in the back yard.  I wish I had grabbed a picture of a neighbor’s snowman.  After it was built (over six feet tall), their yard and another yard were free from snow.

Snowball fight.
Our first snow in this house.
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Randomness for December

Yeah, I don’t know what he was doing.

 A gorgeous sunset out our front door.  Have I mentioned I love living “out in the country.*”

Ceili Rain and perhaps her future beau at a local park.  I love that I have a best friend who has kids who love my kids and they love them.  There’s a lot of love going around.

*I am aware that we live in a suberb with neighbors and we’re five minutes from Wal-Mart.  But, we are not in our city proper and we can see beautiful sunsets like the one above.  We rarely noticed them before we moved.

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Happy 8th Birthday, Liam!

Liam had a built in birthday party with his cousins visiting!  Fifteen kids, four adults and lots of laughs and smiles.
That’s one excited birthday boy and brother.
 Liam finding out he was going to be taking martial arts classes.

He requested a cheetah chocolate cake with caramel frosting.  We opted for a cheetah den and lots of plastic cheetahs on it.  He liked it even though there were lots of cave ins.

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Happy 11th Birthday Zoe!

Here comes some sad news.  My cellphone went for a swim.  And didn’t come out alive.  On it were pictures from December.  You know the ones…the ones I took with my phone because I didn’t have my camera.  Fortunately, all other months pictures had been gotten off…just not the ones from December.  If my phone is able to be repaired (if you know me, you’ll know that Mark got insurance on my phone…smart man), and the pictures were not damaged, then I will make sure to post those.  If not, trust me…we had a lot of fun on these next few posts.
Zoe’s birthday in December was a ton of fun.  We celebrated with family on her actual day and then traveled that weekend to visit family and then celebrated with friends on that Monday.  She wanted to go bowling.  We live quite near a military fort and they have a bowling alley open to the public.  On Mondays, they offer cheap bowling and cheap food.  So, we rallied her friends and played a couple of games of bowling and ate cake.  It was both fun and yummy.  And we all got a kick out of the little ones trying to carry a big ol’ ball to roll.
 Opening presents…That’s one excited young lady.

She got her first ever charm bracelet and was thrilled.  Especially since she couldn’t really think of what she wanted for her birthday.

Scouring pinterest, Zoe came up with this for her cake.  It’s a chocolate cake with mint chocolate chip buttercream icing.  Was it yummy?  Oh my goodness it was.  The cake was my standard chocolate cake but the icing was so fluffy and good.  And I don’t like mint chocolate chip anything.

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Merry Christmas from our Crew!

Yeah, I know it’s the middle of March.  At least I got it up, huh?  Here’s our kids in their Christmas pj finest.

 The hat.  It was a dollar store find.  Malachi wore it throughout the store.  When he lost interest, we hid it and saved it for a sibling shop gift.  He loved it…again!

 We got the boys’ their big gift together.  They had all asked for the same Lego set for Christmas.  Obviously, legos are not cheap so we decided to combine it.  These are some thrilled boys.

 Zoe was thrilled.  Absolutely thrilled to receive a kindle.  It’s a basic one and was a sweet, generous gift from a friend, but Zoe could care less.  We quickly found all of Louisa May Alcott’s books for free and she quickly devoured them.

Be still my heart.  These two fight like sisters but love just like sisters.

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Merry Christmas Family!

Per our family Christmas tradition, we traveled to visit with Ge & Granddaddy and were also able to squeeze in some visiting time with Granddaddy’s sister and their family.  That made for a few kids.  But it was so fun to see them all playing and having a good time.

Our Ge & Granddaddy celebration:

 I have no idea what cousin E was doing but he had four out of the five boys’ attention.

 My “seester,” Aunt Yaya, made this sign for me.  Isn’t she talented?!  I was so thrilled.  Especially since we were gifted a nativity set for the yard last year and this year Mark made a stable and manger for it.  We will have quite the decked out yard next year.

 Zoe and Ace were thrilled at some one’s present.  I love this look of delight on their faces.

 A very happy Ge with the “world’s ugliest dog.”  That poor dog was 7 pounds when they rescued him.  He’s still very tiny but thinks he’s a big dog.

Our future doctor with her doctor kit.  FYI, she barely knows who Doc McStuffins is but loves the pink and purple medical bag.  I have a feeling when she graduates medical school (or nursing school), I’ll be scouring the world for one just like that.

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Tree Farm

This year we started a new tradition at a different tree farm.  The year before, we had gone to our local tree farm and were not impressed with the selection.  I am not sure that they even sold fresh cut trees this year.
So, we traveled a good distance away to another farm.  And wow were we impressed.  Acres and acres of all sorts of Christmas trees to choose from.  We didn’t want to spend a ton and, fortunately, that made it easy.  Our tree cost less than the one we got last year and was about twice it’s size.  We’ve never had one that large and we thought we were getting one on the smaller size.

 Forgive the blurry pictures.  They had a hay ride that dropped us off in different locations and picked us up (and cut the tree for us).

Malachi loved the hayride.  And, as you can see, it was such a nice day that we were still in t-shirts!

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