Baby it's cold outside!

Remember when we had that blizzard in October? Well it has not really warmed up much since then and lately, it's been bitterly cold. For about it a week the high was 0! It felt cold in the house even with the heat set at 70-71. I've been making hot cocoa every other day and they kids have been in heaven! 

We haven't been outside in a while… if you were outside last week, you would feel your finger, toes, and face becoming frozen in less than 5 minutes. Our indoor activities have included playing in the big boxes that keep arriving with presents from relatives, building legos, playing with cars and trains, making Christmas gifts, eating a lot of food, watching movies, and wrestling. Lots of wrestling. 

For Leah's birthday she received this magnetic dress up doll, it's like modern day paper dolls. Between this, coloring, and washing dishes in the sink, she stays busy. 

 Josiah refuses to sleep with his sheet or quilt. He prefers this soft black blanket and curls up in it like a cocoon every night. It makes us laugh! 

Look how long he is!! He sits on my lap and it feels like a teenage boy is sitting on me!

 And then there's Paul. He rips everything to pieces in his bed, hoarding all of his blankets and toys and animals and flips around all over the place. See the body indentions in the wall… nice. 

The next two pictures describes what the entire month of October and November was like at our house. Sick kids. I am so thankful everyone is finally better and it's been almost 2 weeks since any sickness!

 Leah was born with a large ear tag and she had it removed a few weeks ago. The medicine that was supposed to make her relaxed and sleepy only made her slightly sleepy and irritable. It was not a fun procedure. The one positive about the medicine was that it was an amnesic, so she has no memory of it.  She had a difficult time coming off of the medicine and was extremely fussy all day. But thankfully she never acted like the incision area bothered her, and she didn't touch it all.  It has completely healed up already! 

 We had friends over for Thanksgiving and Justin smoked a Turkey in 10 degree weather! What a MAN! It was good! 

 It was so joyful to have our table full of friends for Thanksgiving. Sharing laughter and stories and memories from knowing each other 10 years ago. We had gooooood food and my favorite.. PIE! I confess, I ate 1/3 of a chocolate pie in a matter of a few days. 

 This was our thankful banner. 

 This is a hard time of the year for those of us who like the sunshine and being outside. The sun was setting over the mountains in the distance at 4:30pm. That is far to early!!! And it was -5 outside that day. I have a whole new appreciation for spring since living here. The dormancy, the cold, the forceful hibernation indoors, the lack of color all around except for brown and white, I can only stand it for so long. I do enjoy the snow. I especially like hearing the crunch sound of it under my feet. Every time I hear it, I am brought back to being a kid skiing in Breckinridge, Colorado with my family every winter. Those are some of my favorite memories with my family and cousins…skiing until they shut the lifts down, walking to town, sledding, carrying/dropping all of our ski gear as we drug it from the rental place to the condominium. ha! I'll never forget all of us cousins lining up to be fitted for our boots. The sound of my feet crunching the snow always reminds me of those wonderful, fun times. 

 One of the kids' favorite things to do is get all of the pillows and blankets from all over the house and pile them on our bed. They lay there and play, hide, and get crazy until someone eventually gets injured. But it's fun nonetheless! 

 It's so cold they wanted to wear their hats and gloves indoors. 

This week Josiah was so excited that we were going to get to see him sing at the Christmas music program at school. He doesn't really like music class and I'm sure he's extremely fidgety, since he gets bored with music stuff pretty easily. He did good and sang all of the songs. Thankfully he didn't pick his nose like he did during the preschool singing programs! 

Here's a little video of Josiah being a reindeer during one of the songs.




Twice a week Josiah brings books home that he has to read to us. He is picking up on words quicker and quicker and is doing very well. We have to challenge him because once he's read the book through, he has it memorized. I will go through and hide the picture and we read one word at a time so I can make sure he is actually reading the words and not just doing it from memory. I did not think he'd be reading in kindergarten! We have loved watching him soak up everything he is learning in school. It won't be long before he's curled up on the couch immersed in a good book!