Sunday, December 16, 2007

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!


It has been snowing and snowing the past few days--and the way snow sticks around here, we should be in good shape for a white Christmas (and white Easter for that matter). Brent's a very diligent and devoted husband in many ways, but I REALLY appreciate him when it snows. He was outside warming up the snowblower at 7:30 am as I lay in my nice warm bed. Our driveway is long so it is a big job clearing all the snow, even with a hefty duty snow blower. But Brent always takes charge and gets the job done. I know I have his dad to thank for teaching him so well, I'm hoping our boys are learning from his example as well.

We were loving the storm (and our 4WD) on Saturday night as we headed out to do some Christmas shopping. I was certain we'd send ourselves to the asylum taking all three kids to Target on a Saturday night the week before Christmas--a crowd nightmare! But thanks to Jack Frost the holiday shoppers were scared away and we were pleasantly surprised to find the store quiet and lines short.

On Saturday afternoon we hit the slope...the sledding slope that is. There was a layer of very icy snow (from the ice storms last week) underneath the newest layer of snow. So, the slopes were exceptionally slippery and the sleds zipped down the hill fast and furious. Morgan and Isaac (and Brent and I too) were loving practicing our balance on the fake snowboard sled thingy. Ethan could have gone up and down the hill all day long if we'd let him. I couldn't believe he wasn't complaining of being cold or hungry after an hour on the hill.

When Ethan saw Morgan's friend, Ima, with her snow helmet, he was convinced that he needed one too. So, he dug out his bike helmet and, well, there was really no point in trying to convince him it wasn't the right type of helmet (and that it looked dorky)--he's two and he's difficult to reason with. Truthfully, the bottom layer of ice was so hard that it was comforting to know he had a little extra protection on his noggin.

The Davey's Christmas Party



What would the holidays be without a few holiday parties--and an excuse to wear our cute holiday clothes somewhere other than church. Our friend, Heather Davey, threw a great party tonight complete with chili, hot chocolate, and visit from Santa and his big red sack!

Santa brought Morgan the Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix DVD and some super cute mary jane slipper socks (I'm hoping Santa brings me my own MJ slipper socks for Christmas...hint, hint). Morgan couldn't have been more excited about the DVD. She's such a Harry Potter fan. She was in preschool when we read the first book out loud to her. Looking back I can't believe she had the attention span for it at that age.

Keeping with our Halloween Star Wars theme, Santa brought Isaac a set of Star Wars action figures. On the way home he was playing with them in the back seat. He smiled and said, "Mom, I'm having so much fun with these action figures back here!" Did Santa do good or what?

Ethan got an airplane thing with a trigger launch to shoot it off into the sky. I guess that may not have been the best choice for a gift to hand to a 2-year old in a crowded house of people, but nevertheless he was thrilled and totally excited (and no one was maimed or even brought to tears as far as I know :-). Ethan was psyched to see and talk to Santa. There were many tears shed by other 2-year-olds terrified of the big guy, but Ethan warmed right up to him and sat on his lap without any prompting.

On the way home at 8:00 the kids were begging to watch the new Harry Potter DVD. Brent said, "sure", insisting that it was so close to Christmas break that the kids would be fine to go to bed late. I had to step-in as the "heavy" to insist that the kids needed their sleep. We finally compromised that they could watch until 8:55, as long as they were in their beds at 9:00.