Baby, it's cold outside!

After spending 20 minutes finding all the snow gear and getting it all on, Asa spends one minute out there and he is done. I had to hurry and snap a picture to document this experience. Doesn't that face just say it all! I can't blame him that day. It was single digits and the wind was blowing like crazy. I don't know how the other two stayed out there as long as they did. When the weather warmed up in later days Asa could last at least 5 minutes :)

Meanwhile, the other two love the snow and withstand the cold pretty well. Rex is always the last one standing though. We have to make him come inside before he freezes over. 

I just loved this picture with Eli loving his brother. They have such a good relationship. I am so happy that they play as well as they do. I hope they always remain this good of friends. This day Bob took the car with Eli's coat in it, so we had to layer him in several sweatshirts. Fun times.

When my dad was here he worked so hard at shoveling our driveway and sidewalks. He spent hours out there doing it. And it seemed like every time he did it would snow again (kinda like how you wash your car, then it rains). He then used the snow he piled up to build snow forts for the boys. Rex especially liked it and even helped him out shoveling. We had to get a smaller shovel so he could actually lift the snow. Thanks for all the hard work dad. It snowed again and our driveway is full of snow...we miss you :) Unfortunately for my parents we had an unusual cold streak while they were here. Single digit weather and snow almost everyday. I think they were ready to get back to California. Of course, as soon as they left it warmed up (relatively speaking) and the snow melted away. 

We miss you already!

As I mentioned in the previous post my parents came to visit us for the holidays. They braved the icy roads all the way from California to spend a week with us. We really enjoyed having them here. Although, what is it about kids totally misbehaving at the times you want them to behave the most?! So frustrating!! They did deserve that coal in their stocking! Aside from that, I always enjoy playing games with my parents. We played our go-to game, Quiddler, several times along with canasta, quelf, last word and some others. Happy to say there weren't too many bad tempers to report :) As you can see in this picture my parents are holding up the jean quilt that my sister, Elise, and I made for them. We spent a month making this thing. It is a lot bigger than it looks on this picture. It is the size of a queen sheet (as that is what we used for the back of it.) We spent endless hours cutting and sewing and tying. We were so pleased when we were done. I haven't tackled a project that big in a really long time. It felt good to accomplish something. Now Bob keeps bugging me to make one for him. They are really nice, heavy duty quilts. I hope they enjoy using it as much as we enjoyed making it.  

Those of you who know my dad know that he has a big smile that he wears a vast majority of the time. 

Here is Elise holding a painting that my dad painted for her.  It is really beautiful. I am really proud of my dad for starting his art back up. Elise was really happy to get it, if you couldn't tell.

(Late) Merry Christmas!

I am sure this is a familiar sight for many of you. After all the fun toys are opened up, the kids play with the boxes. My boys have spent the last couple of days playing and sleeping in their "forts" made from the cardboard boxes from xmas. Gotta love it.

The older two essentially opened every one of their presents together. They sure made a haul.

One happy customer. Eli is really into the Hulk right now.

This is how we open presents at our house in case anyone was wondering :) J/K I just love seeing Asa trying to figure stuff out. 

We had no shortage of presents to open on christmas day. Keep in mind that my parents and my sister were here with us, so it's not all ours :) I was mostly excited about my new barstools (that you can see on the right). We were definately spoiled by my parents. Thanks mom and dad :) We really enjoyed the holiday. The night before we went looking at christmas lights and then came home and read the christmas story from the bible. After that we watched "claymation christmas." It is a show that we used to watch as a family when I was a little girl, so I found the dvd online last year so that I could do it as a family tradition. The boys really like it. Luckily we didn't have to wake up too early the next day. Rex and Eli got up at 7:00am. They were very excited. My mom found some cole to put in our stockings--it was candy :) We had a really nice dinner later in the day. We had fun watching some home movies and playing our new games. I love christmas!! I am sad that it is over already.