Another snow day!

 Well, my boys were thrilled that we had another snow day! Charlie and Miles had been making snowflakes in hopes that we would get another dumping.

Max got to work from home and I was really enjoying the fact that my older boys could figure out all their snow gear on their own and Edwin could walk out in the snow. I always try to appreciate different stages with my kids and this stage was enjoyable because they could all play outside and I didn't have to worry about holding a baby that couldn't walk. I was able to play with them. It was great and not as daunting as snow outings in the past. And people that live in incredibly snowy places are probably laughing about this. Anyway, Charlie got right to work with the snow-ball-making.

 It is pretty magical when the large snowflakes are falling!

We walked down to the church near our house to find some good sledding hills. 

Another revelation about the goodness of life is when my big boys were pulling the sled to the church then got to the cement and lifted the sled as not to drag it. I liked their teamwork and their thoughtfulness in not ruining the sled. Just a little moment, but something I want to remember.

And then somehow the snowball fight commenced and it was decided but someone other than me that Edwin and I were on a team and Charlie and Miles were on a team. I'm pretty sure my team lost, Sorry Edwin.

Then these boys worked as a team to go up and down the hill. 

 Edwin was perfectly content sitting on the sled the whole time. The funny part was that he had no emotion or evidence of joy while he was sledding but he did get pretty mad when it was time for him to get off.

My monkey Miles

 

Zero emotion from this kid...so weird.  

And there they are together. The sledding hill really wasn't that great so I couldn't push them very far.  

And just like me, Miles is the first to quit his enthusiasm about snow.  

So we hiked back to our house.
 

And you know, cant forget to photograph those chickens in the snow.

It was a good day in the snow, and hopefully the last, until next winter.

Family Time

A couple weeks ago my younger brother came into town from California so we made an event out of it and took some pictures. Sadly, Elizabeth and the kids didn't make it up, but there will be more photos next time when we are all together. 

And we're a bunch of weirdos so we brought out the chickens

My not-so-little brothers and my mom.

See how I have all these brothers and sons?...I need all my hen girls to balance it out!
Between all of us, we have about 21 birds, James has 9 chickens, we have 9 chickens (Although, a neighbor's dog chased one away last night and we have yet to find her) and my mom has 3 pet birds, so I guess we are the crazy bird people.

Anyway, we had a dinner party at my house. Edwin became obsessed with Dan and would order him to sit down near him. Even as I'm writing this, Edwin walked by and starting pointing and saying "Dan Dan!" 

And it was a fun activity with my mom and brothers and a little weird that we're all adults now. Also, whenever my boys and little brothers are in the same room I interchange their names like crazy!

My Valentine

Since we had a date before Valentine's day and we have a Valentine's date in a couple weeks, the actual day of Valentines was kept simple. Or it may have had to do with the fact that everyone was sick so Max was home from work and the boys were home from school. We started the day with Heart pancakes which weren't very popular because no one had an appetite. haha! Maybe I won't make a triple batch of pancakes when everyone is recovering from the flu. Max was starting to feel better so he worked from home. The boys were feeling better so I attempted to do some homeschooling with them, besides a lot of playtime, they also did a snowflake craft, and cleaning up the craft took all the patience so we didn't do much after that. I had grand plans for a science, math and writing activity. Dinner was simple since they didn't feel like eating much anyway,  I can't even remember what dinner was. Then the recovering children were sent to bed so they could finally go back to school the next day! Max finished up some of his work, while I made some chocolate covered strawberries, I really will take any excuse to make these. haha! Anyway, since it was a home date, we tried to make it exciting by making it look like we went somewhere cool and recreated a photobooth. It made us laugh pretty hard and now we have a bajillion photos of ourselves. So there you go...

I'm gonna go ahead and put a whole bunch of them here....

Whew....You made it to the end, believe it or not, there are a lot more, but I'll spare you. Anyway, the rest of our evening was spent together and it was perfect. I'm sure glad I have this super silly, confident, thoughtful, hardworking man as a Valentine!