When I don't hear sounds coming from BJ's room, I start to wonder what he might be up to. I was so pleased the other night when I found him quietly "reading" CJ's school library book (Secrets of Droon) in his bed. Doesn't he look so cozy?




How about this outfit?!!! Soccer socks with cowboy boots, sweatpants pulled up!

quick post...

Our lives have changed a bit since both our computers have kicked the bucket. Mine won't even turn on, no surprise, and Rick's only works momentarily. I'm hoping to post this before it freezes up.

Most of you have heard about CJ's poem that was published! We're still quite excited about this accomplishment. More than one person has mentioned to us that they assumed we wrote the poem with CJ. Let me assure you that we did not. This was one of his 'up way past bedtime, writing by nightlight' poems from last spring:)

I took the time to go over last year's calendar this morning...getting off to a slower start last January (sick for two weeks, followed by both boys sick for two more weeks), I totaled up 242 days of exercise last year. That means 242 days of exercising at least 35 minutes or more a day. In reflection, I have to admit I'm proud of this. And, I totaled 1283 miles. Many of them running. The goal this year is to maintain a routine that gets me in the gym 5-6 days a week AND to try new things (yoga, spinning, etc.).

must submit..time is out...

new hats...made with love...

One of our favorite babysitters made the boys new hats over the winter break. She stopped by last night to drop them off. Both boys were delighted to wear them and show them off today at school. Notice the thoughtful UT color selection? We love Nicole:)

snow day

A little perspective...after we dug our way from the front door, to the sidewalk, to our driveway, we dug a little infront of our car to try to get the trashcans. Tomorrow is our trashday...fingers crossed they come to pick up the trash. You can see in these first two pics that the snow by our trashcans (behind Rick) and on back to our garage is really quite high. We couldn't park in our garage if we wanted to! I'm listening to the weather as I type this and we're being warned of chances of flooding over the next three days, as our temps warm up to 40s.



Digging out one step at a time from our porch out to the sidewalk...




View from front porch...



No school today, after I told Francie yesterday that surely schools wouldn't close! These pics will tell you why. We're in shock. We really are. As we approached our house yesterday from the airport, we saw about another foot of snow since the last time we were here, and these large tree branches were blocking our driveway and front walkway. The branches are falling off from the weight of the snow. Then we got at least another 12 inches over night. The boys love it and once again we're so grateful to the Buehlers for sharing their snowsuits with us. Both boys are wearing them today, as we've lost CJ's black ones somewhere.

Don't you know our neighbors must love the 4th of July decor hanging by our front door....still:)

School tomorrow?

Man we miss everyone so much. It's hard to even write about how much we miss you. The boys and I watched our video footage today from our trip.

Going to start dinner...

new race track

snow....

eventful week...

Tonight we opened a few gifts at our house:) You'll see a mouthful of m&ms in BJ's mouth. Ah to be four and seven years old!




BJ's school had a super fun party too, where I just floated around with BJ. I had such fun, as did he. They made gingerbread puppets, iced gingerbread cookies (BJ only licked off the icing), and Santa stopped by. How sweet of him to take time off from his busy holiday operations to come see the kids. The kids all brought one wrapped book from home to share in a gift exchange which was lot of fun. It's so neat to see kids excited about new books.



Friday both boys had a fun xmas party at their schools. CJ's was all science related, which was a fun and different way to organize a party! I was in charge of the "Christmas Catapult" station where the kids predicted then catapulted a Santa, a hersey kiss, a xmas bow, and a xmas ring. They really had a great time and you wouldn't believe the science vocabulary these first graders have.


Thursday night CJ had a Christmas Concert. One of his Christmas surprises for us was that he was chosen to play one of the musical instruments in the program! This was a BIG deal and I have no idea how he managed to keep this a secret. He was really hoping to get to do it. It was such fun. He was so excited about the program, that he woke up early that morning and fixed breakfast for everyone.