{this moment}

:: washin' the car with dad on a sunny day ::

SNOW.....day 6

Day six of our snow was the BEST!

The weather man had of course said we were going to be having rain all day,

but he was wrong. 

We had a BEAUTIFUL, soft snow fall the WHOLE day. 

I couldn't resist convincing the family to go on a walk. 

We had great fun sledding, and then hiking

on up to the market around the corner, for some hot drinks......

A perfect ending to our SNOW DAYS!!! 

It is now Monday and we still have very LARGE piles of snow

all over the city. 

We went out to eat tonight, and had to drive through

a very BIG puddle of water. 

I never imagined that flooding would be an issue here,

but I guess it is a possibility.

The Lord blessed us with a BEAUTIFUL, clear, sunny day today.

It was in the 40s, so still pretty chilly,

but how nice to have the sun out. 

I took the three older children around the block.

#1 and I walk/ran and #2 and #3 rode their bikes. 

I was thinking all the snow would be off the sidewalks,

but it was actually pretty dicey in some areas. 

How good to get out though! 

The pastor stayed home and washed the cars with the littles. 

He took #5 on a daddy-date this morning to run errands,

and get our pooch, Jessie's, hair cut. 

About mid-day, Ellie, Abby and I got out to see a movie.....

We Bought a Zoo. 

Pretty cute!
We recommend it!! (though be warned, it had a few naughty words....)

We then popped over to the mall to use

a gift certificate that Ellie had received for Christmas. 

Sweet girl time :) 

Back at home, we were greeted by our CLEAN puppy!
She looks like a little snow-white lamb after her hair is cut.
I have to admit, I love her.

..... then, out to eat with the whole fam ......

a great Monday. 

Thank you Lord for your MANY Blessings.
They are new every morning. 

{this moment}

:: off to the hill ::

SNOW...... day 5

These snow posts just seem to keep going and going..... and going!

Wednesday was our official "snow day!"

This was the day they were calling for the BIG storm to come through,

though I'm wondering if Thursday's snow didn't beat Wednesday's. 

Whitney quickly declared upon waking up, that she was not going out. 

She and I decided to cozy up to a movie.

The green circular sled was from last season, and dad

made another purchase this season.... the bright orange one. 

Sweet to watch my children head off to the hills with their daddy!!

I spent the day working on Drew's quilt. 

He's been asking me about it, and I'm feeling motivated to get it finished. 

It's one I started in San Diego, and have hardly worked on

since moving to the Northwest. 

I decided that this week would be the PERFECT time to cozy up and

to make some progress on it.....and I did! 

It's a rag quilt, so that means lots of piecing and cutting.

I don't have to actually "quilt" it, so that takes a bit of pressure off for me!

Just my style. I love working with all the different fabric. 

 Lord willing, I'll make one for Toby pretty quick too..... since all of his squares are 

just WAITING to be sewn together (most of his is already cut out)

They both are lots of different plaids and stripes,

and if I can ever get them finished,

perhaps that will be the motivation I need 

to make the boys' room a bit more grown-up looking! 

So excited to see it coming together. 

SNOW..... day 4

4 days of snow..... this is starting to be epic for our family! 

We did school on Tuesday morning, with the promise of a snow day on Wednesday. 

(The weather men were calling for a BIG snowfall then..... though they've been wrong

a number of times this week. Still don't trust them.)

The pastor had a meeting down south, closer to the city.

No snow there yet, but as he was leaving mid-day it started coming down. 

He was thankful to get back home. 

I'M so thankful that he can be here with us.... (in the past few months, 

we've made the downstairs spare room an office for him.

He locks the door, puts his noise-cancelling headphones on, and is as good as gold!)

The little ones asked for a tea-party, so I obliged and prepared one for them,

.....on the condition that they got all dressed up.

They looked adorable. Daddy even put one of his ties on Toby! 

I LOVE having an excuse to pull out Mama Jo's pink tea cups and kettle.....

and I LOVE delighting my children. 

So, while the world was being covered OUTDOORS by beautiful, white snow,

we had a little warm, cozy IN-DOOR beauty ourselves. 

As for outdoors this day...... there was QUITE a bit of action. 

Drew snuck outside all alone (once again, dressed like he lives in California....

that boy's got some WARM blood)

He enjoyed trying to dig as big a hole as possible, 

until of course it caved in on him!

Next thing I knew, Ellie and Toby were out back with Drew,

and they had decided to try and make an igloo. 

The boys were carting all the snow over to Ellie, 

who was carefully building. 

I LOVE it when they get in creative mode.... especially together. 

SO COOL!!!!

Tuesday evening, we went on a family walk.... in the dark. 

The beautiful thing about snow is that it makes everything seem so quiet,

There is less traffic, and even in the dark, the world seems SO bright. 

The trees were gorgeous. 

It brought back sweet memories of walks in the snow

with the pastor, during our college years at Covenant. 

With five kids though, a quiet, peaceful walk is not really possible.

ha. ha. 

The pastor and I were contemplating how one day they would all be grown,

and THEN we could have a quiet, peaceful walk. 

BUT, we quickly decided,

we would most likely MISS the craziness, 

and be one the phone

asking if our grandkids could come over to play :)

(SURELY with five at least ONE of them will live near us!!)

Such an odd thought..... 

not so sure I want to be thinking about that yet, 

so I'll stop. 

It's so much fun making memories with our children. 

I have very few memories of snow as a child, as we hardly got 

any snowfall in GA. This is all very surreal for me. 

Lord willing, one day my kids are going to have some sweet ones to recall. 

What memories have you been making lately 

with family and friends??

SNOW...... day 3

Monday we woke up to ..... snow. 

We spent the morning curled up in the living room,

listening to our read-alouds.

Yes, everyone else was out of school for Martin Luther King day

..... but not us.

The children spent most of the day playing inside,

but later in the afternoon the boys did venture out

to have some snowball fights with the neighborhood kids.

They discovered that their Mr. and Mrs. Snowmen

had been knocked down.

Wanting to salvage the big balls of snow, they rolled

them across the street and into our back yard.....

and began making one HUGE snowman.

Soon daddy was out helping them.

The sun was going down, so the lighting is not so good in these pics

..... but you get the picture :)

Now that is one FINE snowman!

SNOW.... day 2

Sunday morning, we woke to find more snow coming down. 

The pastor was one the phone for about an hour trying to gauge what the weather was

doing in surrounding areas.... (like I said, where we live often gets hit harder than elsewhere).

He made the difficult decision to cancel worship. 

We had some sweet family time sledding (check our face-book pages for those videos!), 

making snow icies, and having family worship. 

It was a very odd, different Lord's day for us, but it indeed was restful!

 (you'd think he still lived in California..... if it weren't for the snow :)

I'm lovin' my zoom lens. 

I can stand at the front or back door and get pics of all the action.

......sledding, snow ball fights, birdies at the feeder.......

while avoiding the wet and the cold. 

Pretty cool, if you ask me :)