Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

This is just a cute picture of Kevin and I


So a couple of weeks ago I talked about how we don't get much snow in Virginia. If you remember, we delayed church over a little more than a dusting of snow. I thought that was hilarious. The thing is, we are just not prepared to handle snow here because we don't get very much. Well, this past weekend, we got nailed! The meteorologists were predicting about 4-8 inches of snow, which is a ton of snow for us (especially in December - big snows usually come in March). It started snowing Friday around 5p. By the time we went to bed Friday night we already had 8 inches of snow. It snowed most of the day on Saturday too. We ended up with somewhere between 18 and 24 inches of snow. That is like getting 2-3 years worth of snow in 24 hours. Virginia is definitely not prepared for that sort of thing. It took days to dig out from it. They were still digging out people on Tuesday. We were really lucky that Derek was working from home that day, and the kids were home early, so we were able to just sit home and enjoy the snow. I have one friend whose husband left work at 5:30p on Friday, and when I talked to her at 9:30p he still hadn't made it home. He works about 15 miles from home. Derek talked to someone that went to K-Mart at 5p, and didn't make it home until 10p, again maybe 15 miles.

These pictures were taken before we went to bed on Friday night




Church, of course, was canceled on Sunday. Our road didn't even get plowed until Sunday afternoon. Even at that it was a sheet of ice. We had planned to leave on Sunday to head to my parent's for Christmas. That obviously didn't happen. We did make it out Monday morning, barely. :) We drove out of our neighborhood, which was ice, to the gas station, only to realize that we had left the DVD player at home. We knew that with a 12 hour drive ahead, we needed the DVD player. That meant that we had to navigate our hilly, icy neighborhood again. Luckily, we made it. Even the main roads weren't that clear. The highway really only had one lane clear. It was crazy to see cars buried in the snow off in the ditches all along the highway. It was also a little bizarre to drive 12 hours north to less snow than we had in Virginia. We are pretty happy to have made it safely.

Here are some pictures to give some perspective on our snow storm:

Kevin in the snow


Jenna in the snow


Jared in the snow


Everyone had a good time playing in the snow.

Derek making a snow fort for the kids


Kevin inside a snow tunnel that Derek made


In other news for the week, Derek and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe it has already been 9 years. They have definitely been the best 9 years of my life. I feel really lucky to be married to the best man in the world (sorry ladies, I got him). He is my best friend, and we still have such a great time together. I am looking forward to eternity. :)

Here we are on our 9th Anniversary



Our anniversary was on Wednesday (December 16), so we had planned to go out on Friday night. We had a baby-sitter lined up and everything. We were supposed to leave about 5:30p on Friday. Around 5p it started snowing. My baby-sitter was going to drive to my house. I sent her a text to see if she wanted to drive in the snow. She said she was OK with it, but her parents wouldn't let her (I wouldn't have let my newly licensed 16 year old drive in it either), so we canceled the date. When we realized how much it was snowing, we were really glad our date was canceled. We probably would have been stuck out overnight had we tried to go somewhere. I think we will try again after the new year.

I also worked hard to get my Christmas presents made. I had to do some painting as part of them, so Jenna and Jared wanted to paint too.




Jenna also had a Christmas program at school this past week. She held up the second letter "S" in the word Christmas. It was a cute little program.

The class spelled out Christmas and talked about the meaning of Christmas with each letter


Jenna was the last "S" which went with the Shepherd next to her.


Before Jenna's program at school, Jenna showed Jared the nativity (she goes to a Christian preschool)


The kids also decided that they were going to put on their own Nativity play.

Here is Jenna as the pregnant Mary



Kevin and Jenna playing Joseph and Mary


Derek as a Wise Man bringing gifts to baby Jesus



I think that is it for the week. There really isn't much that can trump two feet of snow in Virginia.

I hope you all have a safe and very Merry Christmas!

Ah the Holidays

This has been a very busy December for us, but we have still found time to do some fun Christmas things. I am working hard to make some Christmas presents. Some have been successful, some have not, but I will keep trying. I have finished most of my Christmas shopping. Hallelujah! I even got in a little Christmas baking this week. I will need to do some more this coming week for Jenna and Kevin's school parties. I really enjoy baking, so I am looking forward to it. It's a lot easier now that my kids are a little older too.

I have continued to get up and run most mornings (even though it has been ridiculously cold here...I know, I know, nothing like the midwest, but cold nonetheless). I recently finished physical therapy for an IT Band problem. Because of that I am required to do some exercises for my IT Band each day, which I usually do right after my run. The other day Jared decided that he wanted to do them too.

Here he is doing some IT Band exercises.





We decorated our Christmas tree for Family Home Evening on Monday. The kids had a great time putting up the ornaments. There are large bare spots, but the kids love it, and I am not about to fix it. To me Christmas is more about the kids having fun and experiencing and joy and magic of Christmas, not about having perfect decorations that I would be constantly yelling at them not to touch. Some day I may have fancy things, but right now it's about them.

Here is the final product.



I also got our stockings "hung by the chimney with care" :)



Yesterday was our day of parties. Between us, we had three parties. Jenna and Kevin had a gingerbread house decorating party at our neighbor's house. They had a great time. Then we had a party at our church. Derek was only able to join us for about the last 15 minutes of it, because he had a final yesterday (lucky him). Last night Derek and I went to "An Ugly Christmas Sweater Party." That was really fun. It was a couples only party (I love those). Everyone was supposed to wear an ugly Christmas Sweater. Most of the people that went just made their own (added decorations to a sweater they already own), including us. I wish I had taken a picture. Oh well. They also had a White Elephant gift exchange, which was awesome. A couple of the funnier gifts (which we didn't get, thankfully) were an ear wax remover kit and bath tub refinisher. It was a blast. This week we have a couple more parties (Jenna and Kevin each have one at school) and Derek and I have our Anniversary, so it will be another busy, but fun week. I love it! :)

Here is Kevin and Jenna's gingerbread house (it is actually pound cake because the neighbors kids complained that they didn't like gingerbread ). :)





I don't know if that is a moat or a river, but I think it's awesome. They even put a bridge over it.

Snow!

We had our first snow of the season yesterday. It was quite exciting. We don't get a lot of snow around here, so we take what we can get. The snow definitely helped it to feel a lot more like Christmas. We actually didn't really get any accumulation at our house, which is fine by me, but it was pretty to watch it fall.

This is a view of the deck. The deck and driveway are the only places where the snow actually stuck, and it didn't stay there long.


The kids got all bundled up to go play in the snow. Kevin was not happy about getting his picture taken. He just wanted to be outside playing.


We got a few of our Christmas decorations up this week. The kids were so excited to put them up. Our tree is up, but not decorated. I think we may do that for family home evening this week. I put the wreath on the door, the lit garland across the piano, and hung two advent calendars. I will probably put out a nativity set (after all that is the real purpose of Christmas), and hang our stockings over the fireplace. I think that will be it for decorations this year. Everything I put up, I have to take down, so I am a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to decorations. This year less will be more.

The kids helping put up the tree


The Christmas Tree (a bit blurry - sorry)


The kids have been in the habit of making "houses" lately. They dumped out all of the toys (the toy area is a mess), and they use the bins for their houses.

Jared's House


Jared and Jenna in Jared's House


Jenna's house


Jenna's house up close


Kevin's house from the outside


Kevin's house from the inside (two stories!)


We attempted to take some family pictures for Christmas cards this week. We have actually attempted this many times over the last couple of months. Every time someone is making a face or not looking at the camera. I cannot believe how difficult it is to get three children to look at the camera and smile. We ended up not being able to use any of these. We used an older picture, that isn't great, but it's the best we have this year. :)

Here are two of the six or so we took




This picture was taken while setting up for the family pictures. I thought it turned out well.


When we were done trying to get a Christmas card picture, we let the kids each try their own. They told us where to stand and they got to press the button.

This is Kevin's attempt


This is Jared's attempt


Jenna's came out too blurry to post.

Jenna went to a birthday party for a little boy from school on Saturday. They had a magician perform. Derek went with her. They both said it was really cool. He made these great balloon things at the end.

Jenna came home dressed as Santa. I thought that was pretty cool.

Thanksgiving

This is the first chance that I have had this week to write a Blog post. I have been so busy this week!

We had a great Thanksgiving. Derek's mom, siblings, their spouses, children and significant others all came here for Thanksgiving. We were so excited to have everyone, but I knew there was no way that we could comfortably sleep 15 people in our house. We decided that renting a house we could all stay in for the weekend would be the best option. It took a lot of work to find one, but it was totally worth it. We found a great old farm house on 28 acres of land with 5 bedrooms and a huge dinning room. It was fun to all stay together, but not be on top of one another. The house had awesome toys for the kids to play with too.

We had so much fun. It was really nice to all be together as a family. I hope we can do that again sometime. I am including lots of pictures. However, know that I had over 500 to choose from, so I think I did a pretty good job narrowing it down. :)

Enjoy the pictures!

The house we stayed in. Isn't it beautiful?


A view from the back


What would a vacation be without a little Wii time?


I love her expressions.


The kids had a great time hanging out with Gordon, the fiance of my mother-in-law.


Even though there were lots of fun things to do inside, the kids prefered to be outside. The property around this place was awesome.

There were a few old barns on the property. They were really cool. The kids loved exploring them.




















The inside of a barn


Inside a barn, looking out


Jared looking out from a barn


Jared and Jenna hanging out in a barn


Brian and Jenna hanging out in the barn


Brian and Jenna from another view


They were pretty high up. I thought these were great shots of the two of them.


This is a great bell. The kids had a blast ringing it. The owner told us he would use it as a dinner bell when he lived there.


The kids had a great time exploring the property.

Derek and Jared




Adlai and Jared


Jenna, Kevin, and Jared


Kevin and Jared


Kevin


Kevin, Jenna, and Derek climbing a tree


Kevin found an awesome walking stick while we were there. He named it "Sticky." He was devastated when he thought he lost it. He was even more heart broken when we told him he couldn't bring it home.


Monkey see, Monkey do. Since Kevin had a stick, Jared needed one too.


"Sticky" went everywhere Kevin did.




Somehow Jenna was privileged enough to hold "Sticky" for a minute. I guess Kevin wasn't actually too happy about it.


Jared decided to work on his golf swing a bit while we were there. :) I think he needs better fitting clubs...


Nana (Derek's mom) bought these Christmas snow globes for the kids. They LOVE them.


Doesn't Jenna look cute in these pictures? I am not biased. :)


Jared, Kevin, and Jenna


The cousins


Our Family


The whole family


Thanks for everything family! It was an awesome weekend.