We love TX winters!

Until recently I was under the impression that I miss New England winters. Nothing like having a Nor'easter blowing outside while you are curled up on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate or hot cider and a good book or cozily playing games or watching a movie with the family. Sledding and snowball fights. Snow-encrusted trees sparkling in the brittle winter sunshine. Sounds wonderful :)

It has been very cold down here for the last month or so (although most of the fall was colder than normal). I realized that I had forgotten some parts of New England winters. Never having warm feet. Having to spend 30 mins getting children bundled up before you go anywhere. Having to constantly adjust the car seat straps as coats add quite a bit of padding to toddlers. Sky high heating bills. Having to keep the kids inside for months at a time, except for short forays into the frozen outdoors, for which you spend more time preparing the children to go outside than you actually spend outside, and then you have to take everything off again and clean up the puddles of melting snow all over the floor. Having to go outside and start up your car 20 mins before you need to go anywhere so it can warm up and having to spend a quarter of an hour scraping ice off the windows.

Having had a brief reminder of the aspects of cold winters that I had forgotten, I rescind my previous opinion that winters should be cold :) I have decided I prefer TX winters. We have cold weather (it got down to 9 degrees one day last month, although granted that was record-breaking temps) occasionally, but it is the exception rather than the rule. TX winters are usually in the 60's or so (at least around here), with a few cold days every once in a while and a few gorgeous warm days every so often. Last week it hit 75. I wanted to go lie in the backyard and soak up the warmth!

Kiki, Travis and Susan got the kids new swings for Christmas (they really needed them as we had two baby swings and only one regular swing). The kids hadn't gotten a chance to use them as it's been so cold and wet. When it finally warmed up last week, the kids made up for lost time, spending every day playing outside. They LOVE their new swings! Thank you Kiki, Trav and Sus!!!





Beth preferred to play soccer with rocks ~


Besides the three classic-style swings, the kids got a swing meant for two kids. They prefer to load three children on it and twist it around and around, then lift up their legs and spin ~


Megan and Jack reading to themselves in the library ~


Papa came down for business and managed to spend some time with us :) Megan and Kylie put on a pirate play for him. It was a musical with 9 songs. Most of the dialog consisted of Megan, the pirate captain, saying "Argh! Get me _____" and Kylie, the pirate servant, saying "Aye, aye Captain!" and Captain Megan telling Servant Kylie to chop wood (i.e. hit the cat scratching post with a stick) until Kylie got tired of it and quit and then Megan had to run after her and let her be the captain for a while. They made their costumes themselves :)


Papa spent lots of time reading to the kids ~





And lots of time wrestling with the kids, which I got on video. Papa is a bit of a cornball :)




One last picture. I love TX winters!!!


Saturday we went over to Bret and Kora's house. It's been about a month since we last hung out with them. I think the kids were going through withdrawals ;) I love that whenever we spend time with them, the kids disappear, playing wonderfully together, leaving us time to have fun as well. The four of us played Rockband on their xBox. Rockband is a game where the players try to follow the notes of a song on either an electric guitar, the drums, or vocals. The first few times we played, I sang and did very well, hitting a 100% the third time on medium :) Then we switched. I did not do so well on the guitar (I think I got 60%?) and even worse on the drums (41%). Guess it's a good thing I stuck to singing as a music major my first year of college! After Rockband, Rob and I fought against each other in a boxing match consisting of three rounds. I totally creamed him, which is hilarious to me as if we were to ever fight an actual boxing match, I doubt that I would last longer than 5 seconds :) I think we need an wii :)