Baby, It's COLD Out There!

Spring has sprung, fall has fell, winter's come and holy heck is it cold this year!!! Winter down here tends to mean temps in the 60's and 70's, with occasional forays below freezing, which don't usually last for more than a few days. Apparently Mother Nature decided to mix things up this year and it's been cold for several weeks now, with only a few days of warm weather here and there. Yes, I am aware that there are many other areas that we have lived that are colder. The difference is that in those areas, we expected it and were prepared for it. Seriously I think the kids only have about 5 cold weather outfits and the coats we have above size 5 are much more light weight.

This year for Christmas, Rob and I gave my parents a professional photo session with their grandkids (all of whom happen to be our kids). As my parents are leaving for their mission in Russia in a few weeks, we scheduled it for last weekend. Fortunately, we caught the tail end of the "warmer" weather, so it wasn't as cold as it could have been, but it was still pretty nippy. We'll have to see how the photos turn out. The kids were not very happy about being outdoors. They were troopers though and all of them sat or stood where they needed to and looked at the camera :)

We let Kylie wear a vest in the pictures as her shirt was wet. We decided to have all the girls wear purple and the boys wear green, but Kylie's purple shirt was dirty, something we didn't discover until about 45 mins before we had to leave to get the pictures taken. Other discoveries that day included that our washing machine takes over 30 mins to wash a load of laundry and that a shirt, even by itself, takes more than 10 mins to dry in the dryer. Rob brought Kylie's shirt down, clean but very damp. We weren't sure what to do. Rob suggested driving with the window down and Kylie's shirt hanging out of it so it would dry. Considering that it was in the 50's, I didn't think that was a good idea. We offered Kylie two "squares" on her reward chart if she would put the shirt on and without hesitation, she agreed. We put the vest on over it to keep her warm (the vest was purple too) and she was thrilled that she got the chance to earn extra squares.

The day we got our pictures taken also happened to be Beth's 5th birthday :) We had her party just after Christmas so that my siblings could be there, but we still wanted to make her day special. Rob got up early with her and they read for a while. We've been trying to spend more quality one-on-one time with each of the kids and that was a good opportunity. We let Beth decide where she wanted to go for dinner as our family tradition is to go out for dinner on each person's birthday. Beth picked a restaurant called BJ's, which is a brewhouse that makes fantastic homemade sodas - and the food is really good too :) Nona and Papa came with us. After dinner, Rob and I took the kids to Half Price Books, a used book store chain in our area. Beth got to pick out a present there and she picked a box of preschool worksheets and materials. Then I took the kids next door to Party City so Beth could buy something with the money she got from Grandpa and Grandma K. She picked a package of about a million (only a slight exaggeration) stickers.

When we got home, I thought since the kids were all still dressed in their coordinating outfits and their hair was still done, that I would take a few pictures of my own. That didn't work out very well. Jack threw a fit and refused to get anywhere near the camera or his sisters, and Eva, who had been extraordinarily cooperative up to that point, decided she had had enough.



The next day it started snowing as we were driving home from church. The kids loved watching the snowflakes fall and ran to the window once we got home.



Kylie created a new hat that she modeled for the camera ~



That evening the kids asked if we could light a fire. As Rob lit it, he commented "doesn't this just make you want to grab a spear and put on a loincloth?" Strangely, I have never had that reaction to fire.

For dinner we had sausages and carrot sticks. We opted out of cooking them over the fire, but did give in when the kids asked that we stick them on the end of forks instead of using buns.



For dessert, we had marshmallows of course :) It may look like the fire is out, but there were plenty of coals ~



While the four older kids and I roasted marshmallows, Rob and Eva discussed tactics ~



Brittney and her sister, Becca, came over and roasted marshmallows with us. We had hot cider too.



The next day, Beth decided to be a "bampire". She came up with a whole outfit and declared herself "Bampire Beff" ~



Jack got in on the dress up action and wore his train hat while playing on the computer ~



Beth came up with another outfit that she insisted I take a picture of ~