I've Been Dreaming...

...of exactly this.

It just so beautiful! Some places are just made to have snow.

I may be singing a different tune when I'm sequestered at home for weeks while Nels takes the van to work --- since his car is bound to be worthless going up and down the mountain in the snow.

But for now, I just can't get enough of this white fluff. :) Clinging to the cedars and pines... {sigh}

Vi and I took a little walk today. The cat, Midnight, is more like a dog. He tagged along. We followed some dog tracks into the trees and found lots of pretty things.

When we returned I discovered one of the awesome things about having satellite internet...When it snows hard, you have to clean it off...

We're going to have to devise another plan...

Tomorrow the girls are going to build a snowman army in our backyard and go sledding down our non-exsisten hill. :) What I really wish is that we could close off the road for an hour and go sledding all the way from our house to the bottom! That would be awesome!

I really love living here.

Dyer Circumstances

One of the enormous perks of living in Northern Idaho is that it is considerably closer to my dear cousin, Amber and her family!

Two weekends ago, Nels got a Friday off and the girls +Nels had Monday off for MLKJ Day, so we decided to jump on a perfect opportunity to head over to Monroe to visit the Dyers. -- Not to mention, I think if we'd all been cooped up in this apartment for four days straight, we may not have been feeling so lovey by Tuesday. :) -- Thank you, Amber for letting us crash your long weekend!

Hooray for snow! This was their first snow and all those Dyers were so excited. :) I'm just glad that we brought our snow clothes. The kids had SUCH a wonderful time playing in the snow together.

This was my personally favorite trick! :) Riding the sled down the slide. :)

Sweet Hannah

 

LOVE kids in diapers and boots! :)

The night before we left, Clara was running a bit of a fever. I just passed it off, sure that it would pass. Alas, Saturday came along and she STILL was warm and getting more and more fussy so we finally took her into the Urgent Care down the street. Poor little baby had an ear infection. After some antibiotics, she cheered up quite a bit, but she was not in top shape the entire time we were there. I felt bad that everyone didn't get to see her generally smily and pleasant self. Amber's girls were SO in love with her and wanted to hold Clara every chance they got, but because she wasn't feeling well, she wouldn't let anyone but her mommy or daddy hold her for very long. Luckily, next time probably won't be too far off. :)

We took a few minutes before going sledding on Monday to take a quick family picture for Amber.
They all turned out SO cute!

The drive home Monday night was quite snowy over the pass coming out of Seattle. Luckily our van is a beast in the snow and zips right along with nary a slip.

It was such a great weekend. I'm so thankful for Amber and the wonderful friend that she's been for me my whole life. It was so great to see our children developing sweet cousin friendships as well. It made my heart happy. They all had so much fun and got along so well. Being at their home was also good therapy for me. It felt like home.

Thank you, Dyers! We can't wait until next time!

In the Lane, Snow is Glistenin'

We've received a decent amount of snow this winter here in Idaho Falls. The week before we left for Thanksgiving, it started doing this . . .

And didn't really stop the whole time we were gone. By the time we returned a week later, we had over a foot of snow. I'm actually surprised that we didn't have more, considering that before we left, it was dropping snowflakes the size of my PALM!

ONE snowflake!

They finally plowed the roads a couple days ago, even though we'd had about 6 inches of standing snow on all the residential roads for more than two weeks. Just in time for it to warm up enough to melt almost all our snow again. Nice. :)

Sliding Around the Christmas Tree

Two Saturdays ago, we drove up past Swan Valley to get our Christmas tree. Last year was our first time doing this and it was so much fun, that we wanted to do it again.

It was SUCH a beautiful day! New snow had fallen and everything up in those mountains was quiet and covered in perfection. ---- Okay, my kids weren't quiet, but everything else seemed to be. :)

We drove around for quite a while, looking for the perfect spot to get our tree.
--- Because that's the way I do things. ---
We stopped several times on the side of the road,
I'd get out, tromp off up some path (through thigh deep snow),
enjoy nobody talking at me and how clean and quiet everything felt,
hear Nels calling to me to make sure I wasn't eaten by any of the snowshoe hares about,
sweat profusely while seeing if there were any "keepers" in that area,
crawl back to the van on my hands and knees (so my feet would stop sinking into the snow,
brush off,
and drive to a new spot.

Okay, so that only happened twice, but it was still fun for me. I really do love the snow.

At that point, we drove back down the mountain a ways, to the first spot I'd thought about stopping. --Because that's the way I do things.-- See something I like, spend about 5 times more time checking every other option to make SURE that I like the first thing best, and then go back to the first thing. I'm cool like that. :) We all got out and bundled up and were able to take an easy walk up a road, packed down by numerous snowmobiles, right to the tree that we liked the best.

The tree was up on a hill and after cutting it, Nels and the tree got to slide down.

The girls decided that this was such a fabulous idea that they made quite the track to slide down. Over and over and over again.

It reminded me SO much of being a kid and playing in the snow at our cabin! SO FUN!

 Hazel practicing her sawing skills. :)

 Lilie showing off her snow tunnel skills.

 Elsie. Eating pure snow. :) All she really wanted to do, actually.

Poor Violet! I'm not actually sure how much of our Winter Wonder-land she actually got to SEE! LOL!

It-Snow-Fun! :)

For a few days last week, we accumulated a decent amount of snow - and it was actually warm enough for it to stick together in perfect snowman-making fashion. Hazel was able to talk her daddy into helping her out.

He's a pretty funny looking little fella, but those are my favorite kind! :)

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As opposed to last week's warm-up, this week has been frigid. The past two mornings have been -12 or so and have barely gotten over 10 degrees, if that. In true fashionista form, Elsie has developed her own winter style. Panties are apparently all the rage. Not necessarily using the toilet, but she loves her panties that Santa brought for her.

My plan was to just strip her down and have her run around in them for a few days until she gets it down. Alas, my plan has been foiled - as after getting over the pukes, her little system decided to go into overdrive and add a lot of poop to the fun. Always a sucker for punishment, I still drew the line at this and decided to just bide our time for a week or so before getting into potty training full-time. Nonetheless, Elsie still LOVES her panties and this is a pretty typical outfit for her the past several days.

A backpack - for going to stooloo (school) - a diaper covered by beautiful undies and her awesome sparkly red shoes! :) She's stylin'! When I asked her if she wouldn't like to at least wear a shirt, she said, "No. I'm hot." You got it, babe. You look pretty hot! :)

She has also taken on a funny game over the past month or so. I've had my fair share of kids pretending to be different things for extended periods of time. Lilie has insisted on being just about everything from bats to dinosaurs and went through a spell for about 2 months straight where I rarely got her to break out from being a kitty 24-7. However, with all the different creatures we've housed, I've never yet met a child who, more than anything else, insisted on being . . . GRANDMA. LOL!

Elsie talks constantly about how she is Grandma. Crazy, silly, pretty Grandma. But all Grandmas must have a Grandpa and who better for this role than Yours Truly? That's right, folks. She is Grandma. I am Grandpa. You would think that she would assign this role to Nels, however Nels has the very busy role of being Uncle Jake. Or Upin Jate, as she calls him. (Jake is my little 25-year-old brother.) She slaves away all day cooking up a storm for Grandpa, constantly asking where her Upin Jate is. When I repeat for the fifteenth time that Uncle Jake is at work, she again insists that he needs to come home to Grandma. She keeps me laughing all day -- but nothing is better than when she insists that it is time for Grandpa or - even better - Uncle Jake to change Grandma's diaper. "Dwamma poopy? Dwampa change Dwamma's biaper?" I bust a gut every time Grandpa changes Grandma's diaper. LOL!

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As mentioned previously, I'm finally getting over the nasty bug that I've had for weeks and weeks -- and am now starting to realize that I probably have less than two months left of this pregnancy. Realizing that next week I'll be moving up to appointments every two weeks for a month --- and then every week after that. I'm starting to feel a bit of anxiety that the end is coming so close. I'm so very excited to meet this new little babe, but I think I actually get MORE nervous with each child. Nervous for different reasons. At this point, as an "experienced mother" ;), I know better what to expect and start to feel a little apprehensive at being able to handle it all.

This is the first year in quite some time that I think I'm actually looking forward to the expected "slowness" of January and February. No yard work to do, no big holidays (other than birthdays) coming up, and a seemingly endless list of things that have been waiting years to be completed! :) I'm excited to share with you some of my hopefully completed projects in the coming weeks! Show you all the hard work that I've put into my bedding and desk. Complete the covers for the rocking chair that I've been using without a back cushion for more than a year. Recover a chair or two. Finish painting the girls' bedroom and maybe even start on the family room (if I can get a husband to comply)! :)

Also, sorry to those who have requested pregnancy pictures to no avail. I can't say that I feel particularly primed to take pictures of my ever-expanding self. There have also been a few other set backs. Firstly, a great many a day passes without me changing out of anything but sweats or yoga pants. Sorry if that kind of makes me seem pathetic (I know you all view me as the epitome of motherly perfection! :), but in my book, as long as I'm staying at home cleaning and cooking, yoga pants and a sweatshirt are perfectly appropriate. Secondly, even though I recently bought a new pair of maternity pants (which I love and look incredibly hot) AND finally purchased a new hairdryer after doing without for more than a month(!), it's pretty difficult to take a full-body picture of oneself alone. So you add the two together --- rarely looking spectacular, plus Nels not being home during the day --- and it just hasn't happened. (And YES, I do consider "looking spectacular" a prerequisite to taking pictures of my pregnant self for all to analyze. Sorry, I'm really shallow like that.) Perhaps the two will meet sometime in the coming weeks, but I'm not making any promises.

Over and out!

Happy January from Idaho!

We have had a strange January -- however, it IS Idaho -- so what is strange? Winter weather in Idaho is always a little bit weird. We got dumped on with snow around Christmas and since then, we've had almost none. In fact, it's been melting. Last week we hardly had any left on the grass in our front yard. Then this weekend, we've gotten another 10 inches or so. Odd.

Anyhow, usually it is so cold when it snows here that the snow it very "dry" when it comes down. Powdery stuff that doesn't compact very well before it gets crusty and icy. This weekend, however, we've had our first good snowman snow of the season, so I promised the girls that we'd take advantage of it!

Our very cute snowman, named Rex.

A green pepper mouth and broccoli ears. 

(Broccoli ears are what snowman wrestlers get. :)

Elsie's first "real" time out in the snow.

Happy January!!!