A day in the snow

Well, as is now tradition, we headed up to the snow at Mt. Shasta for the day after Christmas. Only this time around it was a very different story - it was COLD!! Super cold. AND we had a wind. It wasn't a super strong wind, but when you are wearing fall clothes and don't have proper boots, several feet of loose snow and a gusting breeze blowing across your face at twenty something degrees leads to a rough time enjoying the great outdoors!

Our seasoned pros took their rain boots and pair of summer socks and traipsed up the hill. Fifteen minutes later, we were in the car, crying because their feet were too cold. Sure enough, when I got their boots off, they had snow packed around their feet. I told them we were just reducing the swelling around their ankles but it didn't seem to help. Before you wonder what I was thinking bringing them up here with inadequate clothing, kindly remember that we drove to see this snow.  :-)  Praise God!!  Where we live, we just do not get weather like this so there is no reason to have the proper clothing for growing girls. Our solution was to bring multiple changes of multiple layers, hoping to just keep changing them out so they would stay warm enough for a few hours in the snow. With a few modifications, it worked.

SO, while they warmed up in the car, I got them their first change of clothes, and the rest of the crew made a sledding run. After they warmed up, we carried them through the deepest snow to the run the others had packed down. Finally, they had a blast sledding down the hill!

And "helping" the trees by getting all that cold snow off their branches.

That white shimmering thing is the mountain - so refreshing to see snow and know that means there has been some water recently!

About the time we were done, it turned into one heck of a beautiful day! The trees were spectacular!

Yes, the boots turned into slippers in the car. :-)

As we descended the mountain, we stopped in places where we might be able to build a snowman (the snow at the top was too dry)...and a snowball fight broke out...clearly my children have a little to learn. :-)

We made it all the way back down to the town of Mt Shasta before we found snow that would make a snowman, but make a snowman we did!

Well, some of us did...the girls and I may have been having a sledding competition while the others made the snowman...Yes, I went the furthest. Thank you.

Oh yeah, there is just a little bit of snow up there...this is the side of the road...and it's not the highest slice we found, but my hubby won't stop on the side of a narrow, ice covered road so I can take a picture. Weird. :-) Anyway, yes, I have real snow pants. I bought them this year for mucking in the early mornings. So, I was warm everywhere except my toes - I only have mucking/rain boots for those.

I digress. Back to the sledding. Em won for style points.

And so, from the snowy land just north of here, we say 'Adieu'! God Bless! And a Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!! I know it has once again been some time since I updated, but boy oh boy has life been going crazy! I love this time of year but it is also crazy busy! We had to do Christmas early again this year as M will work over the days on and around Christmas, so in the midst of life going on, we were in Christmas prep as well. I am proud to announce, we have survived!!!

We have some fun pictures from life around here to actual Christmas day (the 21st). The one thing I really like about doing science at the home school is practicing on my kids. We call Sunday afternoons Sunday science. It makes for a fun afternoon between church and small group.

This is Emily's magnifier the district gave her to use at home.  It is huge and none of the kids in the schools will use it because they are too embarrassed, but since she is at home she doesn't care. It has been great for her reading, as I mentioned before, and continues to be a big (ha ha get it?) help.  The funny part is that she uses it for all sorts of stuff - this is Anna getting a check-up from Doc.

Our friends from down south rolled through once again over thanksgiving and we took off on a hike...it was a lot colder than we thought it would be, but at least there really was water in the waterfall. We were concerned because with the drought as bad as it has been, the waterfalls often take hard hits.

Their reward for making the four and half mile hike was hot cocoa.

I figure it might be time to start introducing you to some of their new friends up here.  I rarely remember to take pictures these days, but Christmas has reminded me that I really enjoy blogging life and when I look back, I don't want to have gaps in their lives of memories missed. SO, look out, I am back! :-)

So to start...making Christmas cookies with Nana.

We made 74 small cookies and two giant snowmen! The girls are definitely getting more mature - they hung in there the entire time, from mixing and baking to all the decorating.  It was an entire morning! They are getting so big and I LOVE it.

The best news of all? We have been getting rain! And that means snow on the mountains.  It truly looks like a white Christmas around us!

We have hosted several parties...I ran one for the youth girls and my mom ran one for the ladies in our church in back-to-back nights, it was loads of fun! I couldn't get everyone in, but you get the idea. We had a blast!

The very next day was our Christmas Eve!

We have started the tradition we always did in my house - pajamas on Christmas Eve, sleep under the Christmas tree in the living room, and wake up under the lights for Christmas morning.  I was so excited to decide they were old enough to start and my sister (who has carried on the same tradition) and I decided to buy our nieces their pajamas each year. Em got Frozen, K got Elsa, with a hood. :-)

SO the question I always get when I tell people about our tradition: What about Santa? How do you do that and Santa? My answer: We don't do Santa, so no problem at all. :-)

Christmas morning is always a big, yummy breakfast!

Well this was the motley crew this year.

The girls got some pretty sweet presents again this year! The girls are super excited to be twinsies with several of the outfits.  Thanks to all of their aunts and uncles and grandparents for all the wonderful presents!!

This year the girls were very excited to give each other gifts - they actually put a lot of thought into what each other would like and it was nice to see them get just as excited about giving as receiving.

I went into a rebellion against 'girl' toys and went to something building blocks and since Em cannot see well enough to do regular legos yet, lincoln logs got the final nod. Without brothers around they don't have access to the 'good' toys (in my opinion). Anyway, we have been having a lot of fun building stuff, but girls will be girls, and no matter what, the dolls and toys always make it in to the set. The houses end up fully decorated and the dolls have a purpose in their moving about the town of houses. It's a good mix! Hope it sticks!  At least Dad will play with them again now. :-) K thinks she wants regular legos so that will be fun soon!

Well, we will be back soon! THANK YOU to all our family! We love you all!

Family Fun Night

Before we move too fast past Hawaii and into the Holidays, I have a couple more fun posts to get in here. One of the nights we were there, we decided to have a family fun night and the theme was "Wacky". So, we dressed up wacky...

(I have been thinking of finding a funny Christmas picture, this made me laugh and may have won the competition without a fight, so don't laugh too hard, you might see this in a card coming your way soon...if I remember before it's too late). :-)

We even made wacky faces out of our food.

The only hitch was Em burning her arm on the hot spaghetti sauce.  Poor baby!  It turned out to be pretty gnarly and she spent the rest of the trip out of the salty sea water, but she is so tough, she just kept going - that night and the rest of the vacation.

Auntie MoMo won the first game - we used the Minute to Win It games (I am totally doing this with my teenagers, it was a ton of fun!). This is the oreo game...get it from your forehead to your mouth...no hands.

We did penny stacking games...

...m and m moving games...

...and even shake your booty games. We did learn that the ping pong ball games need lots of balls or they just aren't fun, but the dancing games are worth every second.

It was a good time had by all and now I have a whole new set of ideas for my small group as well as our family nights - themes!!

He he. Dessert - rice crispy treat turkey legs.

Good times!  God Bless!