Happy Birthday to me!

I'm a couple days late, but on Monday I celebrated my 27th birthday. My brother-in-law took it upon himself to inform me that I was now in my "late 20s". Ouch! No, actually I don't really get caught up in the whole getting older thing. There's too much to worry about in life to really care about getting older...we should maybe care a little bit about not getting older, now that would be something to worry about.

As is tradition in this house Brett was busy for my birthday so we had a quick "cake-eating party" in the afternoon with some friends. The birthday cake, if you ask me, could not have been better. Brett and the kids baked it the night before, we had to sample a "small" piece because Brett broke it, and the kids decorated it minutes before serving it. What more needs to be said?

Isn't the cake beautiful? Lol! This is not the best picture of my 27-year-old self, but it'll have to do. My hair was in a ponytail and I think this picture is downright goofy, but it's the best one of the cake. :-)

Weird device

A friend of mine and I both won a free 30 minute massage in a drawing and we cashed in on that this morning. We traded off watching the kids and enjoyed 30 minutes of pampering this morning...lovely! After we were done we fixed some lunch for the kids and then it began to snow.
I was joking around with Aidan about needing to be shoveled out if it kept up. Poor kid took me halfway seriously. I forget that he has no concept of snow...how much is a lot (I'm sure he'll understand better after this winter) and how much is just a "dusting". The accumulation had moved from a "dusting" to a "coating" rather quickly, but still nothing too bad so we loaded up into the car for the ride home. The kids could not figure out how in the world we were going to be able to see out the car windows. "Mommy, what are we going to do" "How are we going to get home if we can't see out of the windows?" Then I brought it out. By "it" I mean that handy, dandy thing we call a snow scraper!
I impressed the kids by buzzing around the car "brushing" the snow off. I could hear "oh! wow!" from inside the car and got such a kick out of their astonishment. After the car was thoroughly cleaned off I hopped back in and heard, "I've seen that thing back there for years...I've just never known what it was for...what a handy little device that is...wow, that worked great!" I couldn't break it to them that I could have just as easily used my gloved hand and had the same outcome...no, I just couldn't do that to them.

Snow!

We love snow!
This picture was taken almost a week ago and that snow has been long gone, but it is actually snowing as I type. Yay! The kids are very excited for Gianna to wake up from her nap so we can all go out and play in the snow. Hmmm....do popcorn and hot chocolate count as dinner? It just feels like one of those nights. Maybe I can get by with it if I stick in "It's a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving!" Yes, yes...I think that will do.

Opening

Now, in my past life when I spoke of "opening" I was referring to a musical, play or show of some sort. We are now in "huntn'" country and tomorrow is opening. I have a couple observations about this...more will come later I'm sure.

#1 You can't call "huntn'" "hunting". If you do, it would be very clear that you've never been.

#2 I find it ironic that I just told my husband to "look out for deer". Well, duh! I of course was referring to the kind that could jump out at him while he was driving to his huntn' grounds. Baggn' (not "bagging") a deer that way is just not cool...especially on opening day of rifle huntn'.

Big Brother Duties

This morning I decided to give the girls a bath since they have been a little under the weather and I hoped to bring Gianna's temp down a little bit. Aidan no longer bathes with the girls, mainly because they don't all fit in the bath anymore. I had forgotten to set out a diaper for Gianna for when she got out and needed to run down to the laundry room to get them. I called down to Aidan to see if he'd sit in the bathroom while I ran on my errand. He came running up the stairs and before I could say a word he said, "I know, make sure no one gets out or goes under". Ya think he's had this job before? :-)
God Bless,
Meghan

Fun Weekend!

We had an extremely fun weekend. It was a mix of sickness (the not-so-fun part), visitors, and a lovely non-forecast surprise...snow!

Emma's godfather and family (which includes our sweet 2 1/2 year old godson) came late Thursday night and stayed until Sunday early afternoon. We had a fantastic time with these dear friends. Ironically enough we have only seen them "in person" a handful of times so we had a lot of visiting and "chillin'" to do. The men discussed trivial matters like canon law, theology, and Latin, and us women got to the more important subjects such as breastfeeding, cloth diapering, and homeschooling. Lol! When we met Bill for the first time (at the Denver seminary to be exact) we never imagined that he would one day be at our house with his lovely and sweet wife and precious kiddos! We feel so blessed to have this wonderful family a part of our lives and are very excited we don't live a country away anymore (us in Texas and them in Canada), but rather 3 1/2 hours!

Friday morning while Brett was getting ready to head out to work we heard him call, "Aidan, Emma, look out the window!". When they did, this is what they saw:

Aidan and Emma had a blast playing in the little bit of snow that stayed on the ground. I think Aidan would have stayed outside all day, but he was running out of dry mittens and he soon discovered that wet mittens meant cold hands. Gianna went outside for a little while, but didn't' last too long.

The snow was beautiful and brought back so many memories of growing up in the north. The feeling of looking outside and seeing that white stuff falling is truly unforgettable. Now, come April and the stuff is still on the ground I might not be so "poetic" about it. I might be, but it may not be "publishable".

Unfortunately we were having so much fun this weekend that we didn't stop and take too many pictures (sorry Claudia), but here is one that I took of our visitors at the "lookout tower" in Duluth.

A little late...

A belated Happy Feast of All Saints! I meant to post this sooner, but I was too busy keeping St.Patrick and St.Gianna occupied and out of all the candy that somehow snuck its way into our house.
We participated in an All Saints Day party with the Catholic homeschool group we belong to. The kids were encouraged to dress up as their favorite saint and give a short presentation on the saint. Aidan gave an impromptu presentation on St.Patrick and explained how St.Patrick described the Trinity using a clover. Emma also gave an impromptu presentation (both of them told me they didn't want to do one so we didn't work anything up, but when they saw the other kids going up they wanted to as well) and you can tell from the picture she wasn't quite as informed on her saint as I thought she was.