Happy Birthday, honey!

Today I am celebrating my husband. His life, his presence in my life, the man that he is, the father he's become. I am so so thankful!

By the way, my Kansas City pics are up OVER HERE!

Home Sweet Home

Kevin and I are home from a wonderful weekend in Kansas City. My parents dropped the kids off this afternoon, and we're loving being together again as a family. Amazing what a good break can do! There will be more to come! But for now I just wanted to stop in to say Hello! to you dear friends Kevin doesn't have to go to work until Thursday night shift so we'll just be hanging out the next couple days, and I can't wait to do just that! Happy Monday!

No more scraping windows!

While we're at it talking about how much I love coupon codes, I just remembered I wanted to share a little tip I've learned since being married to my wonderful husband.... Instead of scraping frost or ice off your windshield, just spray your de-icer washer fluid! It's gone in an instant! You might still have to scrape your side windows but if you were parked in the right direction, they're not usually as bad anyway. You might go through washer fluid faster, but it is soooo worth it!

Don't forget coupon codes!

I was just online ordering some new nursing bras and remembered during check out that I should just do a quick google search for a coupon code. ("bare necessities coupon code") In one click I found one and saved $15 just like that! So don't forget those coupon codes! They're easy to find and so worth the save!

24 hours.

Whew, it's been a long day. I'm tired and ready to take a nice hot shower after having no water for almost exactly 24 hours. That sure made life interesting, needless to say. I spent all morning melting snow, which ended up only being enough for us to feed the cats and flush the toilet two times. With the microwave, stove, and oven I had a pretty good system going, but still it was a very slow process and one that I gave up on by mid-afternoon. I also learned how dirty snow actually is, despite its pure white color! There was quite a bit of dirt that settled to the bottom of the bowl as I was melting! What a surprise!

While I was melting snow, Kevin was trying to dig his truck out. He worked on it for almost 4 hours this morning, took a couple hours break, and then went back out right after lunch. Finally around 2pm, a nice old man came by with a front-loader and helped pull him out and scoop the road! What a blessing!!

By the end of the afternoon the winds calmed down, the sun shone, and everything was calm again. COLD (7 degrees!!), much too cold for play, but calm. So we took a rest.

And then Kevin got to work again fixing the water problem! Turned out it was a specific fuse or something or that sort. And I'm so thankful it was something we could fix without an electrician!

We had our mac n cheese and hot dogs for dinner, and now finally all the dishes from last night's dinner are washed and stacked high. The kids are tucked in bed, heaters are running, and clothes that have been in the washing process since yesterday are re-washed and finally getting put in the dryer.

Tomorrow's agenda: the lane. Must get it cleared out so we can get out for our Kansas City babymoon on Friday!!
And amidst all of today's chaos, one can still find much beauty:

Sun dogs.

This is Day #3 of being snowed in. And that we are. Kevin tried to get out for work today, and 3 hours later he's STILL just on the other side of the barn trying to dig out his truck, while at the same time the winds continue blow him back in. Poor guy. He just called the neighbor so hopefully they can come over with their tractor and help dig him out. (UPDATE: they're stuck in too) Not a single car or plow has been by yet.

The electric in the basement is out, and it's what runs our water pump so we've been without running water since dinner last night. And there's not a chance we can get an electrician out here any time soon in this weather. Everything's shut down. So I'm hoping that MAYBE an electrician can at least talk Kevin through something over the phone.

I'm thankful Kevin's stuck home today. So thankful. I didn't know what I was going to do! And I'm also thankful that he was able to bring home a little food last night. I told him to get milk, bread, and food, and he brought home, milk, bread, mac n cheese and hot dogs and three frozen pizzas. Haha. Yup, that works! We can at least do the pizzas without needing water.

I'm melting snow over the stove right now so I could at least feed the cats and soak our dirty dishes from last night. Snow melts veeerrry slooowly. But it's not so much. At least it makes me feel like I'm doing something, I guess.

While I was out collecting snow I snapped a few photos. See the sun dogs? The rainbow looking things on either side of the sun. I love them.

Snowed in.

We're totally snowed in this week. At least the kids and I are. Thankfully Kevin has a 4x4 truck and can still get out for work. We still don't have any snow removal device for our lane because no matter what we decide to go with, it's probably going to cost at least $2000! And since Kevin leaves for work at 5am, having someone else come dig him out before then really isn't an option. So the lane is drifting over and more snow keeps coming down and tomorrow's weather is supposed to be equally bad with heavy winds. Yikes! We haven't gotten to the store yet this week so we're really scrounging for food, but it's amazing what you can come up with when you really have to! The closest thing we have ingredients for is this yummy and easy alfredo sauce, so that'll probably be dinner tonight with chicken and broccoli from the freezer. I'm really hoping Kevin can at least bring home some milk and bread when and if he gets home tonight!

Today was a little bit warmer than yesterday (22 degrees instead of 10!) so I was actually wanting to take the kids outside to play in the snow today. But I couldn't get my belly to fit inside Kevin's snow suit and I don't have any snow gear to wear otherwise. I had to go out to the van to get diapers, and even that walk had me going through snow nearly up to my knees! So playing and building a snowman and getting my regular jeans completely snowy wasn't really my idea of a good time. So we stayed in and read some books instead.

So it's a quiet week at our house and we're bumming like nobody's business. And feeling thankful for a warm house to stay in and the fact that we do have food in the cupboards.

This week. Random.

I don't feel like sitting down and planning the whole week.
It's 5:00 and I have no clue what we're having for dinner tonight. It was too cold to take the kids all out for errands today, so we didn't. And we're not the type to really have much on hand for no reason. So we'll see. Kevin doesn't get home from work 'til 6:30pm, so I have a little time to think. Chicken nuggets?

This week I do need to:
* finish getting things ready for our MOPS meeting tomorrow, even though we might end up having a snow day and canceling.
* clean off the radiators. they're piled with STUFF right now.
* clean off the hutch. it's our hot spot and always cluttered
* put the Christmas bin away now that we have decorations up
* put laundry away
* wash our kitchen towels. they just pile and pile up until I finally have enough to do a load/we don't have a single towel clean in the drawer.
* write our Christmas letter

I'm trying to learn the art of decorating a Christmas tree so it's a PRETTY tree. Seriously, I'm not very good at it. The last couple years I've been keeping to golds and sparkly ornaments and glass icicles instead of toy-type ornaments. This year I tried adding ribbon and I really like it but it only wraps twice around the tree, so I need to buy another roll that matches, if I can find some. And now this year I've also learned that LED lights are not my friend. They're just too bright white instead of glowy.

I also want to learn how to make different Christmas cookies. I don't make cookies all that often, simply because I will eat them all! And I just realized the only kinds of cookies I ever make are oatmeal chocolate chip or sugar cookie. There are tons of varieties out there, especially at Christmas season, so I want to start trying new recipes! What are your favorites???

Hannah's into giving random hugs lately, and I'm adoring this new phase.

My camera is having troubles with the auto focus, so I've been having to do manual focus and it's really hard to tell looking through the view finder if something is completely in focus or not, so I've been ending up with a lot of blurry pics. Plus it's the time of year with pretty Christmas colors that using flash is especially undesirable, so I've been shooting in low-light settings with a very low shutter speed also contributing to blurry pics. Frustrating, but I did some looking online today and apparently it's a common flaw with this particular lens for the auto focus to stop working at times. I'm hoping for a different lens for Christmas this year anyway, so it may end up being the lens I start using more anyway and the auto focus problem won't be so much of an issue.

I just (as in just a couple clicks ago) came across this Jesus is the Gift online Bible study. I want to do this starting right this minute. And printing...

I'm super duper excited for our getaway this weekend! The kids are going to Grandma and Grandpa's house, and Kevin and I are going to Kansas City for THREE WHOLE NIGHTS! I can't wait! Wish I wasn't 8 months pregnant, so we could do fun things like ice skating, hot tubs, or champagne, but we certainly will enjoy some quality time together as a couple instead of as mommy and daddy!

So that's what I'm up to this week. How 'bout you? Oh and if you haven't been over to the ol' blog at all in the last week or two, come on over, because I've decorated for Christmas! =)

Christmas Countdown Calendar and Jesse "Tree"

Last year at this time we were in the middle of moving and didn't have our normal Christmas tree. So we were borrowing a small Charlie Brown style one and made ornaments following the Jesse Tree tradition. This year I wanted to make a Christmas countdown calendar and I realized we could incorporate our Jesse Tree symbols all into one. We're following these devotionals, using these symbols, and at the end of the day instead of putting the symbols on a tree, we put them over one of the numbers on our countdown calendar. Seems to be working well and is a great way to end the day!

the calendar I put together just using a large white piece of paper and red and green construction paper

calendar with symbols

What are your family's traditions leading up to Christmas??

I don't get it.

Why does my 3-yr-old frequently throw fits about not being able to do something he does every day??! Today it was a whole stink about how he couldn't get his underwear on, even though it's something he's been doing by himself for several weeks now! He does this sort of thing quite often and it irritates me up the wazoo because I don't know why it has to be an issue at all!! I usually just let him continue in his fit, refusing to help, telling him I know he can do it and somewhere along the line he gets it himself and we can finally carry on with the rest of our day. But seriously, this is ridiculous. Anyone know more about toddler behavior and can fill me in on something???

And while we're at it, I'm trying to help Eli learn how to dress himself (he can do underwear and pants, but we're still working on shirt and shoes) but WHY is it so impossibly hard to get him to even TRY to do it on his own! He gives one little tug on his sleeve and then pleads that he can't do it and wants help. JUST TRY!!

Okay, I'm done now. But seriously, if you have any suggestions, I would really love it! Happy Thursday, everyone!