Winter Weather

Sometimes I miss the snow, but then again I don’t miss the months of cold that come along with the snow.  It seems like everyone has been suffering with the bitter cold this year.

Miller and our neighbor decided that it was a perfect day for a swim. 

We went to the beach last weekend….

 

They built a rock wall…

They found a starfish…

Poor guy had an incident with a big rock. 

But it was an amazing weekend!

Sorry.  Not sorry.

Flashback Friday!

I was thinking about our days in colder climates.  We love, love, love it here, but sometimes it is nice to have a some real cold air.

It’s a blustery 71 degrees here this morning.  I made the boys wear their sweaters.  I am the only one who thought a sweater was necessary!  They were not pleased!

Ok Miller was pleased.  He wore his all day long.  That one likes to be cozy!  Jackson wore his until he got onto the school grounds and took it off as he parked his bike.  Apparently my wording was not concise enough.  I told him he had to wear it to school.

I feel badly for the tourists when we have weather like this, but I sure do like the change!  We should be back up in the 80’s by the weekend.

Cold Snap

We have been experiencing real Winter Weather here.  Since we don’t have real Winter clothes, it has been particularly chilly.  I’m not kidding!

Winter Weather here is anything below 70 degrees. Seriously!

Yes, I realize that we kept our heat on 65 degrees when we lived in a colder climate.  Still!  It has been freezing.  I’m not even kidding!

Did I mention that we don’t have heat?  Or insulation?  I have to turn on the oven or take a bath if I want to warm up. Folding Laundry is also a way to keep warm.  For real!

At Jackson’s soccer game it was cold and rainy.  We had to huddle together to keep warm. We get hassled by our Bahamian friend when we say we’re cold!  I’m for real!

Jackson was even forced to wear a sweater.  I adore their winter uniform! I kid you not!

60 degrees is cold when the wind is blowing like crazy!  That’s no joke!

Allen has been in Chicago where they are having legit Winter.  Poor thing!  At least he has a coat! For real!

Fortunately Winter lasts about a week here!  I’m not kidding!

The King

As you know, the Butterbean is a handful. He goes from place to place taking things out and redistributing them throughout the house. He is adept at opening doors, drawers and complicated contraptions. At this point I have 4 muffin tins on my kitchen floor, and can only find one potholder. Such is life with him.

Last week our playgroup was going to the play place at Burger King. Normally, I avoid those places, because they are big old germ factories, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Cabin Fever can drive you to do some crazy things!

Let me describe the scene for you (in 600 words or fewer). This is a fancy Burger King complete with a fireplace! So you walk in the front door to BK and you are in a vestibule where straight ahead is the whole fancy BK and to the left is a glass door to the play area. We should have turned around at this point, but I've never been one to do the right thing.

{For your knowledge, I use the word vestiblule to mean the area in between two doors when you are walking into a public place. You know the "no man's land" in between the 2 doors? I call that part the vestibule. Don't know if it is correct, but that's the word I use}

For whatever reason they were replacing the tile floor on the other side of the kids area, so they had a jackhammer going. Lots of dust, noise and crazy kids. As you know, I may or may not, have already been teetering on some mental health issues. The jackhammering didn't help.

We get there and Jackson and his friends took off and began their playing. The structure there is pretty big (and dirty too!), so Miller just kind of hung around the bottom. Eventually he tried to escape, but I caught him and brought him back to the play area. I made sure I closed the door behind me so he couldn't sneak out again. I was pretty vigilant about watching him too. Until I wasn't.

See it all went like this. I saw one of the other boys, who had previously been wearing pants coming out of the play structure with no pants. I called to his mom that there was a little problem and may or may not have giggled a little bit. That giggling stopped when that little boy told me that Jackson had pulled them off of him. Jackson. My Jackson.

At that point my mental health took a tiny turn for the worse. Eventually the guilty party came out with the other boy's pants and gave an explanation that was a lot more innocent than I thought. He just wanted the boy to come with him, so he was pulling him by the pants, and inadvertently pulled the pants off the kid. Still embarrassing, but at least he didn't mean to.

Still there was a full on fit when I told him he needed a time out. It would have been nice if the jackhammer was working just then, but alas it was on a little break. So everyone was treated to his full on fit while in time out.

Whew! About the time I was calming down from all this, I looked up to see a Burger King employee walking in with my baby. Um, see I didn't even know he was missing. I was too ashamed to ask where he had been. It couldn't be good. Was he outside? Was he in the kitchen? Was he playing in a mop bucket? Only he and a BK worker know, but I DID know that I was D.O.N.E. DUN!

Jackson was still having a fit and was not being very helpful as I was trying to put his coat and shoes on, so I asked my friend Lise to watch Miller, while I manhandled that 3 and half year old. She is always such a good sport to help those of us who have more children than we can handle. I love her for this.

So after I won the wrestling match with Jackson, I was ready to move on to Miller. I looked over and Lise was standing at the glass door leading to the vestibule making sure that Miller didn't escape again. Miller was near the door, waiting for her to lapse attention, but Lise was ON IT. No child would escape on her watch.

By the time I walked the 12 or so feet over to the door to get Miller he was already outside the door in the vestibule! What? how? what? I mean he is wily, but he is not Houdini--or is he? Turns out, he is not. We looked at the door and sure enough the glass that surrounds the door was missing, so he was just walking right through. Ah-ha, he found the flaw in the system and he was working it!

I knew I needed to high tail it out of there before Child Protective Services made an appearance.

And that is how I was conquered by The King.

You can Skip this post if you want

There are times when i want to just put some thoughts down so I don't forget. This is going to be a long boring post, but I want to get it down so I don't forget.

We have had so much snow this winter. Last year we had a "snow drought" and I was terribly disappointed. I have learned the lesson of "be careful what you wish for" before, so I know this, but still...

I was thrilled and couldn't sleep for the first snow. i was giddy for the second snow. Then we got our 3rd snow on December 19th. We got a bunch, and we got to have a White Christmas. Loved it! Oh yeah, December 19th was still not Winter yet. Should have figured it out, and headed south! But I LOVE snow, so here we are. We got a few snow falls in January, then got THE BIG ONE. Just as we were digging out we got another 12 inches on top of the other. That was when we hit a wall. No more snow, please! We have tried playing in it, but it is too deep for Miller and he just heads to the street. It is just not fun trying to keep him out of the street. Can't blame him, there is still about 2 freaking feet of snow out there.
Yesterday was President's Day and Allen was home. So I had a dream about building an igloo in the driveway. So out we went into the driveway to try and build said igloo. It ended up being more of a cave with 2 entrances. I think it's Da Bomb. The boys, notsomuch. Jackson wanted real doors and lights and Miller wanted to hit the road (with no gloves, please). Thanks for playing mom, but the whole snow thing is just a ploy to get Hot Chocolate.
So we came inside and took off all the dirty, wet clothes that it took ages and such a hassle to put on. Shortly thereafter I had a break with sanity. All I can say was that it was not pretty. I then decided that it would be best if I took a nice hot shower and had some retail therapy. That made it better. Sort of.
Because you know what? There is still 2 freaking feet of snow outside. I still have to walk across an ice rink (or call it the sides of my driveway) to get to the car. All parking lots are dangerous because half the spaces are filled with plowed snow that's about 10-12 feet tall. I could go on and on.
Did I tell you that Jackson has been to preschool for 2.5 hours in February? I didn't? Well, now I have. Hallelujah for preschool tomorrow!
There are about 5 weeks left until Spring and I have a feeling this is not the last snow we will have before all is said and done. The forecast is showing flurries here and there, but I would not be surprised if we get another big one. we will see if I am of stable enough mind to handle it.
Next of my random posts will be a detailed description of our trip to the Burger King Playground. Just so you know, desperate times call for...The King!

Just a taste

Yesterday was a real taste of Spring. It was really stormy in the morning. Then it was sunny and windy, then it was warm and cloudy in the late afternoon. We were able to go out in our driveway and let Jackson play with his Bounceback Racer. He calls it the "Fab-we-ous Racer". Basically it is a remote control car with soft plastic wheels that flips over if it hits something straight on. Then it will also flip a wheelie if you hit the buttons just right.








The Butterbean was all about playing with the gravel, using (and eating the chalk) and showing off his not as black eye.





Allen was even home from work in time to play with us too. Isn't he looking good?


He doesn't like to have his picture taken, much less out on the blog, but it's my blog and I can put a picture of my honey on there if I want to!
Oh, and by the way, since I know you have been waiting for me to say something... Last night was the first time (this season) I have been terribly disappointed by The Bachelor. Don't worry I still have hope that love will prevail!
Now our taste of Spring is over, and it's sleeting. Come back and visit soon Spring!

Nuttin' New Here

We are in the midst of a frigid winter with nothing new but a fresh round of colds. I thought Allen was being excessive when we bought Kleenex at Costco. Turns out that, as usual, he was right.
After the Christmas decorations came down it felt a little, empty. So I did what any sane person would do.
I traipsed back up into the attic, that was approximately 25 degrees, and pulled out some of the Winterish decorations. It didn't look quite pulled together, so I made a little garland to hang from the mantle and even sewed some little mittens to cutesify it.






It's still winter, it's still beyond cold and we still all have colds, but at least we have some decorations to get us throught until Spring.

Cold Habitat

It has been Cold here. I should spell that with a capital K because it isn't just cold, it is K-O-L-D! Hasn't been above freezing for a week and isn't going to get above freezing for the next 10 days.
What do you do? Play inside a lot. After we finished putting laundry away the other day, the boys got some good fun in what Jackson calls his "habitat"- actually he says it "haditat".
He and Miller like playing in their habitats a lot. So much so that I couldn't get the cute picture of them that I wanted. You know the one where they both lift the basket off and give you a big grin? Yeah, that didn't happen.
Not sure if they are being turtles or just being goofy, but they sure do like it! And if they like it, can use up some energy, be inside, not get hurt and get me a little closer to naptime, then it is a homerun for me too!

Storm of the Century

We are in the midst of the storm of the century. Some of the words used by the meteorologists to describe it before it even got here were, "Crippling", "enormous", "monumental", "record breaking" and the list goes on. All I could say was, "Bring IT!!!"
It started late last night and we woke to 3ish inches. We went out at about 9 and had about 6 inches. Now it is about noon and I'd say it is about 8 inches deep. More is coming as it is supposed to last until tonight. They were calling for between 10 and 20 inches of snow for us. That is a big range, but any way you slice it, that is a ton of snow!







Call it whatever you want, we just call this storm "FUN!" As long as we keep power!