Snow Days!

We got hit with a pretty decent winter storm Wednesday and Thursday. Surprisingly enough, we ended up not having school Thursday or Friday. It takes a LOT for 305 to close, but I guess the 11.8 inches we got was enough to convince the powers that be! :) Here's a couple pictures from Thursday, before it was finished dumping on us. Apparently another storm is moving in tomorrow, so we'll see how much more we can layer on by Monday evening.

First time outside (first of FIVE times outside since Thursday afternoon!)

It was almost over the tops of Raegan's snow boots, but it didn't bother her one bit! :)

So happy to be out in the snow

Our backyard part way through Thursday

Driveway that I shoveled entirely by myself. I'm pretty awesome like that :)

Winter???

We've been having an unusually mild winter here so far, so we've been able to spend quite a bit more time outside than we normally would be doing in January. Raegan and I (and sometimes Zane and even Luke!) have been going on quite a few walks. A couple weekends ago Luke found the sidewalk chalk, so we took it outside for Raegan to use. She absolutely loved it, and asks for it all the time now.

I've been taking a lot of pictures with my iPod lately, so they aren't the greatest quality. :)

Laughing at something Daddy was saying

Dirty booty!

Fun in the Snow

We finally got a decent amount of snow this week! Hopefully it will all hang around until Christmas. I love having a white Christmas! Raegan and I came home from work/daycare on Wednesday to find Zane building a snow fort in the backyard. Raegan isn't too keen on touching the snow yet (even with gloves on) but she did enjoy scooping it into a bowl with a spoon, and trying to use the big shovel.

Snow fort in the making

Silly girl

Raegan loved using the shovel

Decorating the Tree

This year, decorating the house for Christmas was a lot of fun because Raegan was really excited about it. Her favorite part was putting the tinsel on the tree. It's really cute, because every time she sees a Santa Claus decoration anywhere, she gets super excited, "Santa! Santa!" She obviously doesn't get the whole Santa/gift connection yet, but it's really cute that she's starting to get into it. :)

Raegan put all the sticky things on the door in one big glob. :)

TINSEL! Raegan kept saying, "More tinsel!"

Zane dressed Raegan up in the tree skirt. She thought it was pretty funny.

Parade of Lights

This was the first year that I decided to take Raegan to the Parade of Lights downtown. It's always really cold out, and I just felt like she was too little the past two years. Raegan has just recently realized that parades are made of awesomeness, so I felt like she would be able to enjoy it even if she were kind of cold.

Kind of cold is a bit of an understatement. It was freeeeeezing. We actually didn't stay for the whole thing, because about 40 minutes into it I realized that my fingers were starting to get numb inside my gloves, and I felt like that was enough for Raegan. She really did enjoy herself though. While we were waiting for it to start (because Salina parades never start on time - truefax) she wasn't very smiley, but she got pretty excited as soon as the floats started going by. She's got the concept of CANDY! at a parade down, but I've been working really hard on making sure she says thank you to people who directly hand her candy. We were standing next to an older couple who didn't want any candy, and they kept passing candy that landed in their direction over to Raegan. I had both coat pockets stuffed full by the time we left. So Zane will be enjoying a good bit of the spoils from this parade! :)

Looking a little sad waiting for the parade to start

Twirlers with fire batons - very cool looking!

When I took this picture she was saying, "I got more candy, Mama!" Very exciting!

I wish the Christmas lights would show up better in my pictures

Raegan did a pretty good job of staying behind the tape, except for if there was candy laying out there. I had to snap her back a couple times.

Raegan loves parades!

Snow Day, Part...um.....five?

My diapers came this afternoon. I think I would be a little more excited about this if the freakin' UPS delivery guy hadn't rang the doorbell when he put the package on the porch. It didn't need a signature, so I'm not really sure why he did that. Naptime, interrupted. Thanks. I need to put a "DO NOT RING THE DOORBELL EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVER!" sign up by our doorbell. Grrrr.

Our school district called off school again for today. Honestly, I wasn't very excited about this at all. I mean, yeah, sure, I enjoy being paid to spend a day at home with the kids. But I had parent teacher conferences to do this evening, and it's just that time of year when I have a lot to get done at work. We've had five days off since January 10th, which means that we'll have to make some of them up at the end of the year now. No thanks. At least this time it was a really good snow - good for snowballs and really deep. According to the news, Salina finished out at 11 inches. Yowza! The orignial forcast was for 3-5, which usually means next to nothing, so this was a big surprise! And it wasn't as brutally cold this time, so the kids and I went outside for awhile this afternoon.

Miscellany Monday

1. Saving money
I am slightly obsessed with websites that gives tips on how to save money or pay off debt, if you couldn't tell from my last post. Like, all of my web surfing tonight has pretty much been on The Saved Quarter, Penny Pinchin' Mom, Money Saving Mom. I guess it's getting me away from Facebook for awhile, which I was sorely in need of a break from.

2. Parent teacher conference week
I am doing 24 parent teacher conferences between tomorrow and Thursday. I don't think I really need to say anything more about this miscellany, now do I?

3. Snow
Just for the record, I do not want a snow day tomorrow, or any day this week. See #2 for my main reason why. Honestly, I'm just tired of snow. I want it to be spring. I want to wear my favorite capris and play outside with Raegan. I hope that Phil was right about spring coming earlier this year!

4. Annual review
I had my annual review at work today, and it was pretty good. I don't take compliments well, so it's weird for me to sit there and read and hear good things about myself. But it is nice to know that my hard work is noticed. :)

5. Shoes

I bought these beauties at Target last week. Aren't they fabulous?!?! They pinch my toes just a smidge, but are a lot better than high heels, but cuter than my other black shoes with no heel. This miscellany doesn't quite tie in with my desire to save money I suppose. :) Eh, I don't have to penny pinch all the time, right?

More snow day fun!

Luke and Zane showed Raegan how to do somersaults last week, and she LOVES it. L-O-V-E-S it. I was thinking about doing a Mommy and Me gymnastics course with Parks and Rec later this spring, and now I'm definitely going to do it. :)


Here are those pictures of the kids entertaining themselves that I wasn't able to upload last night. But first, a few pictures to show you what we've been dealing with the last couple days:

Yep, that says 6 degrees. That doesn't even take the windchill into consideration.

I don't think our total snowfall was actually all that much, but the wind made it drift quite a bit on our back deck.



Anyone want to sit on that rocker? :)

Raegan is super obsessed with putting on her hat and gloves right now.

Lots of chasing and running around games the last few days....

Raegan spent forever trying to wrap this dish towel around her. When she finally got it, she walked around the house forever with it on like a cape.

I started working on my February goals by going through my cookbook drawer. Raegan decided to help me.

"Let's make this recipe Mama!"

Miscellany Monday

Finally! Something to participate in that makes a jumble of random thoughts okay. :) I love being random.....

1. Snow day
Or ice day. Whatever you want to call it. Zane said last night that he was really hoping we wouldn't have school today. I poo-pooed him and said that the weather channel didn't even put a percentage amount on the sleet we were supposed to get last night, so I was sure we would have school. I even put my phone on the nightstand, and when I looked at the clock and it was 6:05 I said, "Guess we're having school today." (District is supposed to make a decision by 6:00 a.m.) My supervisor called me at 6:12. Awesome.

2. Zane's grades
I don't think I mentioned it on here yet, but Zane made the honor roll. He finished out the semester with 6 A's and 2 B's. Which is exactly what his grades are right now a couple weeks into this quarter. For the rest of the year he'll be taking General Music instead of Art, because that's how they do optional ninth hour in middle school. He wasn't too thrilled about the thought of General Music at first, but he's really excited about it now because they're going to learn to play guitar for a two week period after Spring Break. He's thinking about taking Guitar as one of his electives next year. If he really likes it this spring, we may look into getting him lessons for the summer.

3. Running
I'm up to 1.25 miles on the treadmill now. Which I know that being able to run a certain distance on the treadmill doesn't always translate into being able to run that far outside because of wind, weather, etc. But before I took this up I couldn't run at all, so I'm pretty pleased. There's going to be a 5K fun run here in town on February 26th to help raise money for Reed (the little boy from Raegan's daycare with the tumor that I blogged about in this post. I've been saying for months now I want to finish a 5K (and wasn't able to at Thanksgiving because I got sick and it messed up my training), and I thought this would be a good way to support Reed's family and it would be really motivational for me. For anyone local, there's also a 2 mile walk, and registration is by donation, so you might consider doing it. Let me know if you want more details!

4. Organizing....
....sucks, but I sure do feel good when I have things all in their place. :)

Another 6WS post

After several weeks of forgetting, I am participating in Six Word Saturday.

This is what America's come to?