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kids, winter

snow day!


When I was a kid, I loved playing in the snow. I remember waking up on a snow day and spending hours sledding down the hill in our backyard over and over again. Somewhere between then and now, the snow has lost it’s magic for me. Now all I see is hazardous driving conditions and lots of wet snow clothes to deal with. I love how beautiful and peaceful it is when the snow is coming down and there is a fresh coat covering everything. But getting a bunch of kids ready to play outside is not my favorite.

Even remembering back to my childhood, I hated trying to gather enough warm clothes to bundle up. And then coming in and stripping all of it off for my mom to clean up. Now I’m on the mom side of the equation and I’m seeing why my mom hated it so much. We don’t have proper snow clothes for everyone, which makes it even harder. But I feel like I’m robbing my kids of making magical memories. So when the snow was coming down last week, I gathered as much warm clothes for the kids as I could and waited for the 2 little ones to nap so we could go outside and play for a bit. And yes, it was a lot of work. But we had a lot of fun!

The one who surprised me the most was Evangeline. I thought she would be crying about the cold almost immediately. But she was the one who was the most disappointed about heading back inside when we were done (I had to bribe her with hot chocolate!) She doesn’t have a coat that fits her right now so I squeezed her in this 12 month coat. I think we need to hit up the store and buy her a coat immediately.




I promise they were having more fun that it appears haha!

And I had to put Clem’s little snowsuit on her to get a picture of her for her first official snow day. Every time I look at these pictures, I laugh. She looks so defeated in the first picture, like “let’s get this over with, mom!” And that pouty face on the other one is just too sweet. We were done with these pictures in about 30 seconds and back in the house right away.

Today we’re enjoying weather in the 60s while we anticipate a winter (ice) storm that’s supposed to roll in tomorrow. Gotta love the midwest!

On an unrelated note, Don has been trying to get a couple of Christmas videos finished but it’s been a bit slow going while he also has a full time job and a family to spend time with. So here’s the first one–the next one will hopefully be done in the next couple of weeks!

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I hope you’re staying warm!

Blog, Family, halloween, holidays, kids

In a Galaxy Far, Far Away


Today is November 3rd and I’m just now getting around to sharing our Halloween pictures. Three days doesn’t SEEM like a huge lapse of time to share an event. But when you have friends who are legit putting up Christmas trees and jamming to Christmas music, Halloween is no longer relevant. But here I am, sharing anyway.

So if you can suffer through a few more pictures of kids in costumes, I have a few I can share.

This year the kids dressed up as Star Wars characters (so original, I know!) Last year, on the day after Halloween, I came up with a fun family themed costume. But then I had a baby and it never came together. So we recycled their costumes that I made for them 2 years ago. Next year I hope to make my family costume dreams come true!

Liam as Luke from “Return of the Jedi.” Most people thought he was Darth Vader.//Kai as Obi-wan Kenobi. Some people thought he was Luke–shows how amazing I am at making costumes.

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Kingston as Yoda.//Evangeline as Princess Leia.

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We had two new additions to our crew since the last time we did the Star Wars theme. I had been wanting these little Chewbacca jammies for Desmond anyway so it gave me the perfect excuse to buy them.//The kids really wanted me to make a BB-8 onesie for Clementine. So on the night before Halloween, I was falling asleep on the couch and had to force myself to pry my eyes open and slave away on her costume, late into the night (aka-whipped it up in about 10 minutes at 8pm.) We affectionately gave her the nickname “bae-bae 8.”

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Don even went all out this year and put on his Darth Vader shirt. 

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A little peek into how most of our pictures go with this little Wookie lately–darting off as soon as I go to take the picture.

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And of course I would get them all looking and smiling while they are dressed in costumes and not when took our family pictures the night before. And also slightly blurry, I think. I’m having issues with my contacts lately and EVERYTHING is blurry..so that’s fun.

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Like the past 2 years, this year we went to a Fall Festival on Halloween night. There are bounce houses, face painting, pony rides, etc. And the kids play games to win candy. And if you look below, you’ll see that it pays off to have 6 kids 😉
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So now we can move on from Halloween and start looking forward to the other holidays. But no Christmas stuff for me yet because Christmas = cold and snow…and I’m not ready for that. But you do you. If you’re ready to deck the halls and sing Christmas carols, then go for it! Hope you’re having a good week!