Snow is falling all around.....

It all started Friday night.... The much talked about "snowstorm of the century" arrived after midnight and by Saturday morning, I was a little disappointed to only see 2 inches on my deck.
However, it continued to snow throughout the day and by Saturday night, the total was up to 9 inches!

When we woke up Sunday morning and measured we have now topped out at TEN INCHES OF SNOW!!!!

We don't get snowstorms all that often, usually one per year or less, so this is our bonus second storm this year! Unfortunately, I still don't have snow clothes for my kids. The only places with decent snow clothes are sporting goods stores, which makes them incredibly pricey. I am thinking I need to take a suitcase out west when I go and hit up a few Deseret Industries just to stock my kids up on warm stuff to play in the snow in!

For now, we will venture out for brief periods and then come back inside to play games and spend fun family time! Church was cancelled for today and it doesn't look like the kids will be back in school before Wednesday.

A Trip to the Zoo

After a trip to the dentist, we spent Martin Luther King day making good use of our family zoo pass! The giraffe was very cool and had the longest green tongue. Next time we will get food and feed him! Today the kids were grossed out enough just watching someone else feed him!

This little penguin followed the kids the entire way around the exhibit. He was so cute!

Josh and Caleb both got a bird to land on them! It was really neat being in the bird house because they were flying all around you the entire time! Savannah and Samuel were a bit freaked out by that, but I thought it was fun!

You can see the pink flamingoes in the background. Savannah loved them because her favorite color is pink!

It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed the time in the sun with temperatures about freezing. A nice break from the frigid weather we have had lately!

Today's Excitement....

After 3 solid days of constant wiggling, a few misguided pulls that drew blood, and lots of bribes to let mom try again....

Savannah has now lost her FIRST tooth and is excitedly awaiting a visit from the tooth fairy! Sadly, mom and dad have now experienced another last......this will be the last first tooth lost in our household! Wow, that was a mouthful!!!

Something New......

Joshua was thrilled to be invited by his best friend, Nate, to join his Lacrosse team! I am sad to say that I have never even seen a game of Lacrosse played, but I hear it is a good sport for people with Josh's thin, wiry build. He was so excited to go out shopping for gear and cannot wait until his first practice in mid-February. In the meantime, there is a lot of running around with the ball in my backyard. Unfortunately we don't know anyone close by who knows how to play, so Joshua doesn't have anyone to practice with right now.

Farewell to the Snowman

When we had our big snow 4 weeks ago, we never would have thought that any of it would have lasted past a week. Fortunately for our snowman, the weather stayed incredibly cold and he made it for exactly 4 weeks! Unfortunately, the day was unseasonably warm, so we had to say goodbye to our last remnant of the snowstorm.

One Dancing Princess

We went to Savannah's dance studio for parent's day so that we could see what she has been learning. I was especially looking forward to this because whenever I ask her to show me what they learned at dance she can't remember anything!

It was good to see that she WAS actually learning something and I haven't been wasting our money!

I really had to hold myself back, because I would have LOVED to be out there dancing too! I always wanted to take dance classes as a little girl, but there was never enough money. When I went to college, I took beginning jazz as a PE class and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it!

As you will see in the video, grace is not something that comes naturally to our family, but hey, that's why she's in dance class!

Birthday Boy

In the midst of all the holiday craziness, Joshua turned ELEVEN!!! We celebrated his birthday with his cousins and granny and papa and an ice cream cake.....Thanks Granny!
His favorite present was a hand-me-down drum set from his cousin, Taylor. We will have to post a picture of that soon.

Christmas With the Cousins

After spending a few days at home playing with our new toys, we took a trip up north to visit with Chris' family. Naturally, lots of time was spent playing games...... Waiting to open presents......

being terrorized by the boys.....

and LOTS of time playing in the snow!

Thanks Aunt Karen, for a fun family Christmas!

CHRISTMAS 2009

Better late than never, right?!!! We had so much fun at Christmas this year that I never took the time out to post about it! Chris took the entire break off after Christmas for the first time EVER and we really enjoyed the family time together. Somehow I failed to get the yearly picture of each of the kids with their loot, but it really doesn't matter because this was all Shelby cared about! And would you believe she has actually gone almost a month without getting it taken away?!!! She has gone into a non-stop texting frenzy ever since she opened it......as you can see, the eyes are already glazed over a mere 2 seconds after the phone was pulled from the box!

Joshua got the typical army toys, games and clothes along with the latest installment in his nerf gun craze! This one is called the longshot and I think it is nearly as tall as he is!

Savannah got loads of girly stuff! She asked for a swimming dog, littlest pet shops and a baby sister.......she got the swimming dog, littlest pet shops and a look a like dolly that she immediately proclaimed to be Santa's solution to the baby sister! NICE.....we hadn't even thought of that!

Caleb got shoes for tennis, a backpack for scouts, a zune and some games and clothes. It's been too cold for us to see the tennis shoes in action, but we can't wait to see if they make him even better!

And here's Samuel with his favorite gift.....(nevermind the extremely flattering picture of me in the background!)

I think it's safe to say that a great Christmas was had by all. As a family, we got season passes to the Zoo, but we are still waiting for the weather to warm up enough for us to use them! It's high time Savannah actually saw a giraffe....if you ask her anyway! She thinks she is the most deprived child in kindergarten!