Buried

My kids are still hoping for a snow day to be called for tomorrow. I doubt it, but we do have a LOT of snow.
It's close to a foot. It came down really fast.
Nathan never changes out of his suit on Sundays, but today he put on his jeans to go shovel. His white shirt stayed on.
Lots of shoveling today--he completely cleared the driveway 3 times so we could get in and out.

Through a window

Our friend brought his 4 wheeler to church to clear the sidewalks at the building. The evening meetings were all cancelled.

(After shoveling 30,000 lbs of snow, then he came in and baked 6 loaves of bread. 3 banana, 3 whole wheat. I made hot chocolate, dinner, and wrote 3 blog posts. Not bad for a day at home).

Ft. Collins Church News

Did you hear we're going to be a mission now?

Church News
(Scroll down to the North America Central Area). The mission will include as far west as Boulder and stretch north into Wyoming--Laramie and Cheyenne. Whoever is in those boundaries on May 28th will become part of the new mission, and the others will be Colorado Denver North.

Also this week the plans passed the planning commission's final meeting, 6 to 0.
Unanimous. More permitting will continue and the groundbreaking date has not been set. It's an exciting time to be a member of the church here.

Valentine week 2013

This year I decided to plan something Valentine-y each day for a week. I really enjoyed planning it--small tokens to express that I love them.

Sunday--We drank the same punch my mom made for our wedding reception. Delish!
Monday--We made & decorated heart shaped sugar cookies. 7 of them.
Tuesday--Heart napkins for dinner, all the red plates out.
Weds--I painted love in the bottom of our oatmeal bowls. Love this tradition from last year.
I still haven't unpacked our watercolors yet . . . . so I used the back end of a plastic spoon to "paint."
Thurs--Conversation hearts at breakfast, Papa Murhpy's heart shaped pizza for dinner.
I could easily abandon the candy hearts, but my girls pleaded, "Mom, it's tradition!"
Friday--Spending the night at my mom's. They thought it was the best because they got to drink soda.
Saturday--We opened the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Not Valentine-y at all, but I wrapped it in red paper. Because Nathan took President's day off, we watched it as our FHE activity on Monday afternoon.

It's easy to make all the traditions food related--perhaps next year I will have more ideas that aren't food.

Someone wanted to paint her own bowl. My food coloring gels have dried out--see the lumps?

Noting fancy, but lots of fun.

I took about 15 pictures of him eating this cookie. Most are blurry, so check out the video below.

I am that mom that doesn't like treats as Valentines in Elementary school . . . . . so we tried to do something fun and cute without sugar. It was the first year I felt ahead of the game and we had them done early. Loved not stressing about it after Feb 10th.

Diana gave out stickers with a typed not that read, "I am stuck on you!"

Caitlin's note, attached to mini bottles of bubbles read, "Valentine, you blow me away."

And Bryn copied a "Mad Lib Valentine" found on designmom.com :
"You've got mad skillz."
"I can't lib without you."
"I'm mad about you."
She tore out pages from mad libs, wrapped them up with cute paper and attached the notes.

Andrew was highly disappointed to not have a class party this year. He survived. When I was shopping for Valentine's I thought about how strange it will be when he wants to give a Valentine to a special someone. Bracing myself.

"Klondike-ing"

They left Friday and got back Saturday.

The slept on snow and tromped around on snowshoes. They had a blast and came home smelling like campfire.

Heaven?

Orienteering, fire-building, snowshoe race, (Andrew tied for first), stew and hot dogs, oatmeal, and hot chocolate, painfully long time working out how to perform a stretcher carry, and good old guy bonding time.

Fourth 100th

Day of school

Before school

After

 

 

There's a lot to love about kindergarten.
Mostly, the kindergartner.
100 days smarter.