Five on Friday

1.  Today I hung pictures around the house.  It's so nice to see our familiar things on the walls.  Asa's room is now done, the kitchen and living room are done, the upstairs hallways is almost done.  Yea!!

2.  Some neighbors came over this evening to introduce themselves and bring us warm, home baked brownies.  Yum!!

3.  The master bathroom in the house has a GIANT bathtub.  Asa has always been a fan of baths, but has kicked up to a whole new level of fun and anticipation now that he has a giant bathtub to play in.  He now cries, "Bath!  Baaaaath!  Baaaaaaaaaaaath!" when it's time to get out of the tub.  Bittersweet. :)

4.  We got a medium dumping of snow last night.  Probably 4+ inches total by mid-morning this morning.  It's so weird to me at this point in the year that the snow actually melts completely away and you see grass and trees and it feels like spring will come.  Then the next day everything is blanketed in white again and spring feels so very far away after all. ;)  It also makes me laugh that my hometown schools are on spring break this week.  Spring?  Where is Spring? WHEN IS SPRING?!?!

5.  I think there are only THREE boxes left to unpack in the house!  THREE!  Woo hooooo!!! :)

Frosty the Snowman

 As I mentioned earlier, Matt made Asa his first snowman on Friday night.  It was not a little snowman--it was over twice as tall as Asa!  Earlier snows this winter were more dry and not great for making snowballs or snowmen.  The snow last week was quite different.

Matt said he almost threw his back out trying to hoist the 2nd snowball onto the bottom one. :)  Heavy, wet, snowman-perfect snow!

Trying to give you an idea for size comparison.

Frosty and Asa, pre-accessories

 Frosty with eyes, a "carrot" nose, buttons, scarf, and arms!  Brad & Joy gave Asa a snowman kit for Christmas along with a fun snowman book.  The eyes, nose, and buttons were all from the kids.  They are on dowels and made of wood so we can reuse them.  The kit included small black beads for a mouth as well, but the snowman was sooooo frozen I couldn't get them to stay on his face!  Asa loves scarves, so we added one of my scarves, and I found some sticks to be Frosty's arms.

 Hello up there, Frosty!  Asa was rather intrigued! :)

 Asa adjusting a button. :)  Note Frosty has a hat in this picture, too.  The kit included this hat, it was just too windy to stay on in all the pictures. :)

 I like my snowman!  Thank you, Dada!

Trying on Frosty's hat

We have enjoyed looking out the back doors when we're eating and smiling at our Frosty.  What a fun surprise it was for Matt to think of and make for us!

Five on Friday

1.  Snow.  More snow.  After the big dump of snow we got on Monday, we had a couple cold days and then more snow today.  I think they said it would be 2-3" when it really got going today, but they were initially calling for 5 more inches!  I am thankful that didn't pan out!

2.  I'm also thankful Matt is home this weekend!  He had business travel scheduled, but it was canceled to due the weather.  I'm glad that didn't pan out either. ;)  We like having Daddy home!  AND his company's building is without power, so he's been home with us an extra day!  TWO three day weekends in a row with him... I could really get used to this. ;)  So could Asa--he was sooooo excited when DADA was the one to retrieve him from bed this morning.  We love Dada. :)

3.  Last night as a surprise, Matt stayed outside after walking Sammy and he built us a huge snowman!  He didn't tell me--I only found out when I went looking for him out the back door afraid he'd been snatched or something.  He wanted to surprise us with something extra fun and special to do while he was (supposed to be) away.  My brother and sister-in-law gave Asa a set of snowman accessories for Christmas--reusable eyes, wooden "carrot" nose, mouth, buttons, and a hat.  It was so fun to take Asa out this afternoon to get our snowman outfitted.  We even added a scarf at Asa's insistence--he thinks scarves are fun and likes to walk around the house wearing a little toddler scarf Poppy & Nana gave him for Christmas; it was only fitting then that our snowman have one too.  I took a bunch of pictures, but I need to retrieve my card reader to upload them.  They'll get a post all of their own very very soon.  It's really cute, and I think Asa really liked it. :)

4.  We are hoping to get keys to the house on Sunday!!!!!  We are just waiting to finalize plans with the owner.  So exciting!  I cannot believe we're moving our whole house twice in 9 months, but that's okay!  Packing boxes feels very much like deja vu, but I am looking forward to getting unpacked and settled.  I know it will be a lot of work again, but there are not all the emotions involved this time that there were in leaving Florida.  I did NOT want to unpack here because that was admitting we were really staying.  This time, I am happy to unpack and stay in that house as opposed to staying in this townhouse. :)

5.  I love that Asa loves his bed.  He's playing around with naps some.  I suspect we're on the cusp of transitioning to one nap, but I'm not "helping" that along until after the move. ;)  Anyway, on days he plays in his crib through his afternoon nap he is extra tired in the evening.  It is not uncommon on those nights for me to be rocking and singing to him (usually 2-3 songs before I put him in bed) only to have him turn around, point at his crib, and happily/excitedly say, "Bed!!"  I'll ask, "Do you want to go to bed?" and he responds, "Yeah!!!  Bed!!!"  I love that bed is a happy place for him.  I love that he knows when he's tired and looks forward to resting.  It is a sweet, sweet gift to us all. :)

Long Weekend Rewind

We were so excited to remember Matt had Monday off!  As a teacher, I usually had President's Day off when I was working, but Matt has never had it off before.  Even though I know he's really busy at work with some deadlines and projects coming together, I think the extra family day came at a great time.  It was refreshing for me to have an extra day with him (and I KNOW Asa loved it!) before a hard core week of making deadlines this week.  It filled me up in preparation for the long hours that are likely ahead of us the next few days. :)

The weekend was not without its surprises, but we'll get to those in just a minute. ;)

Last week had some glorious days.  The highs sometimes made it out of the 30s!!!!  WOO HOOOO!  I never thought I'd be so happy to see temperatures in the 40s!  :)  Days on end of snow as far as you can see sure can change a (former Floridian's) person's perspective. ;)  In anticipation of the beautiful weather continuing through the weekend, I asked Matt about going to a park with Asa on Saturday and to some outlets on Monday.  The plan was set, and we didn't really anticipate any weather complications (yes, that's foreshadowing). :)

On Saturday afternoon, we went to a great park nearby.  It will be only 3 miles from the new house!  It has a sweet little kid playground, a GIANT amazing big kid playground, and lots of fields and trails for walking, running, and playing.  We just didn't expect the temperatures to drop and the wind to HOWL in.  Oh my!  It.was.so.cold.  Asa really enjoyed sliding on the little kid playground, but Matt and I were just about frozen stiff.  We knew he wanted to run around, so before calling it quits we walked over to see some geese and give him an opportunity to run around.  Thankfully, we went down a small hill that seemed to block much of the wind after we were on the other side!  Asa was intrigued by the geese and made lots of bird sounds at them, mostly "quacking,"... so I guess we need to work on duck vs. goose. ;)

 

  

We made our way back to the car where Asa was very, very sad to be leaving the park.  He was tired, he loves being outside, Daddy was with us.  Who would want to leave?!?  But we did, and I worked, somewhat successfully, to keep him awake on the short drive home.  I took him straight upstairs to bed when we arrived at home, and he took a short nap.  Asa had an early bedtime as result, but at least he napped enough to make it til then. ;)

On Sunday we attended Sunday school and church.  Asa's separation anxiety, particularly from me, is peaking significantly right now.  He cries if I am out of sight for even a moment, so I was concerned how dropping it off at the nursery would go.  He started to get upset, but the teachers know him well enough that they took him into the room and got him engaged with something he likes before he actually lost it.  Praise the Lord!

Monday was our other big adventure outing day.  I found out there was a Gymboree outlet not too far away, and they were having a baby sale + President's Day sale over the weekend.  We had not bought anything for Anna Reaghan, and I thought it would be fun to let Asa walk around the outlet mall and maybe find an outfit or two that we really liked.  When I checked the forecast, it started calling for several inches of snow.  I was so disappointed, but Matt said we'd go anyway and the forecast had been wrong even a day or two earlier.  Off we went.  We went to Gymboree first, and Matt almost immediately spotted an outfit he loved.  I suggested some matching hairbows, and it was a done deal. :) 

I continued to browse and found an outfit of my own choosing that I loved.  Several years ago, Gymboree had a girls' line of clothes with a goldfish theme that I thought was adorable.  I was excited to check out the outlet, because I *thought* they brought back a version of the goldfish line to sell at the outlets RIGHT NOW.  And they DID!  How sweet is that?!?

We ventured into a few other stores.  Asa loved the Carter's outlet.  He scurried this way and that, looking at this rack of clothes and that rack of clothes.  Squeezing into tiny spaces between racks like he was hiding.  It was really cute. :)  He also really liked some puzzles they had in the store... that he already has at home. ;)  We looked in more stores, ate some lunch, tried a couple more places, and then picked up a soft pretzel before heading out.  Asa tried my cinnamon and sugar pretzel, and he liked it!  I have no idea how the likely dairy ingredients will affect him today, but it was worth the special treat on our special extra day with Daddy. :)  Of course it DID start snowing while we were at the outlets.... and not just a dusting.  It was SNOWING.  It became harder and harder to see the cars on the highway running right past the outlet!

This is really just the beginning.  We have close to 6 inches now.

Matt wonderfully navigated the snowy highway--nothing was plowed yet.  Praise the Lord we got home safely AND when we did as the snow continued to pour down!  We got the most snow at once in the whole time we've lived here so far!  Matt figured the roads would be plowed by dinner time and went out to pick up a bite to eat for us to cap off the weekend, but nothing was plowed yet after all!  He ran into roads blocked by spun out cars almost every way he turned.  Thankfully when he gave up and headed home, he got behind a salt truck and made it back just fine. :)

We packed a lot into our weekend, but we had time to rest too.  I love weekends and family time! :)  And next weekend is the beginning of the big move, so it was an extra blessing to have a fun-filled weekend right now. :)