Better than a Snowman

After 3 days of snow, we now have close to 11 inches piled up in the yard. I went out in the morning yesterday with a ruler to measure how deep it was and it was almost 10 inches, but it's snowed a little more since then.

That's the most snow we've seen since living here. I think 6 inches is probably the norm.

Anyway, it was enough to cancel school on Friday, so Tyler was able to get out there and start working on his snow fort, which apparently is much cooler than building a snowman. Rick bought him some brick molds at the hardware store a few months ago and he's been dying to try them out.

But there must be a slight learning curve with them or else we just have powdery snow because it was hard to get the bricks to stack onto each other without them crumbling apart. We'll just call that our practice day.

Today, however, the boys meant business.

And you'd better look out because you know a snowball fight is right around the corner.

First Snow

Just when I was getting used to our unusually mild and snow-free winter, along comes a storm to put me right back in my place.

Oh yeah, we live in Yakima.....

And this is what it looks like.

8 inches so far and it's still coming down. Kyle and I bundled up and went out to take a look, but it's too cold to stay out there for long. I'd like to say that we can just run in the house and warm up, but guess what....our heater is broken. But wait, there's more. The replacement part we need is in Seattle, which would normally take 1 day to get here, but with the pass being closed due to the snow, we continue to wait. And try not to freeze to death. Well we do have the gas fireplace, but that isn't designed to heat up the entire house, especially when it's only 24 degrees outside. We also have a space heater, but that really only heats up one room. Oh well. we'll just throw on some layers, grab some blankets and hope that darn part can make it here by tomorrow.

New Photos

We tried to go to a fancy-schmancy photography place to get newborn pictures of Kyle....but that didn't end up working out. They never returned my phone calls. So we kind of put that on the back burner for awhile, but with Kyle getting bigger by the minute, we finally made it a priority, went somewhere else and got it done. Well he isn't really a newborn anymore, so I guess these qualify as updated family portraits and Kyle's 'baby' picture.

The baby is usually all smiles in the morning, so we made our appointment first thing in the day. Funny thing is, we couldn't squeeze a single smile out of him.

Not bad. We clean up kind of nice.

I think we'll wait a few months and then go back in for another try. Maybe then we can get a smile out of that stubborn boy.

The Fish Shack

For Christmas, Tyler got this neat 3-in-1 Lego set that you can use to build a lighthouse, a boathouse or a seafood restaurant. Right now he has it set up as the restaurant, which we've named The Fish Shack.

I love all the cool little details, like the binoculars and the menu board right outside the restaurant door.

Of course there's the fisherman and his boat.

And inside the restaurant kitchen there's a grill that actually lights up. That's probably my favorite part of all...the lighted brick.

Outside, as with any good seafood restaurant, the birds are waiting around for any stray pieces of food.

The restaurant has been up and running for a few weeks now and I can see that business is really booming. I walked by the other day and noticed that the entire outdoor seating area was packed with customers. Hmmm, they really must know how to serve up some good fish over there at The Fish Shack.

Indoor Picnic

One of Kyle's newest toys is this picnic basket filled with a sandwich, ice cream cone, watermelon slice and a grape juice bottle. And like most soft baby toys, they are easy to grasp and all of the pieces either crinkle, jingle, or squeak.

Tyler was instantly inspired by the new toy. He thought it would be cool if we had an indoor picnic. He thought the baby could play with his basket while the rest of us ate a lunch of PB&J sandwiches and cheetos.

Sounded like a good enough plan, but it had to wait until this weekend so Rick could be home to join in on the fun. So in the meantime, Tyler found other ways to pass the time while playing with the picnic basket.....like stuffing the grape juice bottle into Kyle's ball popper to - I don't know, see if it would fit.

So we spent a good chunk of time this morning a) finding the grape juice bottle and then b) trying to get it out of the ball popper. Rick and I both tried to reach it, but ended up just pushing it farther down the chute. That's when Tyler and his obnoxiously skinny arms reached right on in and grabbed the bottle out like it was no big deal.

Then it was on with the picnic.

A variety of sandwiches, fruit kabobs, and cheetos.

It was nice having lunch together as a family. Maybe next time we can have a picnic at the park...once the weather warms up and the baby get a little bigger.

Getting Back to Project Life

I decided to do another year of Project Life, but went ahead and waited until January to start it back up instead of going from August to August like I did with my previous kit. In addition, I made a resolution this year to get caught up on some of my craft and scrap projects, so I've been keeping busy with those this week.

First I made a few scrapbook pages using a Basic Grey kit.

This was pretty easy to do without much thinking involved. You just have to follow the instructions to recreate the design...slap on a few photos and you're done!

Here's another page using that same kit, which is obviously pet themed, but I used it to scrap the See Spot Run 5K we did last year. And over on the right are a few cards I made using a different kit.

Back to Project Life, I took way more photos this week than I usually do or that I'll even need, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just means I'm back to documenting every silly little thing, which actually, I'll probably appreciate later.

Some of these photos will make the cut....others are just for fun.

Kyle on his belly, of course. You can't keep him on his back. I'm sure he'll be crawling around in no time.

Tyler is completely entertained by Kyle's baby toys. For real. Who knew that a 6 year old could have so much fun with a ball popper?

Mario Time. Tyler brought this hat home from school yesterday that his friend made. Isn't it cute, with a taped on M to cover up the golfing logo that lies underneath.

Ch, Ch, Ch, Chia. This is what Tyler bought with his tooth fairy money.

And me finishing out the week with Cathe's Yoga Max.

Now to narrow down my photos for the week, print them up at Costco and get started on my first layout.

Happy New Year!

2012 here we come!

The other day while I was at the store I grabbed a few party hats and some noise makers so we could have a small celebration at home on New Year's Eve. Well I don't know how old Rick and I are that we couldn't even stay up till midnight. He was passed out before 11:00 and I didn't make it much past 11:20. Tyler was the only one....if you can believe it, that actually stayed awake for the arrival of the new year. But then after the fireworks woke us up, it was right back to bed for everyone.