After a week of snow days and late starts last week, Bubba showed up at my work desk Thursday morning in tears.  He had just arrived at school for “weird snow scheduled day #4” and his need for routine finally had his coping skills down for the count.  The words coming out of his mouth hardly made sense,
“Daddy keeps bringing us to school at 9:30 instead of 8:15” sob, sob
“I know we have late start but why can’t the gym be open?”sob, sniff
“I don’t want anymore snow” sob, hiccup ”
“Will the snow be gone tomorrow?”collapse into my hug
And here is where you southerners say together, “BLESS HIS HEART”, and say it you should. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Seriously, last week with its 10-12 inches of snow and -6 degree temps (wind chill -20F) was a rough week and since it came on the day everyone was excited to return to school, it made it even rougher to adjust; you know, hope deferred and all. BUT, as always, the Lord is good and we made it through to 60+ degrees yesterday and barely a trace of snow on the ground.  Welcome to the Gateway City!

Since we are getting back into a routine here, I thought I would post pictures reflecting on us getting into the Christmas spirit. My mom still hasn’t seen Christmas pictures and so other readers will have to be patient this week.  Thankfully my kids are cute so there’s that for those of you who aren’t related to us. *wink

I don’t think I put a single ornament on the tree this year – a first.  KB is finally old enough to really help and her love for design came in handy to make sure everything was evenly dispersed.  It was Bubba’s year to put the angel on the treetop. 

Later on I came into Bubba’s room and found Honey telling the Christmas story and Bubba and KB on the bed acting it out with their stuffed animals.  Adorable.  If you look in the photo below you see that there were in the same city Elmo, bunnies, and puppies keeping watch over their flocks by night and they went and found baby ducky wrapped in bubble wrap and lying on a mattress.  Pinky Pie and the other dog followed the star in the East and showed up a bit late. So great.

After sleeping in a bit we went here for breakfast:

We went back home and lined up on the couch

To watch a new Phineas and Ferb:

The KB and I ran errands and she got these:

Before I went out to dinner with her:

Fun day except I missed time with my Honey who was in meetings most of the day.  How was your Saturday?

January 2, 2014
I was awfully dramatic about KB’s trip to the store and I feel I may have set a standard I cannot reach with following days. How about “Bubba lost a bit of himself in the wee hours of January 2”? Nah, I’ll just shoot straight and let you know that Bubba lost a tooth that Thursday morning. It was a glad occasion since that particular tooth had been loose for some time and Bub’s ability to chew had long been impaired. There was much rejoicing and a trip for celebratory ice cream was planned. Good Times.

January 3, 2014
I went into work super early because there was so much to be done and only half a day to do it in. Since it was 7 a.m., I was the first one at the church and I was lamenting the fact that I had left my cell phone at home when I realized there was an alarm sounding somewhere. I entered my code and opened the door to confirm that it was the fire alarm. I was also very aware of a strong smell. What to do? Of course a call to 911 was in order but, as you remember, I had forgotten my phone and I was pretty sure entering a potentially burning building to use the landline would be frowned upon by the responding firefighters.

I drove to the house of a friend who lives a couple streets over and knocked on the door. No answer. I got back in the car and headed down the street to the pastor’s house and the hope of heroism. (a bit of back story here. . . the pastor has 50 family and friends in town for a wedding this weekend and I was pretty sure no one was going to be awake at that house either.) Thankfully, mother-in-law was awake and once she realized I was not a scary rambling psycho, she went and got Mark and Tammy . . .but not a phone.

I can’t tell you how long it felt like it took before someone called the fire department. It turns out the alarm had gone off three times during the night and the department had gone to check twice before determining there was a faulty sensor. I finally was given the go ahead to go to work at 7:40. Once the adrenaline stopped I crashed and was exhausted. I went to bed at 9:00 p.m.

January 4 there was a big wedding at the church. The man who delivered all our children has a daughter who babysat all our children and today she married the preacher’s oldest son. It was beautiful.

January 5 there is the promise of a WINTER VORTEX. . .I realize it sounds like something off Star Trek, but it’s actually a cold front coming in from Canada (such friendlies to the north) that promises 10 inches of snow and temps below zero. NICE. Monday is meant to be the first day back to school and it looks like we’ll be staying home and finishing the cabinet I’m painting.

I am pretty confident we cannot maintain this kind of pace through 2014. Pray with me, “Dear Jesus, please dial it down one notch. Amen.”

So tell me whatcha doin in your neck of the woods. . .