The Snowy Day

I think my new favorite book this season is the simple, beautifully done, "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats.  It is a simple tale of a young boy's winter day, and one that is very easy to act out.  Today, after a light snow fell here last night, I decided to go ahead and have a "Snowy Day" of our own.  After reading the book we got all bundled up and went outside to play in the snow.  We didn't do everything Peter does in the book, because Eli is just not up for everything yet, but the kids enjoyed themselves for sure (once we fought over getting out of pajamas... going back to school next week is going to be rough on Theo).

Making snow angels seemed to be the favorite part.

 And of course, Eli also wanted to bring out the shovel.  We can't keep the brooms and vacuum away from this kid, he always wants to be pushing something around.

*I am guilty of collecting Caldecott award winners, so when I saw this one in the latest book order I had to get it for myself.  The Snowy Day was the winner of the 1963 medal!  I'm surprised it has taken me this long to stumble across it as it is a very popular children's book.*

Winter has arrived on the East Coast

We were having a hard time getting into the Advent season this year, but we finally received our dose of Christmas weather this week. On Thursday, I was down in Dover for a training when we got our first "real" snow of the season, which was still only an inch or two. It took quite a while to get home that afternoon, as many were unprepared and uncomfortable driving in the snow. They called a two-hour delay for school on Friday... pretty silly when the roads were perfectly fine the next morning, but that's Delaware. Our first glimpse of snow was actually last Friday, Dec. 10 (during last period, which was my homeroom-they were beyond excited).

The first week of Dec. we did get to see Santa arrive in Newark at the Winterfest. Theodore found the event a little strange, but not too frightening.

Last weekend Theodore picked out the Christmas tree with Brian and we set it up. Baby has yet to really bother the tree too much... we'll see if that can be said once we start putting wrapped presents underneath.

And finally, this Saturday we made our second NYC at Christmas time trip. This time we actually braved the traffic and drove right up to Central Park and parked right near FAO Schwartz (with a coupon for the garage!) with less than three hours from our door to theirs. We learned Brian quickly can pick up on taxi driver's techniques after being on the city streets just a few minutes.
There is just something so great about the city at Christmas... I am so glad we dragged our weary, tired selves there and had a great day. Theodore was great, other than being scared for a brief second when he found himself on the middle of 5th Avenue. It was quite a wake-up after his nap in the car. We headed through Central Park (stopping for Theodore's first carousel ride) to the Museum of Natural History. We could have spent a lot longer there, but it was closing around 6 and we didn't get there as early as we would have liked. We had to speed tour a lot of the museum.
Then we walked back through a very calm and quiet Central Park, viewing all of the city lights on our romantic stroll as Theodore napped. Finally, we stepped into FAO Schwartz and entertained Theodore with all the great toys there. It was a great day, and I got to see the Rockefeller tree at night this time, which is definitely the way to go.

Winter Storm, Round 2

Beating our record in December, we were treated to a weekend storm of about 2 feet this past weekend. It started snowing on my way home from school Friday, and didn't stop until about Saturday afternoon. It blew quite a bit on Saturday, and our church canceled services for Sunday. Even though we can easily get out of our parking lot and around the streets here, a lot of the housing developments and back roads down south where I teach aren't getting plowed as well. They canceled school Monday, and already for Tuesday! This already makes 4 snow days for us... I was told not to expect many days when I moved to Delaware, but whoever told me that was apparently wrong.

And we're supposed to get more snow starting tomorrow!

Not in Arizona Anymore: Snow Days

One benefit of moving to Delaware was the hope and anticipation of eventually getting a snow day or two. However, it hasn't worked out as nicely as I liked. A few weeks ago, we had a snow day, and I was sick the whole day. Yesterday we also had a snow day, and it was the same situation. I was sick 5 times, and couldn't eat a thing. They called another snow day today. It was called at about 9 last night, and would never have been a snow day in Indiana, but I'll take it.  Though still weak, I feel mostly better, and was able to enjoy the day. Apparently this was the biggest Nor'Easter in a few years.

Visit from the Alaskans

My older sister and our nephew flew down from Alaska in February. We haven't seen them in over a year, so it was awesome getting to spend some time with them!

She started her trip at her father's house a couple hours from here in Maryland. Brian and I headed down there and spend a very relaxing weekend with them, enjoying playing the WII with the 2-year old (he beat us in bowling), exploring the outdoors with the 2-year old, having a cookout, and shopping. It was a beautiful weekend, and was more like early fall than late winter.

Then, the next weekend, our grandparents, mom, and the rest of our siblings came to Delaware and we got to enjoy a carriage ride around old Philadelphia, taking the nephew to his very first zoo (The Smithsonian), showing both my younger sisters and Matthew D.C. for the very first time, and enjoying time together.

This was the first time we were all together since my wedding over 2 1/2 years ago.

At the Smithsonian Zoo.

Aydan loved playing "The Baseball", and always required anyone playing to put on a Diamondbacks helmet.

Uncle Brian was his favorite. Again.


Grandma got us these awesome sweatshirts.

Aydan's Second Favorite Game.... Locking Brian in the room, and then throwing the ball at Brian and making him fall. He got to the point where he didn't allow us to catch the ball, we had to let it hit us. He is going to be shocked in dodge ball once people dock out of the way, or don't automatically fall over.

Holidays 2008

We were home for nine days this year, and were busy for each of them. I actually had all my shopping done early, and everything wrapped and ready to go before we went home. It made the holiday a lot easier. We were able to attend most all of the family get-togethers, and also see a couple of friends at home and in Indianapolis. The following are some "sights" of the season:

Our Christmas card photo:

I made two needlepoints this year: one for my mother and another for my mother-in-law. My mother thought that her's was a baby bib when she opened it (as if we were making an announcement). It was pretty funny-she is way too anxious for more grandchildren.



Toboggan Run at Pokagon State Park: Megan and Aaron Aaron hit the toboggan run with us this year. It was fun, and we got up to 37 mph on one of the runs.



Our New Year's Eve tradition is to visit the lights in Marion and those in Sunken Garden's in Huntington. The Huntington lights were off this year, but we still enjoyed the Marion ones. My favorite parts include the "Twelve Days of Christmas" lights.

3 Calling Birds

5 Golden Rings

10 Lords a Leaping

11 Pipers Piping

12 Drummers Drumming


On Jan. 1, we competed in my cousin Joel's 7th annual meatball contest. Brian made some mojo meatballs. Very good, but needed a little kick to go with the citrus flavor.
 


I love getting new Christmas ornaments based on new places or events in our lives. These were some of this years: