Ohhhh Snow!

In response to Addison's last comment I apologize for not having a very exciting or blog-worthy life. All we do around here is sit and watch it snow. I feel like a hermit most days because unless I absolutely have to, I don't leave the house. I don't like driving in stormy weather anymore (you only have to total one car in a snow storm to learn that lesson) so I just avoid it all together. The storm we had the other day was a doozie. We get drifts at the front of the house when it's really windy, which it usually is, but today when I was shoveling I noticed how deep it was. Our front porch is about 3 feet or more above the grass and the snow is now above the level of the porch and I'm worried the window wells are going to fill up and disappear! Greg got a truck with a plow on it and has become a little obsessed with clearing snow. At the first sign of a snowflake he is outside pushing it around. Wouldn't it make much more sense to wait till the storm is somewhat over? Oh well, it has been handy because our road isn't maintained by the city so we're pretty much on our own when it comes to snow. Plus he rarely gets this excited over stuff so we will humor him for now even though it's an old beater that gets like 3 miles to the gallon. I'll get a picture if he parks it long enough. Here are some of the crappy snow. The swings on our swing set are buried so is the teeter-totter and most of the slide. If it gets covered I'm outta here!

This little birdhouse sticks up at least 3 feet and it's almost gone. I have bulbs planted under all these drifts. It will be July before I see those puppies!

before shoveling and..................after. It's hard to see how deep the drifts are but all I know is I'm sick of it and it's just suppose to keep coming.

So this is what we're doing these days. Chandler has discovered that she can pack a stool around with her and stand on it to get into even more mischief than she did before. I did buy one that is a little more sturdy than the ones she kept falling off of and it's just the right size for her to carry wherever she goes. Plus when she gets tired she can just sit down and rest a while.

For those of you who missed the screams!

We hit another milestone last night. Gracie lost her first tooth. Or I guess I should say Gracie's dad pulled out her first tooth and she wasn't a very willing participant. She has had a loose tooth for quite a while now but refused to wiggle it or try to make it looser. So yesterday when I saw her permanent tooth poking up behind her baby tooth we decided it had to come out before her new one comes in too crooked. Neither Greg or I had braces when we were younger so we are praying that our kids won't either. So we talked her into letting Greg try to pull it out. So he tied some floss around it and yanked it right out. It went flying and it took a while before we actually found it. But you would have thought we chopped her arm off. She immediately started shrieking and then when she saw blood the volume and intensity actually doubled! I wanted to get a picture right away but she said no because she looked "hideous!" We shouldn't have read that Junie B. Jones till after her first tooth fell out. We did get a picture (obviously) and made a couple phone calls so she could cry to someone other than us. This all happened right before bedtime so it was a while before we could get everyone settled enough to go to bed. She was still pretty upset when she finally went asleep but she put it under her pillow even though she was afraid of the tooth fairy and when she woke up this morning and saw there was 2 dollars right next to her tooth she was very happy. She even took her tooth in a baggie to show her friends at school. I even caught her smiling in the mirror to see her big gap. I'm not sure what our lives would be like without the added drama that 3 little girls bring to our house but I'm glad we don't have to find out.

It's the country life for me!

Greg and I made a quick overnight trip to Logan this weekend for some training meetings for his town council position and can I just say "HOLY COW!" I cannot believe how much that place has changed! We lived there for quite a while and I loved it the whole time but my goodness it has grown. We were actually there about a year and a half ago and even since then the change is remarkable. I hate to say it but I have really settled into the laid-back country way of live a lot more that I thought I had. It was such a quick trip but while Greg was in his meetings I drove around to check stuff out and I kept catching myself going 20 mile per hour so I could take in all the new changes. I have always said that I would move back there in a second if I had the chance (even though I know Greg never would) but now I'm not so sure if I would. I have a lot of great memories from there and I love to visit every now and again but I don't see me living in the "big city" any time soon. I'll take "dog-patch", as my dad calls it, any day.

It's over ?!?!?!

Well after all that work and preparation it's over. Christmas day was so nice but it sure seemed to go fast! I can't believe it's over already! I woke up to little footsteps in the hallway at around 7 so I just stayed put for a minute to see what would happen. I heard a lot of running around and whispering, then silence so we decided we had better get up and get moving. So after the coffee was on and the video camera was all set up I went in to tell the girls it was time to get up. They had already been out to see weather Santa had come yet because they werent sure if it was Christmas Day yet or not. I told them it was time to open presents and they took off! Chandler was still a little groggy but it didn't take her long to catch on and she joined right in. After we finished up and had breakfast we hurried to Salem for a few hours for a nice lunch and more presents with my family and then hurried back to Kamas for a nice dinner and even more presents with all the Averetts. What a great time of year. I love the chance to be with all of our family on the same day even though it seems like a whirlwind sometimes. I am a little bummed though. Now I won't have any excuses to have to go shopping. I bet I'll come up with something!

Merry Christmas!

Well we made our annual trek to the city to see santa. In the past we've gone to Ogden or Provo so we decided to go to Salt Lake and hit the Fashion Place Mall. The whole way down Hayden kept asking if we were at the North Pole Yet and Gracie was almost in tears because she was so nervous. If you know my husband at all you know that it's a huge effort for him to even go to Salt Lake or anywhere for that matter. He doesn't like to go to "the city" at all. Of course on the Saturday before Christmas everything was packed. It took us at least half an hour just to navigate the parking lot and then the one open space we found was out in the north forty. But still he remained calm. So we made our way through the mall to where Santa was and were surprised to see that the line wasn't really that bad. So we went to where we thought the end of the line was and asked if this was the line and a girl said you have to get a pager before you can wait in line She waved one of those little blinkie things they give you when you are waiting for a table at a restaurant. So we found an elf that told us you had to wait in line to get a pager first then when it goes off you can get in the Santa line. Crazy! When did Santa get so high tech? It actually wasn't that bad. We were able to walk around the mall a little and get something to eat rather than standing in a huge line all day. But of course once we got our food and sat down our pager went off. Here is the picture. ( I've got to get a scanner so I can stop taking pictures of pictures!) Of course Hayden wasn't looking at the camera and Chandler was screaming. I hope she wasn't too traumatized. Gracie and Hayden turned out okay and we have 3 or 4 identical pictures of each of them crying on Santa's lap. I've been trying to prepare her by showing her pictures of Santa and saying HO HO HO a lot but obviously it had no effect. Anyway the girls finally got to ask Santa for what they wanted and even threw in a couple surprises that mom and dad didn't know about. And the best part of the whole day is that we spent an entire day in Salt Lake shopping and Greg stayed cool, calm and collected the whole time. No meltdowns and no profanity! Hooray for daddy! I also had to throw in some pictures of Gracie and Hayden putting ornaments on the tree and Chandler taking them off. The tree has only been rearranged about 50 times since we put it up. So tomorrow is th big day and we're so excited! We want to wish everyone Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!