We had out first snow "storm" while living here in Texas. It was very exciting, and the best news is that it even came on a holiday, so everyone had the day off. As soon as we finished eating breakfast the kids were ready to rush out the door and into the snow. It was a pretty chilly morning, under 20 degrees, and if I'm remembering right a wind chill around 5, so of course there was much bundling up. Look how prepared Winry is!
Slightly earlier in the morning it was just Winry and I awake. She's our early riser, and is always the first kid up. We were enjoying some quiet time on the couch together, and she got her kindle and started reading to her lion on her lap. She's become an impressively good reader. I feel like it was only a few months ago we were still finishing up her learning to read books and she'd have to stop and sound out a word every sentence, and now she just ploughs through.
When Grayson woke up I asked him about this amazing structure he built out of blocks the day before. He told me that it was "Gram and Audrey's temple." So this was his take on the new temple in Orem that we saw when we went out to visit. Also, he loves to build temples, that's always what he builds when he gets his blocks out.
Once everyone was awake and we'd gotten a start to the day it was time to go play in the snow. Grayson didn't want to go out in the cold, so it was just the girls. They went to the highest concentration of snow they could find, the car windshields! Yeah, it was really just a dusting, but snow is snow, and it's always exciting!
Fortunately the cold was present, so we had to have hot chocolate when we came in. I was recently blessed to be reunited with my mug from our family reunion when I was 7. What a great year, I really... don't remember it much. I wonder if I knew what we had done if I actually would remember anything from it, but at least I'll always be connected to my childhood through hot chocolate.
Grayson has been back and forth with eating lately. He's definitely by far our hardest child to get to eat. The funny thing is, there will be times we give him food and he yells and screams about it, but then we leave and a minute or two later he walks over to the table and eats it all. So when we finally got him to agree to some food, and then he got upset about it, I asked if he wanted a picnic upstairs. Guess what? With no parents around, he sat and ate it all.
Monday afternoon Brooke went to a birthday party for a friend from school. The party was at the Austin Spurs game! Brooke had a great time watching the game and hanging out with her friends from school. The bull even came into their box to say hi and get a picture.
On Tuesday, Monica took the kids to school and... the heat was out, so they said it was optional and everyone could go home, so home they came. This was probably good, because there were only like 4 rooms at the school with heat, so all classes got moved there and I'm sure it was just a fun, play day. The bad news is that since the heat was out at the school, all these dinosaurs froze in ice, so the kids had to help free them all! This was meant for Grayson's birthday party months ago, but we didn't end up having time at the party so they'd been in our freezer ever since.
Grayson has recently given in to his animal instincts and started going down the stairs like a penguin. Sometimes the girls think this seems fun and do it too.
On Friday night there was a ward board game night, and I attended. Monica was still feeling sick and had quite a cough, so she didn't come. In fact, on Friday she went to the urgent care and found out she has bronchitis, so she's likely past being sick/contagious, and now just has her lingering cough for who knows how long. That said, it's a pretty bad cough, and would very much be likely to make people nervous in public to have her there. Anyway, the game night was very fun. I played a Reckoners board game, and had a super time. The game, and especially the company were delightful! And I even got to hold the Johnson's baby!!
On Saturday I did a bunch more work on the shelves for the office. It was finally paint day! Here's a bunch of pieces out in the garage, drying. Also, you may notice the space heater. Technically it wasn't warm enough out to be in the appropriate range for the paint, so I plopped the space heater out there, and it was able to keep the garage warm enough for me to paint. It really only had to run in the morning and evening, and during the day, even though it only got to around 40 outside, it was over 50 in the garage without the heater's help, so it got to take a break.
Once all the pieces needed to build a shelf were painted, it was assembly time. I'd bring a set into the living room and assemble it on the rug. That way I hopefully wouldn't scrape paint off.
And then I'd haul them into the office and put them up on their stands. I was able to get 3 of the shelves assembled, and still need to assemble one more. I was also able to get everything painted, so I can work on the rest of the assembly throughout this next week, and will hopefully have a picture of all the shelves put up for next week. There will still be a bit more work with trim and stuff, but it's very exciting to finally have gotten the shelves painted and put together! Oh, and I did put some of these pictures out of order, but I was up until 11:59 on Saturday night painting shelves out in the garage. I stopped just in time for the Sabbath, and believe everything is in a good enough spot to do the assembly this week. Also, I am VERY tired today.
Brooke invited her friend Vivian over on Saturday, and they had a great time. They also included Winry in their games, which was great! It just so happened that they had started working on cake pops in the afternoon, so while Vivian was here they got to decorate them!
After dipping them in chocolate and drizzling some on the top, it was time for sprinkles. As happens, working with chocolate and sprinkles tends to attract racoons Grayson. When Monica found him he had his face in his hands, and when he looked up he had a nice Santa beard going on. He unfortunately licked it pretty quickly, so we can't share the full effect, but he definitely snuck a hand full of white sprinkles.
Once cake pop decorating was done, the girls headed out to do some roller skating. They let Vivian have the first turn, and helped her make it across the driveway. Right as she was turning around, her mom pulled up to pick her up. So after a quick skate back to the safety of the grass, she got ready and headed for home. The girls had so much fun having her over, so we'll definitely have to do that again soon!
Here's a picture of Grayson brushing his teeth that evening. He climbs up on the counter just about every night to brush his teeth. What a cutie!
Grayson has been doing wonderfully in primary so far. Winry will walk him up to the front and help him get in a seat, and then he just stays there. We've checked with his teachers, and they say so far he's always been well behaved. Also, tonight at family home evening he was singing along with some of the songs because we were singing songs they're learning in primary right now! I'm very impressed how well he's doing for how energetic he can be, and especially for how energetic he got to be each week in nursery. This is essentially a 180 degree change, and he's taking it like a champion.
Tonight we had Grayson's monitor on, and Jelly laid down right in front of it on the couch. She apparently wanted to keep a very close eye on him tonight to make sure he was doing well.
In other Jelly news, her favorite game to play with me is when we both hide around a corner from each other, and then she'll run over and pop out around the corner, and then I'll spring up towards her and she'll run away, and then I'll hide behind the corner and wait for her to rush in again. Well, we were playing this over the couch this past week while Monica watched, and she was very much appreciating the game.
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