Special Time with Family

We had a great time down south with my brother and his family!  And we TOTALLY lucked out with the weather!  It was in the mid to upper 70's the three days we were there.  The afternoons were sunny and warm, and we absolutely SOAKED it up!  Here are a few of our favorite pictures...

 We brought a Curious George in the Snow book to help Benjamin understand snow.  Sounds like maybe he actually GOT some last night?

 Rob put his sunglasses on Trevin, so we all thought that was pretty cute!  We took a little hike at a place called Zilker Park by downtown Austin.  The weather was cloudy to start, but ended up perfectly sunny  for our picnic lunch and afternoon.

 So, this was taken from the Zilker Park trail, across Town Lake to the big buildings in Austin.  I like this view.  It all looks so peaceful from here.

 I'm sorry my camera didn't do justice to the aura of the botanical gardens in Zilker Park.  It was off season, but I thought everything was still so beautiful!

 My fellow northern gardeners will understand why I needed to take this picture.  There were vegetables growing in the park!!!  I looked quickly around before I stooped down to pull a weed....  I knew I shouldn't, but I just couldn't resist!

Our last evening there, we went to the Oasis Restaurant on Lake Travis.  It was a gorgeous evening, and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.  My camera isn't an expert on sunset pictures, so you'll have to visit Times 2 Treasure for that....  They have some other great pictures of our trip too.  I took this picture of Trevin because even though it looks like he got into a chocolate dessert, he didn't!  These are real southern black beans all over his face!  He is a little bean boy!

So many special memories!  Thanks, for having us, R, A, B and T!

She's an...

American Girl - Ready for SPRING!

Lana and I have had such a good time making this little outfit for Nicki.  The colors are so bright and cheerful, and the fabric was of good quality and easy to work with!  While I sewed the outfit, Lana made accessories with scraps and things she found lying around... like the flip-flops.  Aren't they amazing!?!  And the purse, and the pet outfits.... 

 

Aren't these just precious!?

This has been so much fun!  I hope I'm not pushing it, but I bought more of the fabric and a pattern for a similar jumper for Lana.   I've never sewed anything for her before.  So, wish me luck!

Exercise!

We don't do this enough, but Twister is a GREAT form of exercise!  Somehow, in our little family tournament, the smallest and most flexible of us ended up playing the largest (and least flexible???) of us in the winning round.... :)  And the largest (and least flexible???) among us was finally declared the WINNER!  Go, Rob!

My new hat!

My hat is complete!  It is soft and cozy.  I'm not used to wearing a hat in public, but I am trying to do it more often.  After all, at the moment, it's 24.5 BELOW ZERO!!!!!!!  One really should be wearing a hat in this weather... even if it messes with our hair-do's.

Embracing Winter

There are good times in winter too!

We really enjoyed our time with friends and family in Minnesota this Christmas.  Here are a few snow pictures from there...

Rob and I and the kids took a family ski lesson in the morning, and were able to enjoy skiing the rest of the day!  The kids had a great time too.  Here they are...

And here's the group picture of friends we skiied with on Christmas Eve!





Jeff and Lynnette came to our house later in the vacation.  The kids had a great time with the snomobiles, and they were all very safe drivers and riders.  We also went to town and enjoyed sledding on the dike. 

The other thing we did to embrace winter (during vacation) was go ice skating.  This was all BEFORE the big bizzard I already blogged about!  Now we're trying to convince ourselves that winter is really OKAY!  That's why I'm doing this post....  What do you think?  Do you embrace winter? 

Digging Out!

This is the "View from my window" a few hours later....  As you can see, the weather has begun to clear!  The kids had fun on the new drifts, but didn't stay out long because of the ferocious windchill.

And then Rob started plowing... and plowing... and PLOWING!

 

I was out shoveling, but finally I just let Mattie take over...  She LOVES to dig!

 

Rob's reward at the end of his plowing....

The county plow came by today too.  Thank goodness!  It looks like we're free to travel again.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

View from my Window

Ahhh.... a good old fashioned blizzard!  It started at midnight Wednesday night.  We've had a few breaks, but overall it's been blowing and snowing continuously since then.  We're safe at home, glad we don't HAVE to go anywhere.  I always feel kind of edgy when this happens, but there's something cozy about it too.  And it makes me thankful for all the means we have to cope with storms like this.  Warm houses, plentiful food, water and light.  Just think of years ago - and really not so many years ago - when they didn't have all these luxuries...

"Digging out" will be the next phase... lots of work.  Glad Rob's home!!!