keep looking back

I am sooooo far behind on my posts. I have missed a HUGE part of our family's history for this past year (from late March through November), but I am committed to go back and write about all of the stuff our family has gone through and have done throughout 2010. SO, for those who care to read, keep looking back for some new posts. I'm going to start in November and work toward the beginning of the year 2010. I hope you have as much fun reading about our history as I do reminiscing on what we did!

For now, I just wanted to share these pictures with you...

We hold hands to pray and thank God for our food before we eat each meal. Today, after we were done praying, Ivy and Owen continued to hold hands while they ate their breakfast.

So precious!

snow & ice...

sculptures!

Today, we drove up to Jackson's Black Mountain to look at the snow sculptures. There were a robot, a jack-in-the-box, many abstract sculptures (at least I think they were suppose to be abstract) :), an igloo, a polar bear, a shark eating a fish, a couple of eagles, a ballerina, and a few more that I just can't remember now.

Ivy's favorite was the ballerina...

Owen's favorite was the shark eating a fish...

This was a fun one too...

Then, we drove down to the Wentworth Hotel (also in Jackson) to look at the ice sculptures that were made a few weeks before. Some had already started to melt, but they were still neat to see. There were a princess's castle, a ship's steering wheel (I'm sure it's called something else, but I can't think of it right now), the Statue of Liberty, fish, a sea turtle, a sculpture that I think was suppose to be an angel or a butterfly (I think the wings melted off), a swan, and others. We've marked our calendar for next year to actually be there when they carve the sculptures.

We love visiting Jackson!

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

It's coooooooooold outside!!

I'm so glad I have errands to run this morning.

I think we'll be waiting until it gets into the positive degrees first!

Stay warm!

pajama day

With no plans to go anywhere and no plans for anyone to stop by today, we declared today...

PAJAMA DAY!!!!

We spent the WHOLE DAY in our PJ's!!

We made a fort to hang out in...

We read books...

Even Letty "read" her own book...

We played Peek-a-boo...

We had snack time...


We played with toys...

We played doctor office...

We watched a movie...

We had a great time!

Happy Pajama Day!

"One thing children save for a rainy day is lots of energy." ~Author Unknown

By the way, today is also Aunt Julie's birthday! Happy Birthday, Aunt Julie!

cotton balls & a blanket

Do you ever feel like you do the same things over and over and over again day in and day out?

Well, I have! Perhaps it's what they call "cabin fever" or "stir crazy," but I have felt like we have been doing just the same old things lately. I was desperate today to keep the day interesting, so I pulled out a book full of kids activities that I picked up at a yard sale this past summer. The idea we found to do was quite interesting, and I honestly thought we would be going back to the book in no time to choose another activity. Today's activity turned into doing anything and everything you can think of with this...

a ball of cotton!

The idea we got in our trusty little book was to take cotton balls and stick them between our toes and walk around. So, we did just that, which made for a great laugh!

In hindsight, I should have gotten out the nail polish to paint our toe nails, but I'm sure Owen would have wanted his toes painted too. (I'm pretty sure Daddy would not have appreciated that too much, so, now that I think about it, I guess it was best that I didn't get the nail polish out!) :0)

Someone thought it was quite ticklish putting the cotton between his toes and then thought it was SO FUNNY walking around, but he just wouldn't keep them in there for too long.

After the cotton-between-the-toes activity fizzled out, what were we to do????

We lined up boxes and made a little competition of throwing them into them...

Then, as it was snowing outside, we made it snow inside!!!!

Another game we played with our nifty little cotton balls was hide and seek. One would hide the cotton, while the other had to find them.

Of course, Owen had to turn our cotton games into his kind of a game...

CHASE!!!

Ivy then loaded the cotton balls into a box and pretended they were some sort of mixture that we would have for lunch.

And, then, Owen was up to his usual playing self where, I believe, he pretended that the cotton were some kind of an animal (perhaps sheep) or a person of some sort and would sit up at the table and do his own playing and talking with the few balls of cotton he had in each hand.

Once Daddy got home from work and supper was over, we continued our cotton ball fun with a...

SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!!

Then, Daddy had an idea to swing the kids back and forth in a blanket...

...which they LOVED!

WHO KNEW that balls of cotton and a blanket would be THIS MUCH FUN!!!!!!

"Keep smiling - it makes people wonder what you've been up to." ~Author Unknown