Weeks 1 & 2: Snow days

In the first two weeks of January we've had two vacation days, three snow/cold days, and two delayed start school days. Charlotte went to pre-K/day care during the snow days and the boys were pretty good about entertaining themselves. I enjoy the more relaxed schedule but wish it wasn't quite so cold. Saturday the 6th we woke up to find that a pipe had frozen and we had no water for a day and a half. That day it was below zero wind chill the whole night-day-night if I remember correctly. Anyway, we made do with gallons of water to flush the toilets and used a hair dryer and heater to warm up the pipe (where the water comes into the house) with no apparent damage. I guess the highlights would be hanging out with friends at their house while we had no water, some pretty awesome chocolate chip cookies made by Zach, and everyone's excitement at playing some old Mario and Kirby games on the Super Nintendo Classic.

I said no to this look for the family photo but offered to shoot a separate environmental portrait for Zach.

They insisted on Monkey Family photos after our family photo.

Week 52: Christmas

We did a bunch of stuff in St. Louis! These are some of the things I want to remember: 

Ron and Frank washing the van, then it snowing the next day

Christmas eve gingerbread house decorating

Fun with cousins. The boys played with Bailey, especially Gabe, and Charlotte liked playing with Donovan, Avery, and Maggie.

The kids playing trains with Ron, especially Gabe and Charlotte

Crazy crowded Christmas at Emily's 

Christmas with RJ and Kelsey, Angela and Nick

The magic house with Shaun, Peggy, Maggie, and Molly

Zach solving his Rubik's cubes over and over

The boys and Bailey making slime at Katie's 

The boys drawing on boogie boards and sharing with Charlotte and Bailey 

Happy Joe's with Mark, Matt, and Gillian and talking about star wars, blogging and podcasting 

Burgers at Fuddruckers

The kids singing happy birthday to Grandma Jill

 

Week 51: Before the trip

Here are a few snapshots of life during the week before Christmas:

Cub Scout Christmas party

Tsum Tsum friends from the advent calendar

A drawing by Charlotte

Making chocolate and candy covered pretzels

Charlotte's school party

A day on the road. Our first big minivan trip was very nice.

Lunch stop at McDonald's

Getting to Grandma and Grandpa's house

This is us, 2018.

Here's the family photo:

No, we didn't all smile at the same time. In fact, Zach intentionally closed his eyes for half the photos (he readily admits it) and Gabe takes after Frank with his smirking. Then we have to eliminate the ones where I'm mid-reminder to the rest of them to say whatever smile word we were using. There was head-swapping going on here, for sure. The tripod and remote save us.

I hope to post some Christmas photos soon!

Videos!

Easier to pick out than going through hundreds of photos, I thought I'd post some videos from the last couple of weeks. This is what we did over our winter break!