In honor of our wild, wacky and extreme winter . . .

And, can you even believe it, once again...zip...another month has FLOWN by!!

We still have loads of snow and cold and at this rate I'd like to just go ahead and break some records already.  Not sure if we have or not yet, but we sure better!

Now, on to March...

Art . . .

William brought this cool guy home the other day.

I've always loved the clay creations the kids bring home.

And, I have to admit, I can distinctly and clearly remember my own elementary art room, and kiln area and the excitement I had when it was clay-making time of the year.

One year...I made an ash tray...hahaha!

It's ok, they quit! (-:

I have to say, this guy is absolutely one of my favorites!

Sleeping Bear . . .

Still the BEST sledding hill in the state!

And, it ranks REALLY HIGH as a place to make the best angels too! (-:

And, it's not too shabby a place to try snowboarding...

Not the BEST place for snowboarding, but not too shabby!

(-:

I'm stuck.

I have super cool pics of our annual sledding trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes.

On my phone.

It is a huge rigmarole to get them over here now.

I'm too tired every night to do that.

So, there they sit, on my phone.

Thus...the frog...

I found this guy hanging out on my desktop.

No idea why.

Questions?

rig·ma·role

ˈrig(ə)məˌrōl/

noun

1. 1.

   a lengthy and complicated procedure.

   "he went through the rigmarole of securing the front door"

   synonyms:

   fuss, bother, trouble, palaver, ado, pother, song and dance,performance, to-do, pantomime, hassle, folderol More

Valentine's . . .

This girl 

Has been soooooo excited for Valentine's Day.

This is her "can you relax a bit for the camera?" pose during dinner yesterday.

She's been wearing that dress for about four days in preparation.

She found the glasses somewhere in the house yesterday.

That was an AMAZING moment for her!!!

She could NOT believe it!!

She made this for me last week.

Oh.My.Goodness.

The sweetness!

She decorated the table for dinner tonight.

Baked Mac-N-Cheese (this very recipe right here, 'cept, not sure why they upped the milk to 3 cups, my old recipe cut off the back of the box says 2.5 cups, I always double the recipe for our family, do five cups of milk and it's perfect), organic pre-cut broccoli from Trader Joe's (that was my splurge treat for the day...no washing or chopping during dinner prep hour tonight, oh yeah baby...wow, I'm old!!), and cherry jello with a little pre-dinner poke!

(-:

Maybe it's time to take down the hand-painted snow tile! . . .

Have we hit our limit yet?  

Lots of complaining out there this year, but boy, I'm really digging this winter.

Yep, it's a cold one, but I'm just avoiding it.

I'm staying inside a lot, not swimming much, cooking loads of new recipes (btw, that combination also helps with the sub-zero temps...I'm much warmer with my added layers of girth!!! Haha).

I say, if it's going to be winter, then bring it on, let's act like winter!

Love it!

Here are some factoids I gathered about a top 10 list of snowiest cities with populations of 100,000 people or more. We've just about doubled our average amount of snowfall so far.:

The list is as follows: Erie, Pa with 108.5 inches; Buffalo, N.Y. with 94.7 inches; Grand Rapids with 92.2; Syracuse, N.Y., with 83.6 inches; Rochester, N.Y. with 72.7; Ann Arbor with 71.8 inches; Detroit with 70.8 inches; Toldeo, Ohio with 67.4 inches; Billings, Mont. with 65 inches and Flint with 64.5 inches.

Snow Covered . . .

Table . . . 

Fire pit . . .

And Girl . . . 

I was out before she was.

She got herself "ready" to come outside.

Ha! (-:

And just about right after I zipped her up, ploop, she fell in a hole off the shed deck where I had been scooping snow.  It is deep out there, so fun.  Since it's absolutely freezing and the snow won't pack, I showed the boys ('cause...while my boys appear to be doing great in school, they can't seem to think of these things on their own!!!), how to dig "rooms" in the deepest snow blown areas and find sheets of wood to put on top for a roof.  That kept them occupied for a good bit this afternoon.  

Now this boy . . .

Is always first one out the door when it's been declared by the mother of this house, "O.K. you lot...off to your bedrooms or go outside!" (-: No question in his mind where he'd rather be.  Another one would much prefer curling up with a book in his loft and another could go either way, play in the room or go out.  Typically though, within 15 minutes (with the mother proclaiming with gusto what fun the boy is having), they're all out there, ha!

And that same boy is typically the first one to jump right in when a sweet, little four year old needs help of this kind or that.  Today it looked like a boot was stuck in our three feet of snow (just about!!) and he was getting it back on. What a big brother!!

(-: