Tonight Israel requested butter and jelly on his cheesy garlic bread. He thought that was so tasty he wanted another. That's about as crazy as the morning he wanted ketchup on his pancakes already soaked in maple syrup. After protesting just for the sake of "that's just not right!!!", I acquiesced, and he gobbled them down voraciously, thoroughly relishing each and every bite.
I have been really really enjoying the excess of snow blanketing the outside. I just LOVE it. It is so beautiful and it has been so many years since I have actually been living somewhere where we saw REAL SNOW. I am, however, starting to get a little done with being so cold. 'Cause it sure is.
Here was our yard a few minutes after the snow quit falling on Saturday night.
This is our house on Sunday morning. We got 20 inches of snow.
The first day after the snow fell, we spent at least half an hour (wide eyes) gathering snow clothes and then dressing all three boys and ourselves. Dude. That is serious, calorie-guzzling WORK to stuff limp-noodle arms into puffy jacket sleeves and then fish around trying to pull arms through without pulling mittens off. But it was so great to trudge around in the snow and crunch around in the sunny white-brightness. SO beautiful.
Zion and I went on a little walk around the block. He really liked being outside once he had steady footing.
These are just pictures from around our house; the end of our road, looking up our street, and standing at the other end of our street looking down towards our house:
While we were outside, we heard honking from above us and looked up to see some beautiful snow geese flying overhead.
These pictures are of our neighbor's house, Barry, who lives right across the road. I thought it was looking very photogenic. :)
I had thought it would be fun to dig a snow house, but it was harder than I expected for me to help with something like that, since the two youngest of my chillin's kept getting mommy-needy. Tim decided he had a better idea, anyways. He cleared out a patch of the backyard and put up our tent back there.
One of Tim's favorite memories from growing up was when he and his dad slept in his tree-house in the middle of winter as an adventure. He decided that he and the boys could put a heater in the tent and sleep in the tent. I was all wide-eyed dubiousness, and suggested that whatever he decided, perhaps he could be the one to put away all the blankets. :) I was feeling a little "worked-out" from all the excess of snow-clothes-dressing and cleaning up that I was already having to do. He put down blankets on the floor of the tent, then I went in and fluffed and puffed the rest of the sleeping bags and blankets until I felt like my baby boys would be warm enough, then Tim carried them (Gabe and Israel) out - to their sheer and utter delight. OHHHHHH, they loved it. They were thrilled to the bone.
And their mommy?? Well...she padded back inside into her cozy warm and SILENT house, and settled down for a rather enjoyable evening spent watching videos and eating snacks all by her warm cozy lonesome. :) With no requests for water or potty or Mommy to interrupt me. Ahhhhhh, that was nice. :) :)
The boys bounced around excitedly until about 11:30 PM when they finally drifted off. Tim brought them back in around 5:30 AM, because, despite them being warm and toasty in their blankets, he was not. :) They woke enough to protest their return inside, the both of them. :)
Some days I'm just glad that I don't have to sleep outside in tents in middle of winter, heater or no heater, for "fun". Anybody else relate? But their good daddy sure did make a memory for those boys.
And now it is snowing again. We're supposed to get another 6-10 inches. :) I can tell that my snow "love tank" is just not filled yet, because I'm still excited about it. :) A snow-parched 14 years I've had since leaving home...
In random asides...I always notice mental development in the kids in sudden spurts. The past few days I've noticed a real jump in Gabe's vocabulary. Today he came in from outside and said, "I am stupendously cold!!!" Atta boy.... :) I think he belongs to the right parents. :)
It has been steadily snowing since about 2 PM yesterday, and it is now 5:30 PM today.
Earlier today:
This evening:
I have no idea how deep it is - at least a foot, I suppose - but it sure is fun. Our electricity went off at some point in the night, probably around 2 AM. The sudden silence woke up Israel, who came and crawled into bed with us. After he was asleep, Tim carried him back to bed, but Zion joined us after a while for the rest of the night, because I knew he would be warmer in our bed. He coughed and sputtered and fussed about not being able to run around the house, but eventually settled phlegm-ily back into slumber (He has a bad cough.) I balanced on the edge of the bed and eventually slept. The power flicked on and off several times before coming back on for good around 10 AM, when our house was 61 degrees and we were layered to the hilt.
This is Israel huddling by our only source of heat earlier today, a crackling hearth of radiant heat. :) Or...not exactly. Tim enjoyed the illusion of slight warmth the sight of flames, any flames, gave. :) Brrrrrr. A blizzard is MUCH more enjoyable with the sweet goodness of heat. And hot coffee. And Internet access. :)
I just sort of wish it would keep snowing. Up until the top of our chain-link fence. Then it could stop. How cool would that be???
The view from our bedroom window:
My icy clothesline:
Barry's house (and truck):
Zion has been EXTRA squerky today. He is snotty and out of sorts. Cranky as an ol' coot. He has followed me around all day, bleating "Nanna! Nanna!" (He hasn't started much on his "m's" yet.) He has staunchly refused to eat actual food today, other than bananas, and fusses impatiently for the pop and the chocolate he sees on the counter, the tortilla chips he sees on the table. Tonight he busily mixed together his yogurt and soup and dumped it over his head. Squerk pot. Shake of head.
Here is the little critter dancing happily to the Wii game Just Dance. :)
Video games were the highlight of the day for the boys around here, whose daddy joined in later in the afternoon.
A little soup making, a little laundry-doing, and a lot of book reading was the highlight of the day for me. All in a days work on a blizzard-y day....
This was the video Lynette made for Olive's memorial service. The first song, "Sweet Sweet Baby" by Michelle Featherstone was one that she sang to Olive often in the last four months. The last song, "Come to Jesus" by Chris Rice was the song playing when Olive took her last breath.
Olive Hope Polinder, 4 months, passed gently from the arms of her loving parents into the arms of Jesus at Memorial Hospital in South Bend, IN on January 22, 2010. Olive was born on Sept. 25, 2009 in Chiang Rai, Thailand, where her parents are working alongside the Akha people. Olive came sooner than planned, at 28.5 weeks and fought valiantly for the next four months through multiple physical complications, surgeries, six different hospitals and an international flight.
Olive Hope was loved fully and will be missed deeply by her adoring parents Rustin and Lynette Polinder. She was also loved by her Grandpas and Grandmas Norm and Carol Miller of Middlebury, IN and Ron and Colleen Polinder of Lynden, WA; her Great-Grandparents, Henry and Polly Yoder, Harriet Haak, and Lois Polinder; her uncles and aunties; her 13 little cousins who loved her so and prayed for her faithfully. Olive was also loved and supported by so many, all over the world, in her extended family, friends, doctors and nurses and complete strangers who invested so much love and prayer into Olive.
In lieu of flowers, if anyone would like to make donations in Olive Hope’s memory, Rusty and Lynette would love to create a scholarship fund in honor of Olive Hope, so that her life can bless the Akha children in the villages in Northern Thailand. Please send any donations to: Siloam Fellowship 61616 C.R. 35 Goshen, IN 46528. Please reference Olive Memorial Fund in the memo. If you'd like to see more about the work they have been doing in Thailand with the Akha Youth Development Fund please see: www.t-amf.org
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