This morning I felt the itch for an adventure. The thought of such a dandy thing stopped the excessive waterworks occuring over on the mini-trampoline, as Gabriel bellowed out his woes over being denied video games. Pooooooor deprived child.

The insta-cheered Gabe chirpily mused out loud that an adventure should contain hotdogs. Israel voiced the opinion that an adventure would hopefully contain pizza. However, the wheels and the wallet of the group was of the firm opinion that a proper adventure would contain one’s choice of tasty pastry and hot beverage. So to Panera we zoomed.

We had a fine time. I, personally, could have used at least one additional arm, but I made do. We slurped down broccoli and cheese soup, savored our pastry delicacy of choice,

and then made a hasty departure when Baby started to get squerky.

Here was Baby when he was not being squerky, but loving his apple juice. I cannot RESIST pictures of him drinking out of a straw. I LOVE IT when he uses a straw because he is SO STINKIN’ CUTE!!!!

Now Gabe is happily planted in front of the Wii for his beloved daily dose of technology, Israel is stampeding heavily around the house on various missions (that child and his noises while the baby is sleeping totally raise my blood pressure), and Baby is tucked into his crib. All in a morning’s work.

I guess I’ll go eat that left-over bearpaw.

So, right after the supposed blizzard that was appropriately snowy, but not all that blowy, we got a PROPER blizzard. Deep sigh of contentment. Snowin’ and blowin’ and everything. Poor visibility that helps you slightly understand Pa’s dilemma of needing a rope to get from the barn to the house in one of those Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Which are my only framework for blizzard-understanding, apparently. Man, am I up on blizzard lore. Or not.

My strange-in-the-head husband spent an inordinate amount of time frolicking happily in the blowing snow. His young, equally addle-pated offspring joined him for a bit of that time.

Here’s what the snow blew in.

The next day saw some fort building. Tim had some VERY dedicated helpers.

Here’s a goober I live with in all his gooberishness. The child ADORES silliness. Makes a mama sigh. Sure is a good kid, though.

Yesterday was a good day. So good that Israel started out his day by talking closely with and singing to the cereal box.

Lol.

The sun was out for it’s once-a-month appearance (roll of eyes), and the day is just always better when it is sunny. I went to check on Gabe and Israel and found Israel laying in the back step in his short-sleeved shirt, happily covered with his SpongeBob SquarePants blanket.

The boysies made a beeline outside to thunder around the back yard and expend all sorts of boy energy. Made me remember one reason I like warmer weather.

We had a babysitter for the evening, while we went to a couples dinner that our church’s youth group put on as a fund raiser. The thought of no children to feed, no children to watch, and being able to peacefully eat my meal as it came and engage in adult conversation was truthfully somewhat heavenly. I love my bebes. I also love little get-aways from all the child responsibilities they bring with them.

We scurried home to put three whirling balls of energy boys to bed.

My world in a picture. I love those guys.

SOMEONE in this house is teething. SOMEONE is sleeping VERY fitfully and interrupting his parent’s peaceful and exhausted snoozes WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY too frequently for their liking. SOMEONE would not go to bed until after midnight last night. Sigh of self-pity. Look at the back of Someone’s cute little curly head.

Now look at him trying to wink.

Man, that kid’s cute.

Zion is a book fanatic. He LOVES books. I sort of don’t like reading to his age, though, because you have to read the same board book about 14 kazillion times, and if you read a different one, he loses interest about 1 page in, and you have to wait patiently while he searches through all of his many options on the bookshelf, only to lose interest in that one after the first page too, and bonk his mommy on the nose with the ridiculously heavy board book as he scoots off to look for yet another option. I’m pretty sure that someone could cause serious injury with one of those board books if they had a mind to.

He loves this book that Tim is reading with him in particular. He was making all sorts of serious faces at it last night.

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.

Shake of head. Silly kid.

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

Sweet Olive Hope died tonight at 6:37 PM, in the arms of her daddy, Rusty. She had meningitis and it was too much for her little body to take. Please keep remembering Lynette and Rusty in your prayers. www.rustylynette.blogspot.com

Zion is just so adorable I can’t hardly take it.

He is just such a dear. We all love him to pieces, with perhaps the exception of Israel, who dislikes intensely when Zion threatens to take his current toy of choice.

Zion is into EVERYTHING. That child. I could follow him around ALL DAY – he is a one-baby bucket of chores. He stamps busily all over the house, right arm swinging industriously, tongue out in concentration, fuzzy curls wisping around on his head. Pulling cereal out of the cabinet, climbing chairs so that he can climb onto the table to find food to fling around, opening cupboard doors and unearthing contents, throwing items into the bathtub, swirling the toilet brush in the toilet, throwing socks in the shower, rearranging items under the bathroom sink,

dumping pretzels on the floor, lugging a toothbrush around the house,

tearing toilet paper rolls apart

or pulling tissues out of tissue boxes, pushing a broom around angrily,

(it really infuriates him because it gets caught on items like chairs), opening and closing the oven doors and dishwasher,

flinging around dried folded clothes that Mommy happened to leave resting on the open dryer door for a few seconds, emptying toys out of bins, emptying markers and crayons from boxes, hurrying to dump the dog food in the dog water quick quick quick before Mommy takes it away, carting the water container from the humidifier in his room around everywhere like a beloved suitcase, attempting to plug in various electrical appliances such as heaters and fans…the list is endless.

I came out of the bedroom on my birthday to find that Israel and Zion had coordinated their efforts and joyfully emptied three entire boxes of cereal onto the floor.

I grimly set to cleaning up the gigantic mess, telling myself that it actually was NOT my birthday, that it was a normal day just like any other, so no need to have expectations of a life of ease just because I turned 32. (Don’t worry, my day improved after that. )

And then there is his cheesy little grin.

I LOVE IT!!! Such a mess moose dude bob.

I mean, seriously. How could you resist this guy?? Melt melt melt melt melt.