Saturday, January 21, 2012

Snow much fun

What do you do when there's a fresh snow outside just calling your name?  Why, get some neighborhood kids together and go sledding, of course!  

 




Some of us played a little too hard...







A good time was had by all, and all it took was a little hot chocolate to thaw our frozen appendages. Not a bad way to spend a snowy afternoon!



Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Writer's block

I wouldn't label myself a "writer" but I seem to have a case of writer's block lately.  I have had about ten million thoughts jumbled up in my head, but have found no coherent way of putting them together to form any sort of blog post that is anything but terribly boring...or confusing.  But since I've been reminded (reprimanded) by multiple people to update my blog, what you will get instead of a beautifully written, poignant, and insightful post (alright, let's be honest, I don't know if any of my posts have been any of those things) what you will get instead is a snapshot of a few of my thoughts.  You can fill in the rest with something witty, clever, or at least somewhat interesting from your own mind.

1.  We had a pretty good snowstorm a little while ago.  I had to shovel the driveway in order to get out of the house, and did so while it was still snowing.  After all that work, I turned around when I was done and it all needed to be shoveled again.  It reminded me of a quote that hangs in my parent's laundry room that says, "Cleaning a house while children are growing is like shoveling a sidewalk while it's still snowing." To be honest, I never quite understood it when I was growing up.  I get it now.  And I hate it.

2.  Jake needed to be reprimanded the other day (ok, like every day, but this one stood out).  I said, "Jacob Dougherty!  Knock it off!" and he replied with, "Mom, I'm not 'ob I'm just Jake!  I'm Jake Dennis Dougherty!"  We have a little name confusion at our house.

3.  We're moving soon.  It makes me sad to think about.  In fact, I can't write any more about this because my thoughts are still a mess and things are still developing.  But, we may have a destination as to where we'll be spending at least the next few years pretty soon (insert excited/frantic scream).  

4.  Other than the occasional snowstorm, this winter has been fabulous!  I had always said I wanted to get out of Iowa when Joseph graduated, but after this winter I am starting to think maybe I could stay here after all.

There you have at least a few of my thoughts.  Non-coherent, jumbled, messy thoughts.  But, hey, you (or at least some of you) asked for it!

And for those of you who only check out my blog for pictures, I just found these pictures of  Jake having fun with Photo Booth on the computer.  I didn't know he had taken any of these:














I don't know what's going on with the open mouth...cracks me up though!

Friday, January 6, 2012

Home again


I'm back!  And what a vacation!  I hope that you all had as wonderful a Christmas break as I had.  We went to Michigan this year and had Christmas with my side of the family.  It has been about 4 years since we've been in Michigan for Christmas so you can imagine how excited I was (answer: very!) In fact, I really have too much to blog about, so I'm just going to give a quick snapshot of what our Christmas looked like.

There was lots of trains being played with cousins:

Lots of chillin' with aunts, uncles, and grandparents:






In fact, there was lots of just chillin' in general:


We ate LOTS of food:

We read stories:

We opened gifts:

Had LOTS to clean up from opening gifts:

 We went to the Midland Santa House:

We tried unsuccessfully to take one decent family picture:

 Grandma and Jake built a snowman:



We built a gingerbread train:

Eli enjoyed watching the action, as well as getting the occasional taste of frosting:

We celebrated Eli's Birthday (can you tell he was fascinated with that candle?):






Finally, we rang in the New Year with each other (minus Joseph who had to spend his break pulling teeth at the dental school.)

It was great being able to spend time with my family.  We miss them already!  No wonder we all love Christmas.  It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.