Really Quick...

We lived through the snow. Now it's just the nuisance, I'm waiting for it to get warm enough to melt! But it's still freezing temps here...

I had a birthday last week. I turned 29, the last year I can officially say I'm in my twenties!

Eric got sick over the weekend with some kind of short lived 48 hour flu! Luckily he's over it and it didn't last long. Although it lasted long enough to be passed on to me! I got sick the day he felt better. It's now been about 48 hours for me... I'm feeling alot better, but still very sluggish and tired.

Elle got her report card and did fantastic! Better then last time! Pinky is also doing really well. Although I'm now second guessing myself as to whether or not to put her in kindergarten this fall. She's turns 5 in August... so it's RIGHT on the line! Her teachers this year in pre-k don't think she'll be ready. They say she's doing just fine, it's just that she isn't matured enough...? They said that she can't hold a pencil right, and can't identify letters and numbers (even though she knows the songs, she can't identify a specific letter or number). She can't write ANY letters and barely recognizes her own name. They are working on all that with her but say that it's a maturity thing, not a learning problem. So, hopefully she matures enough between now and August when school starts! I don't know, maybe I'll wait a year... I'm still deciding!

That's the quick version of my life for the past week. Just writing this has made me want to take a nap, LOL!

I hope we survive...

According to all reliable sources, we are expected to get ANOTHER 12 to 18 inches of snow tomarrow and Wednesday on top of the 4 feet we already have! We've been lucky enough to not lose power or heat so far (alot of the county is STILL without power and there are shelters set up all over for those families). Hopefully our luck will continue! We've burned so much fire wood this winter, we only have enough wood left for a few more nights. This by far is the most cold and snowy winter I can remember... we've been burning fires almost every night!
Last winter we had alot of firewood left over that we added to the ton we bought for THIS winter. Well, soon we'll have none! Too bad, I like having fires.
SO, wish us luck. If I don't update my blog within a few days you'll know we are miserable and without power!

SNOW WEEKEND

Just as predicted we got several feet of snow. Maryland isn't equipped to handle this much so the whole town shut down. Grocery stores to gas stations alike... it's like a ghost town. We know this because Eric and I went driving around surveying the damage. Quite the winter wonderland! The only other people out were fellow 4x4 SUV owners, also just checking things out. Half the county was/is without power. Luckily we have our power and heat working just fine!

Elle's two best friends live on our street, so she has no shortage of playmates today! The three of them have been out since about 9:30 this morning. They play for hours then retreat inside one of the houses to warm up and eat, then they're back out for several more hours...
Pinky was feeling left out, so we went and picked up a little friend of hers to play at our house. The two of them had alot of fun! Although, unlike the big kids, the little ones only liked playing outside for maybe 30 minutes max. They mostly played barbies up in Pinky's room.

Eric is like superman! It snowed maybe 2-3 feet with snow drifts up to 4 feet, he dug our cars out and shoveled pathways for us to walk. After he finished our house he helped out some of the neighbors and then went down and dug out my friends car. It took him several hours because the snow is so wet and heavy. He's taking a nap right now as I write this! AH, what a good day for a nap!

Okay, I took a billion pictures but have picked a few choice ones to illustrate how crazy it is here! Lets begin, shall we?
This picture isn't from this morning, it's actually from the snow/ice storm we had a few days ago. I walked down to our lake because it was frozen and looked really neat! (BTW, there's no way in hell I can walk down to the lake NOW because the snow today is like 3 feet high!) SO, this is the frozen lake behind our house with the frozen forest across from it!

Okay, THIS is from today! As you can see, I'm safely in my house looking out onto our deck! Barbecue anyone??

I am still somewhat safe in my house, peaking out the front door to my neighbors tree...

Okay, I'm definitely outside now! This is after Eric shoveled the sidewalk looking towards our front door.

In this picture I am in the same spot I was in for the last picture, only instead of facing our front door, I'm facing my left... there USED to be a sidewalk there...

My wonderful husband digging out the cars!

My husbands cute butt! Here he is, after he did all around OUR house, he went and started on a neighbors car.

This is a shot from the street looking up st someones car. This is what they ALL looked like before the owners came out to dig them out...

Looking down my street... it's still snowing buckets in this picture!

I made a snow fort for the kids, but it looks like the dog likes it best!

The snow height compared to Pinky's height!

One Year Ago today!!!

Today is the one year mark of something worth celebrating! Eric has been on his diet for a full year now! In that 12 months he has lost 55 pounds! And is now a sexy 175 and in size 34 pants (I don't know if it will bug him that I'm putting his business out there for all to see..) but I'm so PROUD! He looks fantastic and is a super babe!!!!!!

Metal Head

Man, poor Elle... as is she didn't already have enough going on in her mouth. She has an extender glued to the roof of her mouth to spread it out, a lip bumper on the bottom teeth AND braces!
Well, add to that her newest addition... HEAD GEAR! I'm totally serious! Her teeth are straitening out perfectly, but she has now developed an overbite which is help with headgear. When the orthodontist yesterday told me this, I had to turn around so Elle didn't see me laughing. I almost had to leave the room because I literally couldn't hold in my laughs! I know that sounds awful!
So, Elle is no longer just a metal mouth but now a metal head! POOR THING!!! Luckily things are going fast, and she wont need any of this stuff much longer. I'm thinking around April or May.
Fortunetely Elle is at the age where it's still 'cool' to have stuff like this... so she isn't bothered in the least. She wore it with pride last night, LOL!

Baptism

Today my little Elle got baptized! It was really neat! We wanted it short, sweet and simple! We asked that it not be announced in church because we didn't want alot of people we hardly know to show up! This is not a free for all! We invited a very small number of close friends. And the way we did it was a little unorthodox.... but we didn't care, it was just right for our family! Here are a few pictures! Eric looked smoking' hot in that high waisted jumpsuit!



And here is the cake we had made for it. My good friend Katie makes cakes and I asked her to make a girly CTR cake, it turned out fantastic and was a big hit!

A good time was had by all and afterwards we went to dinner with the grandparents. Elle picked the restaurant, she picked IHOP. The food was awful and the waitress sucked! But at least we were in good company with each other!

It's so strange to me that I am the mother of an eight year old. And having my child get baptized was something I always thought was years away. It's really mind boggling that my daughter is 8 and my husband just baptized her tonight. On her next birthday she'll be 9... that's almost TEN... that's almost a teenager! OH MY GOSH! My daughter is almost a teenager! Good grief, I need to calm down...