Snow anyone?

We get so much snow here in H town. It doesn't help that we have a north facing front yard and also live in the corner of a turn. When the snow plow comes along we get what seems to be a bit more than our fair share of snow left in front of our home. Next year we will be able to prepare for it more though. We didn't shovel out our entire driveway area in the street and well...now it is too late and we just have to wait until it melts. Now when it does snow we stay on top of it so that it doesn't encroach into the limited space that we do have to enter and exit our driveway. After one snow storm we didn't get around to shoveling the snow right away and we had a nice thick layer of ice on the driveway for a while. It took me over a week of daily salting and shoveling at it to get rid of it.
The sidewalk presented a bit of a problem for a while as well. You can see along the front of our roof there are little heaters that melt off the snow and are there to help prevent ice build up. Well... we didn't turn them on when we should have or at all for that matter. It wasn't long before we had a HUGE section of ice along the front of our home. I'm talking about a sheet of ice that was 6 inches thick. No I'm not exaggerating either. There was also a huge ring of ice around the front gutter as well that was at least three inches on either of it. The gutter is visible in the picture, it is located in front to the right of the garage door and our address sign. The ice started a foot above the curve in the gutter and went all the way to the ground. While it was cold this wasn't such a big deal but when it started to get warm...well that is a whole other story.
We had a little bit of a warm spell where the temps were in the upper 40s and so the ice and snow started to melt. Every morning there was layer of ice an inch thick on the sidewalk. Since the gutters were frozen, the water melted and it ran straight onto the steps and sidewalk. One day I stepped on our first step and my foot slipped right out from underneath me, causing me to land on my left leg leaving quite the bruise from my foot to my knee. (Ouch!) So I had enough and decided to get rid of the ice. It took over a week to remedy the problem but finally, I was able to get the ice off of the drain. B had to get up on the ladder to hack at the ice on the roof, it took several hours of working at it with the hammer. I also shoveled three feet of snow off of the little square between our sidewalk and home, in hopes that the less snow there is the less ice we will have to deal with. Under the snow I found a nice thick layer of ice. Since then we have used our heaters regularly and with constant shoveling we are avoiding dangerous ice patches. While I really don't care for snow. I still love H town and its beautiful winter wonderland qualities. I still hope spring comes sooner than later.

Help me, Mama, I got stuck!

Thing 2 likes to get out this little baby toy, sit in it, scoot around the best she can, and push the buttons. The other day she sat in it like this and then started to holler for me to come and get her because she got stuck. She is seriously one of the funniest little people I know. We all love her.

Baby Number Three

We will be adding another little one to our family in a few months. I am due July 7th and will probably have the baby the last week of June. We will be having another little girl. We don't have a name picked out yet and we thought we were going to have a little boy this go around. Each pregnancy has been different but this one has been so different from the last two that I thought surely this one is a boy. Since this is our last I thought it would be nice to have at least one little boy, although a girl is easy!! Surprise, surprise our he really is a she. Although, the closer we got to our 20 week ultrasound the more anxious I was getting with the idea of having a boy. I was also really nervous something would be wrong with our little munchkin. I know there are still a lot of factors and we may end up with a special needs child, but for now she looks as healthy as can be. I really do think she looks like our oldest, Thing 1  It will be interesting to see how she looks when she is born. I know I'm not ready for this little one to be born right now but I am looking forward to meeting her.

Circus time

Thing 2 with cotton candy stuck all over her little face.
Thing 2 enjoying time watching the performers.
The tight rope walkers that fell...twice. I about had a heart attack.


We loved watching the tigers and the elephants were even better. There were a few performances that were awesome!! A few were so scary to watch I couldn't watch...literally. It was so stressful watching the guys on the tight rope as well as the ones who were in the cages that went in big circles. The worst was when they were running and were barely able to keep up. I screamed out loud several times. Thing 2 sat snuggled right up to me gripping my arm. She kept saying, "This is scary, Mommy!" We met a few of our friends there and the other moms and I were joking that our children we going to be scarred for life by witnessing a performer fall and get hurt.
The daredevils in the cage were exciting for the girls to watch. Thing 2 talked about them for several days afterward. Four motorcycles in one cage, it really was pretty cool.

Chirstmas time

We had a blast this Christmas, but again I didn't take any pictures. The camera's battery was dead. This one picture comes from Thing 1's camera. Thank you Thing 1 ! I have some video of it but I don't know how to download it. This has been a bad year for photos. I hope to do better in 2011.

Thing 2 turns THREE!

Since Thing 2's birthday is the day after Christmas we are going to start celebrating her half birthday. We will still have her birthday breakfast and cake for her on her birthday or on a date REALLY close to it but her party will be during the summer. So I don't have pictures of a party but a few of her enjoying her birthday breakfast and her little cake. The kids get to choose what they want the day before. While Thing 2 slept we made her pancakes and eggs. She woke up just before we were done and wanted to sit at the table to eat. We had to convince her to get back into bed but once we did...she was EXTREMELY excited to be able to eat in bed. You can see it in her face how tickled she was. For her cake she wanted to eat a castle cake. Thing 1 was actually the one kind enough to suggest that particular type of cake. I have a mold for different castles but they are hard to get out and even harder to make look pretty with frosting. So we just did a smattering of frosting, as if it had been dusted with snow, just like our house in H town has been. Lets just say I am very thankful Thing 2 is easy to please.

These photos are courtesy of Thing 1, she got a camera for Christmas. Thank goodness for Santa.

Sledding

Here in H town we get snow and I mean LOTS OF IT!!! One day while we had visitors from Reno (Nana, M and her twin girls) we went sledding. B was home and it was so much fun. The twins had never been before and were champs. There is a hill close to our home a lot of people use. It is the PERFECT size for the little ones and the kids a bit bigger. Thing 2 was able to climb the hill herself and would slide down too all by herself. She would prefer to go down backwards and close her eyes while sledding. She loved it. Thing 1 and her friends make jumps and ramp off them and of course I don't have pictures from when we went sledding with Aunt Linds or I would have a few with Thing 1  On a side note Thing 1 got to go sledding for recess one week at school. I really do love it here.

Halloween

This is unfortunately the ONLY picture I have of my girls from Halloween this year. This wasn't even taken on Halloween! We had a fantastic party for the kids for Thing 1's class. We had so much fun. I wish I had taken so many more photos. We had a doughnut eating contest, searched for eye balls in a bunch of brains, ate pizza, decorated cookies, ate a few body parts, pinned the bones on the skeleton you know all the fun stuff associated with Halloween. So at least here is Thing 2 with part of her Raggedy Ann outfit on.

CORNBELLYS!!!!

the giant chair with our little group of kiddos
giant room of corn, who doesn't love a room full of corn to jump around in?
the ducky water races

the giant bouncy pillows

Now that we live south of Salt Lake City we are closer to Thanksgiving Point and Cornbellys than we are to Syracuse's Black Island Farms. They are both great places, but to be honest I think I like Black Island Farms a bit more. But then again I'm not sure. Anyway, this year Thing 1's class went to TP on a field trip and Thing 2 and I tagged along and had a lot of fun. I mean just look at these pictures, tell me the aren't full of super happy children.