Jesus Loves You!

I was driving around town the other day, doing my Therapy Mom routine, when I saw the greatest license plate cover. I'm not normally into this kind of thing, but this I was in love with. It made me say right out loud, "That is so true! That is exactly how I feel!" It said,

"Jesus loves you, but I'm his favorite!"

I am just so grateful that I have a Savior who's love is so pure and full that he makes me feel that way all the time. I do feel that I have that kind of personal relationship with the Lord, and I just love him so much!

I really hope you feel like you're his favorite, too.

Time for me to dash out and start my Therapy Thursday! God speed!

Melting Days

Okay, so last time I posted we were having a record breaking cold snap. On Sarah's birthday, it started to heat up, to about 30 degrees or so. All night Sunday it snowed, and all day Monday until we had about 6 inches of fluffy, warm, snow to play with. Hooray! The cold snap is over!

I'm assuming that in Arizona or even St. George they would have a "snow day" and cancel school for such a snowy day. Not here. 6 inches is nothin' in Alaska.

Until the temperature rises to 34 degrees over night, and it is still trying to snow. Guess what do you have then? Freezing rain. Sheets of ice covering the state. Over 50 cars off the road between midnight and 8:00 am.

It also means no busses, and no busses means no school. So while kids in the lower 48 might get a snow day and spend the time outside making snowmen, kids here in Alaska just endured 3 full days of melting days. It doesn't seem fair. Winter Break had one day over 15 degrees, which meant they were INSIDE. (Not that day. We went sledding as we knew it was our only hope of the break. The extended forecsast was unfortunately correct. COLD!) They finally get back to school, and have to stay indoors for recess (School policy says that if it's -10 degrees the kids stay inside. -9 degrees--outdoor recess!) They finally get some warm weather and snow, and then BAM! the chinook hits with warm winds gusting at 100 mph on Turnigan arm. They can't play outside for another week!

The kids might not get cabin fever this year, but mine has reached dangerous levels! Pray for 25 degree weather so my kids can go back to school and back to recess!

At least they got to play in the neighbor's igloo before the chinook: (These are from Sarah's cam--see post below.)

Nice, huh? I'm afraid to drive by the igloo after the melt. I hope it is still standing. It was really nice, it was carpeted and everything.


Inside the igloo

Sarah could really use some "self portrait" lessons from AH!!

Bring on the Sunshine!

So Sarah decided to turn 10 this year. What's up with being one decade old? Actually, one decade and one week, as her b-day was actually a week ago. I made her a cake: (It's always about the cake...and this one was really fast. It took about a half hour to decorate after baking the cake and making the modeling chocolate. It shows in the piping...definitely need to work on THOSE skills!)



And a scripture bag in her favorite colors.
Dad made her favorite meal: Terriyaki chicken wings.
She liked them a lot!



Then Dad lit the candles on her cake. Bring on the heat! This is the act that ended the cold snap of the decade!



Sarah got a camera, which she LOVES! She quickly emulated her role model, Abby. Abby is a Mia Maid who carries her camera everywhere and takes pictures of herself in every situation. Sarah quickly followed suit after taking a picture of everything around her! She wants to start her own blog now. We'll see. I'm having a hard enough time keeping up with mine! (Do 10 year olds need their own blogs?)


Maybe not, but they do need fairy books. Actually, this 10 year old just needs books, period. She LOVES to read. I don't know a soul like that. Books? What are they?



Happy Birthday, Sunshine! Thanks for bringing light and warmth to my world.

Rebecca's Nifty Knitting!

This is the first project that Rebecca knitted at Winterberry. Isn't it awesome? It took her quite a while to finish, but she did it. Most of her classmates learned to knit in kindygarten, but Rebecca was in boring old regular school while they were knitting holders for their wooden flutes. So, she had to learn fast, and knit even faster. It took her longer than most of the other kids, but it was still done in time for the "elephant parade" for the school. Rebecca loves her elephant, but can't decide what to name her. Vote on your favorite in the poll question!

Didn't she do a great job? Now her class is learning crochet. She learned to chain in one day, and is now doing rows. She would probably have comepleted an entire dishrag by now during handwork, but she hasn't been in school for many many days because of melting snow. (see above posts)

Great Job, R. Jane!

Brrr.

So you have to go pick up your kids from their various schools, and you have to bring your toddler with you. The high in the last 3 weeks has been minus five, and has averaged about minus 20. Currently the temp is 16 below zero. Your toddler insists on wearing a skirt but even a pair of tights will not protect her from the frigid air. What do you do?

Be a true Alaskan and talk her into wearing her fleece PJ's underneath, of course! Doesn't she look smashing with monkey print jammies? Whatever works. I even got shoes on her.

P.S. We MIGHT get to zero today. Heat wave! At least I don't live in Palmer, which has been minus 45 at night, or worse, Fairbanks at 60 below for the past 3 weeks. Yikes!

I found my power cord!

And therefore I can blog. It's a little late, but here are some of our Christmas and Thanskgiving happenings. I'll finish Christmas soon, but I have to (get to) download a bunch of pictures from my brand-new super-duper Nikon D90 camera, and I'm not going to do that right now! Anyway, enjoy the new posts. You'll be relieved that I was lighter on the commentary this time! :P

Because we didn't get to cut our own tree this year, (See next post) I got talked into (manipulated) into doing gingerbread by my diabetic ("We didn't even get to cut down a tree or go clam-digging because you got run over by a car...blah blah blah...") Plus, Katie wanted to do them, so here we were on Christmas Eve. Sarah and Quinten with there insulin triggering creation:Lily, Rebecca, and Logan with theirs. (Mia helped, but wouldn't be in the photo).

Here's mine and Dale's. Hard to see, but Rudolph is mounted as a hunting trophy above the door.


Katie and Arlen's work of art.

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Normally we go and cut our own fresh tree from Johnson's pass every year, a great tradition that we all love. However, I got plowed over by a car recently (See July's posts) and didn't think a trek through 3 feet of snow, dragging a tree and two or three kids in sub-zero temps sounded like a good idear. So, we broke down and bought one from Lowes. The kids had a great time putting it up:



And might I add it's a slightly fuller tree than our normal Alaskan variety:

Christmas is so commercial!
(I love it that way!)

Pre Thanksgiving Pie Making

Well, I was carrying on one of my Mom's Thanksgiving traditions, making pecan pies with Logan and Lily, congratulating myself constantly on how well my pie shells turned out, and how delicious they looked and smelled as I poured the batter in the shells, when I hear Lily say matter of factly:

" It looks like throw-up."

Thanks a lot, Lily.

Bring on the Meat!

Elliotte pretty much summed up how we all felt about Mom and Dad's amazing Thanksgiving meal:

Where the heck is the turkey?



Now THIS is what I'm talkin' about!



I couldn't POSSIBLY eat another bite....Wait, what did you do with that delicous throw-up pie?