Hazy Shade of Winter

So we're deep into winter right now. While we haven't had a lot of snow yet this year, the weather has been cold and windy. The shortage of snow unfortunately hasn't meant a shortage of germs this season. Stomach bugs are running rampant (I am currently living in fear of the familiar sound of Brody-vomit that always seems to strike at 2am). Grammie has been quarantined to her place so we can try to avoid the week long fever and two week cough that she is recovering from. JJ is seriously missing his Grammie time! I hear that poor little Matthew has pneumonia and it sounds like Drew and Meggie aren't too much better. Ryan has had a cold since November it seems, and the little boys in the house have runny noses and barking, chesty coughs that just won't go away. I think Sampson even had a sniffle this morning and I heard several sneezes out of Tucker last night. I'll take sniffles and coughs over the alternatives any day, but springtime and weather warm enough to open the windows and get rid of all these germs seems so far away right now! I am praying that our little groundhog friend doesn't see his shadow this week...I just can't stand the thought of another long winter.

Ryan and I have been day dreaming about selling the house, packing up the kids and moving to San Diego.  Sounds nice right about now doesn't it?! Even if there are still germs in San Diego, being sick in the sunshine just seems way better than being sick under dreary winter skies that are spitting freezing rain at you. Of course we're not serious (I don't think), but the warm thoughts help us to get through the rest of the season.


While we've enjoyed the lack of snow for not having to plow the driveway or shovel or fear losing power too often, it has not helped our cabin fever. We said that we were going to get outside this winter and got Brody ice skates, a new sled, and snowshoes for Christmas. We are not a downhill skiing family (which our kids will some day hate us for when all of their friends go skiing together), but I'm grateful for that right now because the thought of my kids racing down snowy mountains scares the bejeezus out of me...and also because taking a family of four skiing for a day costs a fortune! Anyway, we were planning on having some winter adventures in the snow this year to make the long winter more bearable, but alas...no real snow to play in.

So instead, we've been playing inside. Jameson is crawling now and into everything. Despite all of his colorful, noisy, age appropriate, chew safe toys, he far prefers Sampson's slobber covered dog toys and the tiny pieces of Brody's transformers and legos. So after spending a small fortune on Jameson-proof plastic bins and drilling it into Brody's head that his brother will die if he doesn't put his small toys into said bins (I have no idea why my children are so dramatic!), we are learning to entertain a 4 year old and a 10 month old in the same play spaces. It's exhausting really, but flipping adorable.  Have a look!

We turned part of the play nook into a pillow pit. Brody is into wrestling and JJ is into testing gravity, so this is a perfect place for both of them. Of course we have to remind Brody often that his brother is still too little to wrestle...actually, we have to remind Jameson of that too!

I'm not sure what this face is, but those of you who have attempted taking photos of children will understand that sometimes this is the best shot you can get!

 

Someone is pretty proud of themselves for standing up at the ottoman! This was a few weeks ago now and he's got it mastered.

Irresistible...need I say more?

This was Brody's one attempt so far at snowshoeing. With only a couple inches of snow, he wasn't really impressed.

And we've been doing a whole bunch of this...Jameson trying to play and banging stuff around and Brody letting him know that he's not doing it right and showing him the "right way" to play with everything. He is such an oldest child.

Thankfully Jameson is a relatively happy second child and doesn't mind his older brother's bossiness...yet!

Hope everyone is staying healthy and finding their own ways to enjoy the winter!