This Week

This week, like many around the country, was a COLD one.  It hasn't been above 25 degrees in a week.  BRR!  We managed to do more than just hibernate all week, though, so here's the recap.

• Monday - Went and looked at a dresser off of Craigslist (more to come on that later); at a stoplight on the way home, a car backed into us and then took off.  Yeah, hit and run.  Ridiculous.  We called the cops and got to sit on the side of the road in the car for an hour (17 degrees outside!) waiting for the extremely slow policeman to make his report.  It hardly did anything to our car, but we were pretty peeved someone would take off like that.  We honked and followed for a block or two, but he ran a very yellow light to speed away...what an exciting life we lead!

• Tuesday - The boys and I braved the single digit temps and went to IKEA to get some lamps and take advantage of what I thought was Kids Eat Free Day.  Apparently they're not doing that for the month of January.  Lame.  However, the boys had a wonderful time being able to run around in a larger space and played with all the toys in the children's section.  I also got 2 new lamps and holy cow, it is AMAZING what some more light can do to lift you out of the winter doldrums!  Our family room is quite dark - especially in the winter - and I'm really not sure why I didn't get these last year.  I love it!

• Wednesday - Had a playdate at our house with friends.  Didn't leave the house...brrr...

• Thursday - More hibernation...went to the library for a bit in the afternoon.

• Friday - Ohhhh Friday.  We thought it would be a great day to go to the temple one last time before I have this baby.  Well...that was a bad idea.  It normally takes us 3 hours to get to Columbus, so we left at about 7am so we could bring the boys to Jeremy's cousin's house and then make it to the 11am session.  All was going well until about 9am when it started snowing.  The forecast said the snow wouldn't start until the afternoon, but apparently it decided to show up early.  We kept going, thinking we were so close, but it quickly turned ugly and we made it to Marie's house about at 10:45.  She lives about 25 minutes from the temple (normally - at least an hour in that weather), so we missed our session and decided we better just go home.  Blah!  We let the kids play for awhile to get their wiggles out and then we packed up again and headed back around 11:45.  It ended up taking us 5 hours to get back home, so we were glad we just left.  We could have stayed and gone to the 1:00 session, but then we would have been driving home in the snow in the dark...not so fun.  It sure was an adventure!  So we got to spend 9 hours in the car in the snow.  Not ideal under any circumstances - and especially at 36 weeks pregnant, but the boys were really good - they're great travelers - and we had a lot of together time. :)  We actually went straight to Jeremy's school for a dinner thing at 5 and then when we finally came home around 6:30, we almost didn't make it up our street.  Apparently Pittsburgh's not really big into plowing roads (???) and our street is a big hill that hadn't been plowed at all - in fact, it STILL hasn't been plowed.  Somehow we slipped and slid our way up there though and finally finished our trip!  It's still snowing, so we're glad to be home.

• Saturday - Eli has been begging to make a snowman every day since we've been back from California.  We missed a lot of big snowstorms while we were gone and didn't have any again until yesterday, so he finally got his wish today!  As I said, it's been freezing, but he didn't care.  So this morning at 8:30, in the 21 degree weather, I bundled the boys up and they went out with Jeremy to play in the snow.  I thought they'd last maybe 3 minutes, but Eli stayed out there almost an hour!  He was so happy and they had a blast.  It was very cute.   I stayed in the warm house and made breakfast, venturing out occasionally to snap pictures of course. :)

 Connor wasn't as ecstatic as Eli once he got outside.

 Snow!

 The snow was extremely dry and powdery, so it didn't really stick together at all.  I'm not sure how Jeremy managed it, but he was able to stack a big pile up and then he cut rings around for the shape of the snowman.  I'm surprised it held together as well as it did!

 I love this picture!  They're so cute.

Of course, as soon as I took this, Eli destroyed it.  Boys!  Glad I got the picture.  I brought Connor in after this, but Eli stayed out and was diving in the snow and having a ball.  I guess he's finally at the age to appreciate it.

Also today, I finished our taxes (woohoo!) and Jeremy picked up the dresser I bought off of Craigslist.  I'm so excited!  The boys were using our little changing table dresser thing for all their clothes, which really was getting cramped.  And with our baby girl coming, I thought we could use some more space.  So I found exactly what I was looking for!  It matches their beds, it's short and wide so they can reach, it's real wood, good shape, and it was only $30!  I'm so proud.  I looked for a couple months, but it paid off.  Eli was very excited to put his clothes in there.

So that was our exciting week!  Who says you can't have fun in the cold? :)  I need to make sure these next few weeks are as eventful as this one was, because I'm having a hard time distracting myself from just wanting to have this baby girl!  Any suggestions for fun winter activities will be gladly accepted.  It's actually supposed to warm up quite a bit next week, so we may be able to venture outside a little more.  Hallelujah!