Walking in a Winter Wonderland!

Wow how the last 2 months have flown by! It's time for me to do some serious updating!

We are doing well, staying pretty healthy for the most part. First mostly healthy winter in 3 years is a win for us! It is truly a winter wonderland up in Chicagoland, or Chiberia, as the weathermen like to call it! We have had so many COLD days here that sometimes I wonder if Spring will ever come or if it winter will just last until summer starts. This past fall was pretty much skipped over, it was summer, then it was just winter. I'm hoping Spring doesn't get skipped over too. The cold here is unlike anything I've ever felt before. I have lost count of how many days we've had windchills between -20 to -40 degrees! This is the 5th coldest winter on record for Chicago in over 100 years! But, I think because we've never seen snow like this before (we've had close to 6 ft. so far this year) I am just in awe of it all! We went to Chick-fil-A tonight to celebrate the girls turning 3&1/2 years old in about 6 inches of snow. It's just what people do around here. It takes A LOT of snow to keep people from getting out and about up here. On the way home it was still snowing and all I could think is how beautiful it all is. The most beautiful part is when it is freshly fallen and untouched, when there are no tracks from people, animals, cars, snow plows, snow blowers, sleds, etc. It truly screams of God's wonders! 

What we are up to:

Patrick: Enjoying a "regular" for the most part job. He is currently working 4 10hr. shifts at work so he has Fridays off. He will be switching to a different job soon where he will go back to working 5 8hr. shifts but it will still be nice just knowing he's coming home every day. We are all so thankful that he's no longer on a ship and is in such a steady place of work.

Christy: I am just enjoying life. I really like living up here in Highland Park so much more than I imagined I would. The people are pretty friendly, we have a church that we love, and we are closer to family than we've been in a long time. It's been great living in our military neighborhood. We've developed a close knit little group of families on our block, which is something we haven't had, well, ever. Living in a neighborhood has been so nice because it makes meeting people much easier. There are so many families with young children on our street and I am thankful for the exact place in the neighborhood that God placed us. Now we just need some warmer weather so that we can get out and play in this neighborhood again!

Charlotte: This girl is so sweet. She loves baby dolls and stuffed animal doggies. She sleeps with about 10 toys in her bed each night and knows if any one of them is missing. We usually have to scour the house to find the missing baby or doggie at bedtime to appease her. She loves any and all crafts, coloring, and stickers! I'm finding stickers everywhere...on clothes, in the carpet, on toys, on coloring pages, in hair, in Ozzie's fur, I mean everywhere! She and HK are obsessed with a show called "Paw Patrol" on Nickelodeon. Other shows are the classic Mickey Mouse Clubhouse & Curious George. Those 3 shows have gotten many views in our house this winter as we are stuck playing indoors. Charlotte is our little Miss Priss. She gets upset when her hands get dirty, she doesn't want to do anything that requires effort, she doesn't like it when her sleeves get a little wet while washing her hands, and she's always trying to figure out a way to get HK to do something for her. She's too funny ;) But she is soooo smart! 

Hannah Kate: This is my sweet tenderhearted little girl. She reminds me of myself in that she's very sensitive. She's always worried about people who are sick. We all had a GI bug that got passed around our house for about a week that was pretty violent. Lots of vomitting and stomach cramps that put each person out of commission for about 2-3 days after. The morning I got it I was up with the HK in the morning and couldn't stop vomitting in the kitchen sink. She just pulled her chair over to stand on so she could be next to me and just kept telling me that I would be okay with such sympathy in her voice. When I finally caught a break for a few minutes she gave me a hug and told me that I would feel better soon and that she was sorry I had a germ that was making me sick. She is always showing her compassionate little soul and I love it! I can't help but laugh when she gets her feelings hurt right now because she says the funniest things. This morning Charlotte yelled at her and she started crying and said "Charlotte, you have broken my heart!" She says this whenever someone has hurt her feelings and she's crying, it's just one of those oh so funny things that kids repeat but aren't sure exactly what it means. She loves Squinkies, these little tiny animals that come inside a ball, and makes sure that she has every single one with her before she will go to sleep. She loves crafts and both girls LOVE playing with play-doh. She also loves "Paw Patrol" and all 3 kids insist on dancing to the intro song every time it comes on. Sometimes I play the intro song several times in a row because they love it so much! While she is definitely still girly, she is anything but a Miss Priss. I can't keep this girl clean and whenever there's a bow in her hair she will leave it in for a short time before tearing it out and handing it to me and refusing to put it back in. Charlotte on the other hand gets upset if hers falls out and wants me to put it back in. This girl is also soooo smart! When I went to pick her up from school last week the teacher stopped me and said "How do the girls know the things that they know?" I asked what she was talking about and she said she had called a round block a circle but HK told her "Well, actually that is not a circle, it's a cylinder!" My reply to her question was "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse ;)"

Micah: What a sweet little boy he is! A friend of mine recently put it so well: He is the icing on our cupcake every day! He is such a happy little guy and is always trying to get a laugh and smile out of anyone who looks his way. He is currently 20 months old and his favorite foods are Mac & Cheese (I don't know where he gets this from ;), peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cereal, goldfish, waffles with syrup, smoothies, any kind of fruit, yogurt, and hummus with pita chips. He still isn't talking much but loves to sing along with any and all music. He also loves to dance to any and all music :) He loves baths and his favorite part is when I blow bubbles to the kids while they are in the bathtub. All 3 kids are delighted when I get out the bubbles during bathtime! He is such a little brother in the way he interacts with the girls. He loves to wrestle with them, even when they don't want to be bothered or messed with. He will just come up and lay on them and try to tickle them or pin them down on the ground and sit on top of them. He also loves to antagonize Charlotte by taking whatever toy she is playing with when she is distracted and take off running with it while laughing. I'm not sure why he does it more to Charlotte, probably because he gets a bigger reaction out of her since she's our drama queen ;) It's hard not to laugh when he does these things because it's so funny to see his face as he runs away from her! He loves to play with Ozzie pup and I will catch those 2 just running around the house together and hear Micah cracking up laughing at being chased by him. He is truly such a little delight and balances out our little family so perfectly!

I thank God every day for my 3 wonderful children! I am truly so blessed!

This is how our town has looked for the past 2 months...covered in snow! I haven't seen the actual ground since December.

We do a lot of shoveling snow up here. I took this picture to show just how deep the snow was one day. It was up past my knees! I'm pretty sure I ruptured a disc in my back on this particular day from shoveling snow :(

This was what I saw when I opened the garage door one morning. You can see how high the snow is compared against our next door neighbor's garage door. We get LOTS of drifting snow here due to the high winds. This is the only time so far I actually called a snow plow company to come plow the driveway. However, it was trash day so I still had to shovel a path to get the garbage cans to the street.

Beautiful fresh falling snow on our way home from celebrating the girl's 3.5 years!

Micah with what he thinks is his snow blower ;) He saw the neighbor (in the background) using his snow blower and began pushing this thing around after that. 

Micah catching snowflakes on his tongue!

We recently discovered that Micah LOVES spaghetti!

We went to a birthday party at a jumpy house for one of the girls classmates & all 3 of the kids had an absolute BLAST! This is Charlotte after coming down a big slide. 

HK in action!

Best buds :)

Micah loves to wrestle with anyone who will participate :)

Micah being silly. He makes these faces all the time that just crack us up and he knows it. He is a true clown!

PB & J. I think he looks like he has one of those little mustaches with a little goatee ;)

Grandpa made the kids this big dollhouse for Christmas and they think it's great! HK (L), Char (R)

I found Micah with my snowboots on and trying to walk around in them but he kept falling. He's got a little growing before he can fill my shoes ;)

He loves to eat like his big sisters with his own spoon and bowl.

Charlotte on Valentine's Day making a silly smile.

My little Valentine's sweethearts :) HK (L) & Char (R). Note: They are currently the same exact height but HK looks taller in this picture because she's standing closer to the camera.

The girls preschool had a Valentine's Day Dance and everyone had a blast. But I think Micah was the true life of the party! He just got out there and began dancing with all of the bigger kids and ran around until he was tuckered out :) Everyone slept well that night! Grandpa & Granny came up and celebrated with us. Growing up, Cyndi & I were only a year apart in school so every year there was a father daughter dance we had to alternate who got to have my dad as their "date." My Uncle David was so sweet to always be the other "date." Because we have 2 girls the same age, it will be the same way so my dad came up to be the other date. He danced with Charlotte during the last song and just spun her around until she couldn't spin and laugh any longer! It was a fun party!

Another silly smile by Char

I couldn't get HK to smile for the picture.

Action shot of the kids playing "Bonk" in the upstairs hallway! They love to get their bouncy balls and have Patrick & I throw the balls and bonk them with the balls. They laugh so hard and wear themselves out at the end of the day...it's great! Char (L), Micah (middle), HK (R)