Snow, Snow, Go Away!

To say everyone in Central Illinois is sick of the snow would be an understatement.  Records have been broken in many respects: school closings, sub-zero temperatures/wind chills, and snow accumulation.  This week, we had another winter storm that dumped and blew even more snow on what we already had from early January.  The temperatures have been so cold, that no snow is melting, but instead it's getting really packed down and icy in many spots.  If it wasn't so cold, I think we could have tons of fun with the kids; But, we are rarely able to get out of the house due to the extreme wind chills.  This is our view this evening:

New Carseat

Luke is growing up!  So much so, that he finally outgrew his infant seat.  It only went up to 22 pounds and I think he's probably right around 20 now.  He is now in the same type of seat as Meredith, only rear-facing.  We'll keep him rear-facing as long as possible (at the rate his legs are growing, that may not be too much longer)!

Mr. Big Boy

Meredith wanted her photo taken, too.

Here is our current set-up (minus the boxes surrounding Meredith and the misplaced monkey mirror - I fixed those after taking this photo).  Meredith gets the backseat all to herself, Luke gets to look at her during trips, and I have a ton of room to get everyone situated since the bucket seat behind the driver's seat is stowed away.

Room Sharing

This weekend marked another seemingly routine event in our home - rearranging rooms!  About a month before Luke was born (this time last year), we turned our guest room into a playroom.  It was fabulous!  No more toys to trip on in the living room/kitchen and I felt like that is the one room that could be a mess all day and I was fine with it.  Since that time, we added a bed in the playroom for Meredith and Luke moved to her bedroom upstairs.  I've always wished the rooms in this house were all upstairs, as it would just make things flow better to have all of us sleeping on the same floor.  When Meredith had night-wakings, she sometimes could be found starting to climb up the stairs to get to our room.  We talked about waiting until Luke slept through the night to try to combine the kids in the same room.  He hit that milestone at 8 months and Meredith seems to be having less night-wakings (usually due to pottying), so we felt the time was right.  Naps are a big struggle, since they both want to talk and laugh.  But, once they are asleep, they both seem to be pretty sound sleepers.  Nighttime worked perfect the first three nights.  We put Luke to sleep at 7:00 and took Meredith up at 8:00.  She didn't disturb him and both woke up for the day around 7:00 a.m.  Well, night #4 was hard and last night was really rough.  One of them woke up on each night and disturbed our sleep quite a bit.  However, the other child seemed to remain asleep which was a huge blessing.  I think we will continue to have troubles when Luke is teething or Meredith is working on staying dry all night, but overall, we are hoping this set-up will work!  I love having a full room just for toys, plus, it's nice only needing to clean up one bedroom :)

I still want to paint their room and hang up some decor, but otherwise, I really like this set-up and the room is still spacious:

Chicago Bulls

A little birdy told me that I didn't include any pictures of him on my last Blog post, Christmas in 2013, opening gifts.  Well, here goes.  It's probably because I did a video of him opening up his gift, rather than a picture.  I decided to get Chad Chicago Bulls game tickets this year as the main Christmas gift.  He loved it!  He used to be a big Bulls fan as a youngster and had never been to a game.  Of course, I couldn't have timed it any worse with going on January 4th - this was the day before we had a blizzard come through Illinois.  It started snowing once we got up to Chicago and while we were at the game we got dumped on; So much so, that we only saw semis and a few cars (some of which were in the ditch or median) on our 40-mph drive home on Interstate 55.  It was definitely an adventure!

We got up to Chicago way too early and were the first ones in the parking lot.  As we were waiting for gates to open, here was our view.  Slowly getting dumped on with tons of snow.

So cool!

We walked around the United Center while waiting for gates to open.  So neat to see this statue up close!

We were one row away from being at the very top, right below the announcer's booth.  But, we thought the view was really good.  That could be because we had binoculars with us :)

Warm-up

Really neat pre-game "show".

Tip off!  Let me add a funny to this experience - though I felt absolutely awful about it at the time and I know Chad was fuming on the inside, I hope we will look back at it and laugh one day :)  With less than 30 seconds to go before halftime, I asked Chad if he was going to leave at halftime.  I knew others around us would need to get through, so I asked him to gather up our things off the floor.  While he was doing this (with 2 seconds to go), a Bulls players make a half court shot.  No, I'm not kidding!  Neither one of us saw it, though I believe they did show a replay.  Ugh!

Pretty neat to see!

We found Scottie Pippen while walking through the United Center!

So thankful we made it home in time, before the bad weather hit.  It has been an absolutely awful winter this year. 

 

Christmas in 2013

I'm now finally able to post Christmas pictures!  My parents came up to Bloomington the first week of January to have our Christmas together, and we went to Macomb the day after Christmas.  We are so thankful that Chad could take vacation (2 weeks) during this time to spend as a family.  From my perspective, it was so nice to have relief around the house and Chad got to relax from work, too.

Christmas morning arrived!  Chad is reading the TRUE Christmas story from Luke, chapter 2.

Happy birthday, Jesus!  I really like this tradition of making a Jello cake for Jesus' birthday.  And, for the record, this was the only candle I could find in the house.  Jesus is much older than two!

Patiently waiting for Mommy to take one last picture of them in front of the tree.

Our Christmas tree.  Not all of these presents were for the kids, I promise.

Perhaps the best present I have ever received from Chad.  He is going to give me 3 personal days this year, since he gets 3 at work.  I can do whatever I want (shopping, rest, etc.) and he will take care of the kids for me.  

Once Meredith opened her Winnie the Pooh storytime book, she wouldn't pay attention to the other gifts.  My little bookworm :)

Has anyone seen Luke?  He's lost in the wrapping paper!  He enjoyed playing with the paper so much.

I love my pearl necklace!

I got one of Luke's "firsts" on camera!  He stood up for the first time on his own again his new present.

When we gave her the stocking, she just hugged it.  She didn't know to look inside and find more gifts.  Silly girl!

Chad gave me a piano bench to go with my keyboard, big enough for Meredith and me.  Now I can teach her how to play!

Meredith added the bow!

Now Meredith can take pictures of us.  I love how she has it upside down here.

The kids with their new toys.

Our non-traditional Christmas meal.  I cooked steaks on the grill outside.  Thankfully, we didn't have sub-zero temperatures.

We have an expert-present-opener on our hands.  She loved to open presents, even those that weren't hers!

See what I mean?  This one is Luke's present, but she was pretty polite about it.

Grandpa and Grandma Perry came to visit.

Soon after they got here, there were no presents left to open!

Enjoying a bath with their new foam letters/numbers.