Miss Paige enjoying the snow. She loves to eat it, lick it, pick it up and hide it, carrying it around for future use. The girls were taking icicles off the house and using them to dig holes in the snow.

This project kept them busy for at least an hour. I wish I found that much joy sticking icicles in the snow. I prefer to build in the snow and this was definitely to powdery to build with, hence the hole digging.
She's pretty cute when she's all coldish isn't she?
Syd was so very happy to have a day just to play in the snow.
Kate was absolute silliness. Jim Allen brought her a special present.... a squirrel feeding station. I love that she and John were out putting it up not ten minutes later. Much happiness for children and squirrels.

A new year....

I've been thinking of last year and how crazy it has been. I am so very grateful to have survived with a happy heart and my faith and hope still intact. I was joking with John today about our snow forecast that was .5" to 1.5" as of Monday night and then increased all of the sudden today to between 6" to 9"s. That is a lot of snow. I told Kate not to get her hopes up. I told myself not to get my hopes up. We would only end up with an inch. At 10:30p.m. this is what we discovered out our back door. These snowflakes are the hugest ever...

Oh you could hear them hitting the ground too!

Paige's new favorite comment is ooh wee.

You can see she's enjoying the snow.

(She was mad because her hand was sooo cold a minute later.)

My daughters having a dance party in the snow.


You know that it's important to be stylish when catching snowflakes.
(If only you could see her rockin yellow rain boots.)




My eye my eye there's a snowflake in my eye.
This shot will be kept for future bribery.
John already uploaded it as our background photo just to torture kate.


Proof of the biggest snowflakes ever.
Our yard has at least a half inch in the past 20 minutes.
So no matter how much snow we get at least

we got to play in the snow.
Maybe I didn't plan the most fabulous New Year's Party...

we miss the Stalling's fun family parties.
But we still get to have John's famous
Peanut Butter Pie.

Sooooo, have a happy and rockin' new year!
From all the Skrappingirls and Skrappinguy.

Advent Calendars & Snowflakes falling all around,

Today my goal was to complete my advent calendar that I've been working on for three weeks. So off to crop with die hard Skrappaper fans...Thanks to Mary Ruth for organizing a monthly crop four faithful friends were there Mary Ruth, Laura, Linda and Mary Ellen.
The advent calendar was my take on the Calendar Book assignment for the Pine Cone Press Bookclub I host. Perfect excuse to get to finally use the fun idea I found on Two Peas in a Bucket a couple of years ago. I've had more than my share of oops on this project. First rule if it looks good let it go, don't try to fix it. I could have just laminated the pieces but no I didn't think that would be shiny enough. Next rule don't apply diamond glaze without a heavy backing on your pieces or else it will curl...duh, I really did know that. Third, don't apply diamond glaze to the back(to help them curl the other way...really it sounded good at the time) of your pieces and walk away. Typical mom emergencies, "Kate won't let me watch KID shows Mom","But Mom she always watches kids shows can I play on the computer then?" "No I want to play on the computer she can't!!!" Oh and Paige needed a diaper change, juice and then they all wanted lunch. Upon going back to my previously pretty pieces I discovered some of the glaze had dripped off and stuck to the cookie sheet. I'm relatively creative so I took my craft knife to remove the pieces very carefully. Nope careful didn't help. After much patience and embellishing with buttons and the dew drops from Robin's nest my calendar was done. My daughters love it and you will see our daily updates here.


Winter Snow Advisory....to me this means don't get the girls hopes up! How many times are we promised at least three inches and only get 1/4 inch. I love snow as much as they do. So, to our surprise John went to the grocery store for 30 minutes and just before he came home we saw it SNOW actually sticking on the ground. Paige doesn't remember snow so she was amazed by this miracle. Kate ran out in the driveway in her jeans and coat and started making snow angels. Little Miss Sydney was busy catching it on her tongue...thank goodness she didn't try to lick the old well pump! Check out the slide show on the top left and I hope for you that it feels a little like Christmas today! ~Susan