Lots of togetherness

Well then... we have had many adjustments since moving to Washington. The one we still aren't used to is the way the Seattlites freak out when it is bad weather. So we're told that it doesn't snow much in Seattle but since we've lived here we've had much snow. Last winter we had 1 school snow day, 3 late-start days and church cancelled once. The folks here just don't have the means to clear off the road, so even if we have 1/2 an inch of snow we have to cancel things because the roads are crazy. People abandon their cars and walk because they don't know how to drive in the snow and the roads really are BAD with no salt, gravel or plower trucks. Plus so many roads are hilly which adds to the slippy-slidy of it all. If you're a news watcher you'll be aware of ALL the tons of snow we have gotten in the period of a week or so in December. We knew the storm was coming a week in advance and as it got closer everyone was loading up on food and supplies. We even recharged all our batteries from the warning of possible electrical outages. The topic of weather was a part of every one's conversations. Wednesday the storm was supposed to come... Tuesday night we got the e-mail that school was cancelled. I mean EVERYTHING was cancelled--preschool, music lessons, math tutor, everything. We waited and waited all day long for the storm to come and not 1 flake of snow fell on Wednesday. Wednesday night another e-mail saying school would be cancelled for Thursday. Fortunately we woke up to 1 inch of snow on the ground but I am thinking, "Come on now! I have things to do! The fun is over! School is 1 mile away and there is only 1 inch of snow!" For cryin' out loud people!!! Friday we woke up hoping for school, the e-mail said it was a 2 hour late start and then a few minutes later the news said all schools were cancelled again. We did have more snow but when you grow up in snow it is so silly to cancel life with so little snow. To top it all off Saturday night the word came through that church was cancelled on Sunday. So, the poor kids missed their Winter (stupid that it's not Christmas) parties at school and we missed the church before Christmas. That is SO sad! Here are my problems... 1) I had to get ready for Christmas. 2) I had to get ready for a Christmas trip to Utah. 3) I had to work overtime on my Primary secretary calling to get ready for the New year since I was going to be gone. 4) I was getting cabin fever. 5) I was tired of having the kids around for 3 premature, unnecessary, unexpected days. We tried to make it as fun and special as we could like giving everyone a break from practicing their instruments, going sledding, doing crafts and going out to eat 2 times. (it's so silly to be out driving around and going out to eat and to movies when everything else is cancelled telling us to stay home and off the streets.)

Sunday we tried to make the day special with a nice Family Home Evening with stories and watching the Tabernacle Choir and the church's show of "Joy To The World." I was sad that we couldn't get all dressed up for church to get our Christmas pictures... so I made everyone get dressed up for pictures anyway. In fact, as the girls were pulling out all their dresses they realized they had many "Christmasy" dresses, so we decided to have a fashion show. Here is a sampling of the many pictures we took that day...

Emmy
fashioning a dress worn at McKay and Danielle's wedding.

Maryn

looking sassy in her new red sweater dress which looks stylin' with her tall black boots.

Ady

sporting a dress that Emmy wore last year for Christmas.

Emmy

modeling a recent birthday dress

(although pretty this dress is a nightmare...she wore it one Sunday to church, the next Sunday we knew exactly where we sat the previous Sunday because glitter was all over the pew. We have to do the "glitter check" because anyone who has been near Emmy has glitter on their faces, arms, clothes. Anyone have ideas on how to solve the dress-glitter problem?)

Emmy

Just a winter dress that she and Ady share.

Ady

The official Christmas dress from last year.

Maryn

So lovely in her last year's Christmas dress.

Maryn

Not a Christmas dress but the colors worked.

Ady

Looking stylish in a dress that Maryn wore for Christmas when she was 6. Definitely many advantages of having 3 girls in a row...the younger kids have more clothes.

What you don't see is that Jeff only got ready from the top up...we have on our pajama bottoms... we just had to get our pictures in.

We used crafts and projects to keep everyone busy. We think our kitchen window looks so festive. We made the snowflakes with pipe cleaner and beads and hung them with string.

Then we got puffy glitter glue and made these snow flakes, let them dry and wall-ah! the next day we peeled them off the wax paper and stuck them to our window.

We made bookmarks with ribbon and buttons to give out for presents.

This has become our favorite wall in the house...our "laughing wall."
When anyone is grumpy or we are bored we take a moment, look in the mirror and let out out best fake laugh. It always helps and especially did for me on starting our Christmas break 5 days early.