Snow Days

Today is snow day #11 for our county. The forecast is also calling for snow each day this week so it is looking pretty doubtful that we will get back to a routine anytime soon.

So, I bundled my little snow bunnies up and we headed out to enjoy the pretty white stuff before the ice starts later this afternoon.

My sweet little bunnies. I soooo missed my nice camera this morning playing outside with the kids. I love watching them roll around in the snow and play.

They did a little bit of sledding. Poor David wanted so bad to make a Frosty the snowman, but it was way too dry of snow to pack and make a snowman. We tried though.

I did not realize how much snow we really had until sweet Hope tried to walk through it. She was blessed with a bag of shoes from Chloe Campbell and there was a pair of cute pink snow boots that Hope is obsessed with. They also matched her pink snow bibs!

Hope only liked sledding on flat surfaces so I got a workout pulling these two around the yard!

We then decided we had so much snow that we made snow ice cream! I found a recipe from Paula Dean and we tried it!

The recipe calls for 8 cups of CLEAN snow-we scooped some off of the table on our deck. We have been so surprised at the amount of animal tracks around our house lately. Then you add a can of Eaglebrand milk (14oz.) to the snow and then a tsp. of vanilla. Stir together and serve immediately.

Kyle liked the ice cream with M&Ms of course and Hope loved it plain! David (who typically does not like a lot of sweets) did not like it at all. I thought it was pretty good and we saved some for Mike to try later when he gets in from work. The kids had a ball making it and of course we have plenty of snow around here to make a ton of it:) Happy Snow day!

Hoops

This weekend was full of basketball action! We traveled (in a blizzard) early Saturday morning to a nearby county for some AAU action. Hope and David went to my parents for Friday night so David could go with my Dad to a Virginia Tech basketball game!! He had a ball and my Dad said that there was no one in the gym that had more fun than David. I love when David gets to do cool, fun stuff by himself!!

Two peas in a pod-Kyle and Caleb in between our games. We won our games on Saturday and went back today for the winners bracket and we lost. There are so many great life lessons that can be taught with sports and my boy loves basketball!

In between games several of the boys brought their Nintendo DS games and they hooked them up (?) and played games against each other. It was hard to pull them away from those games to warmup! Ha!

This is such a sweet team with boys from each of the communities in our county so we are truly a county team. Kyle has made friends with kids that he would not have met otherwise. The parents are all super supportive (everyone showed despite that darn blizzard) and we have fun together in a gym all weekend.

Team huddle before the game! I know that some people think we are nuts choosing to spend our weekends in a gym in a random town, but I can honestly say that I love it. I love watching Mike coach. I love watching Kyle play. I love that David and Hope have other sibling friends to play with and I adore the other Mommies that I get to hang out with.

I know in a couple of decades when I no longer have this opportunity I will miss these days of traveling all over to cheer my kids on. I love watching this team improve and encourage each other. The parents have become some of my dearest friends simply due to the volume of time that we spend together. There is nothing like watching your child do something they love and have a blast doing it!

Babies and Money

Life is slowly getting back into a routine around our household this week. Hope and I have been playing babies a LOT! She is really loving all of her baby dolls and her little nursery set to put them in.

We line the babies up and sing to them, check their diapers to see if they are dirty, and we even rock them. This is a whole new world to me and it is so much fun! Here is my favorite toddler with her bitty baby and her Disney Princess Baby Doll. Santa brought her the cinderella and I think we will get her another princess for her birthday. She loves this princess baby and you can get them in all the disney princesses. She calls it "pin sis" and it is adorable:)

Mr. Dave is loving his Vtech Reader from Oma. We have downloaded additional stories on it and he loves it! I even bought a car adapter today for long road trips. Doesn't he look so studious?? :)

About my beloved camera-I have been in touch with the Sevier County Police Dept and it appears that so far the mean thief has not pawned my camera in that area. They are still working on it, but the reality is that it is probably long gone. My new point and shoot is driving me crazy, but I have started an envelope to buy a new camera.

In this family we do not buy stuff on impulse or on credit. It stinks in times like this, but since we started the daveramsey program 8 years ago we committed to not buying on credit, living below our means, and saving for down the road. We are on a somewhat aggressive plan to pay off our mortgage in hopefully a decade or so and to do all that we avoid credit cards like the plague. Not to say I don't do damage on our card with a little Etsy shopping, but generally we do not buy now pay later on anything.

I would like to tell Dave Ramsey to jump off a bridge and hop online and order the Nikon D90 right now. Seriously, I have one in my online cart right now, but I know that because we committed to this program and it has been miraculous for our marriage and bank account I will start an envelope and save up the cash for my coveted D90.

Sometime later I will do a post on how we do our monthly cash-only finance system. Some people think we are totally nuts (I do myself sometimes) but it has worked for us and we both are committed to it. I love the idea of living below our means so that we can live peacefully in the future. I also love the idea of living below our means so that we can use our money wisely to tithe and bless others. I do not believe that God blesses us with money to simply boost our own lifestyle- I think He wants us to use our resources to further His kingdom.

Off to the gym-that is another topic for another day. I started a new class at the gym this week and ALL week I have been so sore that I cannot laugh or sneeze without cringing! Ha!