The day we froze at the park

I love taking the kids to the park.

I get exercise, the kids play, we have a good time. We went to this park on January 16th. We spent hours there. I practiced flat footing. It was a gorgeous day and we didn't need a jacket. The next day it stormed. This park is barred to cars about three months out of the year. In March it opens back up and cars always have to be careful so they don't run over the pedestrians they share the road with. To help remind the drivers there used to be speed bumps on the road until the snow plows plowed them down.

The kids had fun playing with and on the broken pieces of speed bump.

When we planned to go on this day, we had read that the weather was warm. I'd been outside for few minutes and I'd even checked the temperature. But when we got there the snow was thicker than we'd hoped for and we had to dig the extra jackets out the of car in order to keep some of the kids warm.

Bridger stayed nice and cozy in his stroller the entire time.

And of course everyone else was attracted to the ice. Soaking wet, cold feet had to be warmed up after this "not so warm" visit to the city park.

Waiting...

Sometimes, like Dr. Suess said, we come to a place where everyone is just waiting. Here are a few times this month that we have found ourselves waiting...

waiting for Goldie to finish piano lessons.

waiting for Josiah to finish piano lessons.

discovering the newly painted alleys in our town while waiting...

waiting for Goldie to finish her "Battle of the Books" practice.

waiting for Spring to come.
Some things, like Spring 2014, require patience and time. Slowly but surely the signs start popping up or shining down on us and soon our waiting will be over.

100 years!

We are thrilled as can be. Today is Pa-Paw Stuart's one-hundredth birthday. Since it was Monday we decided to celebrate for Family Home Evening.

Josiah held his picture as everyone listened to Dad tell us stories about his father's life.

Then we sang Happy Birthday and ate some cake in memory of the man who turned 100 today!

Just in time

Today, just in time for Valentine's Day, God has colored the world white instead of red.

The cold outside has been as welcome as the warmth of the inside!

Book Discoveries!

We recently tried out a new library. It was our nearby college library: Concord University.

I'd been reading the Magyk series by Angie Sage and wanted to finish the last two books, but our local library did not have them, nor did our backup Bluefield library. Concord did. So we went up and all of us checked out a book.

Goldie's choice as you can see was a Lemonity Snicket book. We didn't get excited about it, but it reminded me of the Spiderwick Chronicles and over the past few weeks we've been enjoying those.

Josiah's choice was Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. In between practicing songs on the piano and on his sick day Mike and I read the book to him. It's part of the Magic Shop Series by Bruce Coleville. It was a fun clever book.

So if your in need of something fun to read try one of those. We sure liked them.

Ammon is Three!

This is a classic pose for Ammon. Telling him to smile brings on this expression.

Everything about this little boy is all about the "A." Captain America, Ammon, Awesome!

He cut out the A's that decorated his cake.

We spray painted his shield cake and even where the color ran it looked "A"mazing.

Our party was A-bsolutely Ammon! It was a great day Ammon. We love you.

This and That

We've discovered that Ammon has curls! I love to get them all stuck up in the air first thing in the morning. Then he says, "Put my curls down mom, put them down." I usually comply, but sometimes I have to let his Wolverine out or just let some hang out in the back of his head where he can't see them.

Goldie was recently invited to Young Women's to decorate cake. This is her creation.

Of course Bridger got his hands a bit of cake too!