Rounding Out February

Other random things from February...

 I went out to get a picture of my beautiful daffodils...my favorite harbingers of spring.  I came back in to find Jake half slurping/half blowing raspberries into water he had dumped onto the table.  As you can see, he has no problem climbing into a chair to wreak havoc.

 John lost ANOTHER tooth.  #6 I think?

 Grandma got a puppy.  Gus is so stinking cute and sweet.  They are just perfect for each other.

 Eve and John competed in the Reedy River 1 mile kids race.  Eve had a ball and wanted to immediately run another (she ran it with her friend Kate and Kate's dad).

 John had a long, lonely walk to the finish line just ahead of the security bike.  He said he got a side stitch and had to walk through it.  Just afterward he spiked a fever.  Poor guy!  No wonder he had such a horrible race.

When all was said and done, though, they both were happy about the race and thought it was great, though John isn't in any hurry to do another race.

REAL Snow!

When February came, it snowed for real!  At least as far as we South Carolinians are concerned.  We had some fun the first day, then overnight and the next day we got even more snow.  The kids were out of school for several days.  Fortunately the forecast came early enough for us to buy new sleds!

 The first snowman attempt (the previous snow wasn't sticky AT ALL).  This was still grassy and leafy, but not half bad.

Eve was sweeping together as much snow as she could.  I think Ellie was just hanging out.

 Day 2 (or maybe it was day 3 and I didn't take any pictures on day 2?) we went over to Mom's to go sledding.  She had already been out on the slopes for quite a while!

 

 I love their teamwork.

 

 Jake's love of sledding was very short-lived.  He rode once with me, and once with John.  The trip with John did him in, and he wanted nothing more to do with sledding.

 John decided he would rather snowboard.  It started out as a joke, but he actually got to be really good at it.

Here's a view from the top of the hill.  Because I'm such a great mother, I instructed them to bail before falling into the ditch at the bottom of the hill.  I grew up sledding on this hill (as much as one does in the south...maybe 3 or 4 times ever), so I knew the ropes.

 Well, once John was headed down this hill head first and was going too fast to think quickly enough to heed my advice.  He fell head first into the ditch, which is about a 3 foot drop...with shallow cold water in the bottom.  When his head didn't pop right back up, I got nervous and raced down the hill.  I jumped in and called for Buck to help.  He pulled John out.  John was silent and limping, so I was sure something horrible happened.  By the time we got up to the house, though, he was fine.  He was mostly just stunned and COLD!  And muddy.

 See, there's a smile.

 Here's the awesome snowman we built.  He was taller than me!  (and looked mighty handsome in that Clemson scarf, if you ask me)

 All that snow was so fun, but when it melted, I was just done.  It's taken me this long to be able to look through the pictures and not be bothered by the cold.

 

 

Yikes!

Just found these two horribly scary pictures from our music video.  Yikes!

First Snow

Any other year, this snow would have been awesome, but we had more a bit later that put this snow event to shame.  Still, it was a great morning of fun!

Our sleds were apparently not Buckingham-proof.  This is what happens when you sled onto an icy road time after time.

Fun

Oh dear!  I had to go all the way back to January to catch up on pictures!  These are some fun ones.

 This picture sums up Ellie pretty well.  It's one of my favorites ever!

 I'm not sure why or how John got his hair this way, but it was picture worthy for sure.  Rock on, John!

 Oh, if only this was the extent of his climbing now...

These two have a special bond.  I think it's because they're home together while John and Eve are in school.  Whatever the reason, it makes me happy to see them enjoy each other so much.

 Every now and then a beautiful moment like this happens...sharing happily

 And the climbing continues,,,

Hey, it's better than when they put girly stuff on him.

Also in January, we made a music video.  As you can tell from the picture, it was awesome.

Oh My!

I was just sitting at the computer and saw Jake coming down the stairs upright.  My heart just skipped two beats.  One because it surprised me and scared me a bit.  The second because he's just growing up so fast right in front of me.  He was quick to learn to handle stairs.  He goes (went) down them feet first on his belly.  Several times he's done this so fast that he's actually sliding...and it seems really fun.  Earlier this morning we were at church and he had one of the girls on each side of him, holding his hands, helping him down the stairs.  It was one of the sweetest things I ever saw.  They were so excited to help.  I loved that moment...until just now.