Our platform swing ended up touching the ground at one point (it's a few feet above the ground generally). Luckily the limb it's hung on survived the snow.
The kids making snow angels in the driveway Nathan just finished shoveling. It was snowing so hard. However, I can guarantee that there will be little to no snow for the rest of the season because my dad bought a snow blower the week after this.
Usually the snow is too dry to pack into snow forts or snowmen, this is the first snowman the kids have made for a few years now.
Video of kids with their snowman. Eleanor kept asking when lunch was because that's when I told her she could have some snow with syrup on the top. So exciting, hard to wait.
It was really nice that the snow came on a weekend, kids got great outside time with Daddy and great inside time with him too.
I was in charge of hot cocoa breaks with little stinkers.
And cuddling sweet kitties. Meg sleeps like this with me most nights now.
It *might* have been a little tiring for sweet Patrick to play in the snow for a few hours and then skip nap time. We got 5 minutes into an afternoon show and he zonked out.
And I got to do night time reading with the crew. It's so cozy and nice, it's why kids rush through getting ready for bed so they can cuddle in our bed and read some books together.
We skipped church the next morning (roads were bad) and got a few more cuddles in.
Eleanor taught me about making envelopes and engineering. "Daddy can make anything, even a house!"
Meanwhile, the boys did play-doh together. Is Patrick just a little devoted to Bradley right now?
And Nathan made the kids a snow fort which was very popular and quite impressive.
There were three different entrances, one for each kid.
And popcorn afterward with Nathan's new popcorn popper.
And another nap for Patrick. The kids may wish that every day could be a snow day.
Here is a montage of Patrick sleeping with Layla. He's taking great delight in telling Nathan that his kitty loves him best now - he tells Nathan it's because he looks so much like him.
The sherpa blanket may not hurt when it comes to Layla's nap time devotion. The cats are really happy when I forget to take it off the bed afterward.
Bradley really enjoys having Sookie on his bed most nights. We can barely get him to touch her or pay attention to her but he is really careful about how he gets in bed so he doesn't disturb her and he's upset if she leaves.
Nathan is super cute and took pictures of my euchre group when I hosted. The ladies were so impressed that he took pictures of his own initiative.
Nathan has been rather impressive for many things these last few weeks. He dealt with basement flooding, shoveling snow, sawing down giant limbs due to snow, doing all the dishes because the end of this pregnancy is only okay as long as I get to sit a fair bit, and doing rather involved class and club projects with Bradley. Oh, and he has a full time job on top of all this. He's rather amazing. Ah, and he set up the baby room the other weekend so we're good to go. Meanwhile, I read a lot and play games with the kids.
Here Nathan is helping Bradley make a Pikachu car for the cub scout box car derby.
Final product! It won the design prize and Bradley got a medal he's very proud of.
Next Bradley and Daddy project - making a vulture for his 1st grade wax museum.
Patrick, my dad, and I came to see the wax museum and Patrick was very devoted to Bradley while we were there. He only knocked him due to excessive hugging once, we're calling that a win.
Bradley's presentation. He was so good!
With his fan club.
Presenting to the 4th grade buddy class with Patrick's assistance.
We really like Bradley's 1st grade class. His teacher posts a good number of pictures of the kids and Bradley is always excited about the activities they do.
Bradley also got to have some art on display at the Blue Valley Library. His is the cardinal on the top right. Many thanks to Patrick for showing proper adoration of his favorite artist.
Eleanor has been working on spelling and art like a champ. The other morning it was time for us to leave for school and she was trying to unpack her folder and show me art from the previous day. I gave her a quick lecture about how I didn't care about any art right now, if she wanted to show me something she needed to show it to me the night before. She pulled out a paper covered in hearts that said "Eleanor lov Anne." Sighhh.
And then she made a book during quiet time and has started to include Nathan in on the love. Does she know that as long as she makes art like this she can do basically whatever she wants?
We've been trying to do a lot of "game research" for my website before baby girl joins us. Here Nathan is being a punk while playing Camel Up with me and only making bets while I'm the one to progress the game along.
Playing the same game with Bradley later.
Patrick's favorite photo face. After playing Go Fish!
My parents have a game called Celestia that both Bradley and Eleanor enjoy playing, it's cute to watch them all play together. Lots of game time at Grandma and Grandpa's house these days!
Playing Qwixx and Scooby Doo at home. I keep telling Nathan that we've ruined these kids, they think this is normal.
Nathan and Bradley have been playing a lot of the new Pokémon game on the Nintendo Switch and usually that's when Patrick and Eleanor get in a little tablet time. Nathan sent me this picture the other day of Eleanor shoving her cold feet up his pant leg in order to warm them during game time. Hahaha, what a wise little girl.
I have not been sleeping so well for the final weeks of pregnancy so this is what weekend mornings often look like for me. I love these cuddly kids, but where are we going to stick kid #4?
And then Patrick (best baking helper ever) took turns helping me and Nathan make waffles and whipped cream for breakfast.
Later that day we went to Eleanor's friend Naomi's house to make personal pizzas and have lunch with her extraordinarily nice family.
And we fit in a museum trip somewhere in all this. Bradley is getting quite good at assembling fossils there. Please note that the Patrick fan club is right there by his side. It's no wonder Patrick adores him so, the other day I told Bradley to make his lunch for school and the response I got was "Did you hear my MAGNIFICENT burp?" (much laughter).
These three - this was a choo-choo trip to wash hands before a meal.
And this video is so so accurate for how these kids work together right now. Eleanor is the singing dictator and we all love it.
Nathan insisted I come out and watch him be studly cutting down some tall branches that needed to come down after the heavy snow damaged them. Mostly I had a lot of heart attacks.
But I still admired. And it was very manly indeed.
Then he got to go to the Daddy Daughter Dance with Eleanor at her school that evening.
She was just a little excited.
Please note that she is wearing a rainbow unicorn dress, I'm very proud that I found this for her.
It was difficult to keep excited brothers out of the pictures.
They had a lot of discussions about the moderate amount of fun the boys were allowed to have in her absence that evening.
With Daddy!
My favorite picture from the evening.
He even took her out to dinner at Panera before the dance.
Photo booth at the dance!
Kindergarten picture at the dance.
I'm told it was a lot of little girls running around and screaming at the dance.
Nathan's view for most of the night.
And my other favorite picture of the night. So sweet! Eleanor mentioned that some girls there had sisters and had to share their Daddy (gasp!) and she hoped that wouldn't happen when she had a sister and I was able to let her know that the baby would be entering kindergarten when Eleanor was going to 6th grade so she wouldn't ever have to share an official school Daddy Daughter Dance. Phew!
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