March 28, 2009

So, we did not end up going to Kansas City after all. Instead, we are having a snow storm. Yeah!! Actually, I could have done without it but the boys are really enjoying it and it is our first real snow this year and the first time the boys (or actually the dad:) got to build a snow man. The picture above was taken well before the snow was finished. We must have 6 inches at least by now.
(Yep, that's a cowboy hat on our snow man. I couldn't find anything else:).
When it first started it was half rain and half snow. I went outside and tried to cover up all of my azaleas with tarps and I put trash bags over the crape myrtles. The azaleas already have buds all over them and one or two have already bloomed. They are ready to bloom any day now. The crape myrtles are already starting to get some small leaves or buds that are getting ready to be leaves. I hope I saved them but we'll see. It is suppose to get down in the 20's tonight and then tomorrow it will be in the mid to high 50's. The rest of the week, it will be even warmer. So the snow will not be around for long. After it had snowed for a while, I went out again and knocked the snow off of our two pretty Japanese Maple trees. This is the smaller one in the picture below.
The husband had to do it again later or they definitely would have lost branches to the weight of the snow. It s a very wet, heavy snow and everything was very wet to begin with. Since these trees already have their leaves, they become weighed down very quickly. They are so beautiful right now. I hope they will make it OK. I was able to cover all of the azaleas except two so we will see how well the ones that are covered do compared to those that are not.

I am feeling a bit better today but I seem to still feel much worse in the evenings. Hopefully this evening will be better. I definitely slept better last night. The good news is that, so far, nobody else has caught it.

Here are some additional pics:

The dad, reading to Ben, while wearing 'the beard' although not quite right. The book is about the beard and how it jumps around from person to person. It is quite funny.


Ben reading a book to Nick. It is cute to hear him 'read'. He remembers much of the book and he has fun talking through it.
The dad playing Candyland with the boys.
The dad was in his office this morning reading a book when he was joined by the boys and their book:).
I think this was last weekend. The boys were painting these little cars they got for Christmas in their stockings.
Here are some other things we did recently when we were 'doing school'.
The boys glued the lower part of the faces/beaks on the animals here.
And on these, they glued on the nose, mouth, eyes, etc.
Once again, I have started reviewing home school materials, trying to decide what to do and when to do it. I enjoy looking at all of the packages and tools out there. There are so many and they look like so much fun. It is hard to choose between them though. It actually works out well that we did not go to KC this weekend because we are now planning to go in April and it just so happens it is the same time as their home school convention:). So I will get to go to that again this year, which will be fun.

It is almost 2:00pm and it is still snowing. It started around 8:00 or 8:30 this morning. The flakes are smaller now though so I think it is starting to let up a bit. It is really a beautiful winter wonderland but I am thankful that tomorrow it will all disappear very quickly. Hope you are having a good weekend.