Winter Fun

We have had a busy couple of months in January and February, and March is flying by too. I was counting down the days for February to be done after a rough start to the year with sickness in our household. We had the flu run through our house in January and then nasty colds in February. The colds seemed to drag on forever as it was just one by one - Ellie, then Emmit, then me. Colin was the only one spared, and even Kim (our nanny) got sick too. So between the kids being sick, us being sick, Kim being sick, and our neighbors being sick, we had a few weeks where it seemed like it was constant reshuffling of the daily schedule. We had a fair amount of snow days/school delays which add another element to juggle. I am mentally DONE with winter. As I write this, it's snowing here, so of course winter is not done with us! Despite the sickness though, we still had our share of fun!

The kids went bowling with Kim one day and she took this video. We've since gone bowling again - they love it!



Emmit got his haircut. He does a really good job sitting for Daddy now =)



I stayed home with the kids a few times in our run of sickness. We played trains this one morning which was fun. It took me forever to set this train set up!



In mid Feb. we had a little get-away to the Chicago area to spend the weekend with the Mayo family. The Betker family was supposed to come along too, but unfortunately had a last minute change of plans with a family funeral. The kids had fun playing together, Ryan and Emmit especially. They really enjoyed playing trucks. We visited the Brookfield Zoo again, and though it was a freezing cold day, the kids had a great time seeing a whole bunch of new exhibits we didn't see last year. I am definitely a wintertime zoo fan! Our hotel pool was freezing cold, so after realizing that Friday night, we were definitely coming up with Plan B for Saturday night. So, instead we went bowling and the kids loved that too. Moms and Dads had their share of fun (and beer and wine too), so all in all, it was a great weekend! =) Hopefully we can swing a weekend this summer with the Betker family too. I must not have been in picture mode this weekend because looking at my camera, I have hardly any! Here's one of the kids seeing if they weighed as much a baby elephant at the zoo though.



Ellie, Emmit, and I made a trip to the UP one weekend. There was SOOOOO much snow! This was right after we had all been sick...actually Emmit still was, he had a double ear-infection this weekend. I just wanted to get out of the house though and go soak in the sauna, so up north we went!



Ellie playing dress-up with Grandma's clothes



And we've been sledding at home a lot too. Here we are in our neighbor's yard on their manmade 'luge'. The kids get a kick out of this. We've since made a little luge in our backyard too now =)









Emmit still doesn't have the love for writing and drawing that his sister does, but he has been working on some letters and writing his name now too. Here he's writing his letter E's =)