Snow Days!

Last week we finally had some long awaited for snow days!  I love a good snow day where everything is completely covered, school is closed, roads are yucky, David has to stay home and where everything just seems to come to a stand still for a little while.  I love how snow days just make you want to be under a big blanket all cozy and warm, how they make you snuggle with your loved ones a little more, how they cause you to do things as a family, how they make you want to bake and make soup and how they just cause you to rest.  I love them even more now that I'm a stay at home mom and don't have to worry about whether or not I can get to work and I don't have feel guilty if I choose to not go into work.

When we were going through the One Year Chronological Bible study by Iva May I loved what she pointed out in Job about how God speaks through inclement weather.  Iva writes in this study that God offers two main points: 

1.  "God uses inclement weather conditions to command man's attention by revealing man's helplessness"  "Inclement weather reveals man's helplessness as it halts work efforts; man can do nothing to change the weather."

"For He says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth': likewise to the gentle rain and the heavy rain of His strength.  He seals the hand of every man, that all men may know His work: (Job 37:6-7)".

2.  "God uses weather conditions to command man's attention by revealing the greatness of God."

"He comes from the north as golden splendor; with God is awesome majesty.  As for the Almighty, we cannot find Him; He is excellent in power, in judgment and abundant justice; He does not oppress.  Therefore men fear Him; He shows no partiality to any who are wise of heart"  (Job 37:22-23)

Iva had us read Job 35:1-37:24, 38 and asked "What does the Lord communicate about Himself to Job through re-directing Job's attention to His creation?"

Definitely makes me think about his now every time we have a snow day.


So how did we spend our snow days.........

The boys and David played in the snow and went sledding (I'll admit I didn't get out this time)

 

The boys and I made homemade bird feeders.  We had a lot of fun watching the birds over the next week eat off our bird feeders and even had a pretty, red cardinal visit us.

 

David and Caleb attempted to make homemade Doritos. I don't think this is a recipe we will be repeating any time soon but it was still fun.

 

David and Caleb built a snowman and an igloo/fort. 

Lazed around and watched TV

And of course spent some time on the Ipad and computer

The best thing was even though we were out of school for three days only two days counted against us as we were already scheduled to be out on Monday due to a teachers' professional development day.

Hope you got some snow and enjoyed your snow days!

Halloween Crafts

When I started being a stay at home mom I envisioned hot cooked meals every night, a well organized house, finally working on the boys scrapbooks, keeping up with blogging and lots of craft time with the boys.  Somehow two years have passed and well let's face it all of these things are still just things I'm "envisioning".

One of the things that I hate I haven't done as much of with Joshua as I did Caleb is little craft projects.  I have some fun memories and pictures of Caleb and I working on various projects.  I recently found a couple of Halloween craft kits at the Associate Store for $1.00 each and since I can't seem to pass up a "deal" at the Associate Store I bought two of them and the boys and I put them together yesterday.

Caleb has always enjoyed a good craft project so it was fun to see him in his element.  I was neat  getting to see Joshua experiment with making something on his own.  I helped Joshua with a couple of pieces but I definitely tried to give him the opportunity to put a few pieces on himself and relinquished control of where he glued them.  Caleb asked me when we first started "well what if he (Joshua) doesn't do it right".....oh son, you are so your Momma's child.  I reassured Caleb it would be ok and off we went to having fun and hopefully making a few memories.

Joshua's finished project

Caleb's finished project
(Ha! I just noticed his Frankenstein is missing his pants.  I found them and glued them on but didn't take a new picture.)

Sunshine!!!!

It's crazy how a little warmer weather and sunshine can totally effect your whole attitude and just make your whole day better.  Today was a great day!

After picking Caleb up from school the boys and I headed to Braum's for a little ice cream treat and then some much appreciated time at the park.  These two had a blast and are totally in their element outside. They love being able to run around, throw rocks, be loud and all the other things that boys like to do.

Going to the park will definitely not be for the faint of heart this summer keeping up with these two.  Gone are the days of just pushing Joshua around in his stroller while Caleb plays or having him just sit on a blanket and play in one spot.  This boy (Joshua) is mobile and is trying to keep up with his big brother with everything he has.

Caleb was super sweet and took Joshua down the slide a few times and did a great job, with only a little bit of protest, of being as patient as he could to take turns playing in areas he wanted to go while making sure we played in areas that Joshua could also play.

I love this picture of Caleb playing "SWAT team" in the background while Joshua is swinging.  This is Caleb's latest imagination play.  He did a really good job of staying close by where I could see him while Joshua got to swing on the swings.

They both had a great time playing at the park and desperately wanted to get into the water but mustered up as much contentment as they could with just playing at the edge of the water.  We managed to leave with only a little bit of a wet shoe which is an accomplishment as it never fails that I end up caving and  Caleb ends up in the water before the trip is over.

So happy for some warmer weather today and am looking forward to many more trips to the park this Spring and Summer.

Come on Spring!!!!

Carving Pumpkins

Sunday night we had our neighbors, The Brantleys, over to eat chili and carve pumpkins.  It was perfect weather and we had a great time hanging out together.  John and Caleb enjoyed getting to help cut the tops off the pumpkins and scrape out the insides before they decided to go back to playing and running around.

Daniel busy working on drawing out his "N" for his Nebraska pumpkin.  Who knew you needed a ruler and power tools for pumpkin carving.

 

The pumpkin I created.

The pumpkin David carved based off of a drawing that Caleb created.  Caleb's version was a little bit scary, I wish I would have thought and took a picture of his drawing.  You can't tell in this picture but the pumpkin also has some blood drawn on it with a red sharpie per Caleb's request, lol.

It's Tuesday!

Caleb:
I'm happy to report that Caleb got up out of bed as soon as his alarm went off this morning, turned it off, got dressed and then came downstairs without any assistance or coaxing.  He was excited and ready to head back to school this morning.  Today he decided he wanted me to drop him off and not walk in with him.  I obliged but I'll admit I didn't like it and it took me a few minutes to quit wondering this morning whether or not he found his classroom ok.  This afternoon Joshua and I went to a couple of stores and it was really weird passing by the school knowing Caleb was in there.  I would love to be a fly on the wall and watch him just for a day :-).

He had his first homework assignment tonight.  I let him watch TV for a few minutes when he got home from school and then let him know he needed to do his homework.  He didn't give me any fits and he said that he needed a desk like school to do his homework (which is funny because they sit at tables not in desks) and that he wanted to sit in the desk we have upstairs.  Thankfully tonight's homework was super easy and took him just a few seconds to complete.  He just had to color the border around a worksheet that I'm assuming he will fill out and complete in class tomorrow (at least that was this momma's understanding of the directions).

Joshua:
Joshua has recently decided to venture out and crawl up the stairs.  He has only done it a couple of times but not enough that we have had to worry about it and put up the gate.  Well, this all changed this afternoon.  After Caleb got home from school Joshua decided that he likes this stair climbing business and kept trying to climb up them.  Looks like the baby gate will be going up at the Winberry house.

 

We also discovered that this little guy really likes black beans.  He just kept shoveling them in.

Big brother didn't want to miss out on being involved in the action so he decided to slap a little jello on his face so we would take his picture.