Spring Break! Wait, what??

Something in my boys' schedule snuck up on me yesterday that I completely forgot was coming so soon. Spring break!! Wait a second... it's February! (insert puzzled look here. I'm sure you've got one too!) It was explained to me at the start of school and I had completely forgotten that it was already upon us. You see, most schools in the midwest where we're from will have a traditional Spring Break in that it's, well, in the spring! There's nice weather, green grass to run in, maybe a staycation type fun planned by the family. That kind of thing. But here, spring isn't the exact same picture. People around here call spring "mud season." I'm sure you can imagine why. Snow actually sticks around all winter long and just piles ontop of itself. (I seriously got sad last week when we had a day of 40 degrees and it started to melt to the point I saw my first blade of brown grass for months!) Even with this warm-for-Vermont winter we're having it's been white all over. And it's funny to watch the weather on the news here and compare it to the St.Louis or Kansas City broadcasts. My whole life the weather man would act dissappointed that snow was coming, drivers would complain, parents would freak out that they needed to find childcare for another snowday off of school. But here, the weather guy says "Great news for the upper valleys, they'll be getting 3-7 inches overnight! Unfortunately it looks like it will just be rain down south...". Craziness! It's very weird to hear. But anyway, my whole point to my little sidetrack is that snow is celebrated here. Snow equals fun. And snow is what makes money for the Vermont/NewHampshire areas. (Skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, snowboarding, you get it). Soooo, break time is scheduled in the peak of the snowy season so the kids can get out and enjoy the snow! And with perfect timing, we got about 6 inches of snow last night! Woohoo! So hopefully we'll be able to at the very least take the kids sledding this weekend. It's kind of funny. You'd think with living in the mountains we'd have an abundance of places to take the kids to sled instead of boring flat Kansas. But we really do have to go out of our way to find a good spot. Most of the hills around here are either covered in trees, are too steep, have a building built into them, or end on a very busy street. So I hear the country club is "the" place to sled. I think we might go check it out! :)

And for the millionth time, I apologize again for the great big lag between posts. I finally finished my orientation period at work and hit the ground running. It has been rediculously busy and I have either been running for 12 hours straight at work or passed out at home recovering from running around for 12 hours straight at work lol! But I am LOVING my new job and feel like it's right where I need to be. It's a huge change of pace for me but it's awesome. And Mathew & I (mostly Mathew. He's been working his tail off) have finally gotten ALL of our belongings in storage gone through. Two full storage units have been eliminated & we are down to one. Tons have been sold/donated. Tons more at least repacked & consolidated. And now all I have is 10 more boxes of files to shred in my living room... yaaaaaayyyyy...... :/ (not so much). Almost all of the demo is done in the house. I just need to find the time to get there to bag up all of the debris. (Yuck!) And a brand new fireplace/chimney is in the process of being put in. Yep. Great big hole in the middle of the whole house. But it'll be awesome. I'll post pictures once we have something to show off! :)

Mommy Bragging Moment

I never wanted to make this blog a "look how cute my kids are" kind of space. But... look how cute my kids are! lol I just needed a moment to brag because they're so darn cute & I don't say it enough how great they really are. So I have a few videos because you all are far away, & hey. Videos are fun.

So my first is the one & only Miss Natalie. She's so darn funny. She loves to read books, especially before bedtime and in her three-year-old'ness she's starting to pre-read (i.e. memorize books but totally get the flow of reading pages.) So anyway, she asked me to videotape her reading her favorite book The Hound Finds a Friend so she "can watch it when [I'm] five." Hilarious.



Now, the boys, recently had a "talent" show at school. Each class did a skit and it was a riot. I wish I could show you the 45 minute-long version because it really was cute. (Especially the 8th grade boys wearing prom dresses! he he!!) But I have a little video of each of my guys. First up is Mark. His class chose to do "Fourth Grade's Got Talent" where each kid did something special. Some did gymnastics moves, some did impressive math problems. Mark showed off his spelling prowess:



And finally Gavin. His class decided to do a little dance to the song "Three is the Magic Number." Not Jack Johnson unfortunately, but Schoolhouse Rock. Still cool though. ;) Anyway, it's the whole song because it was so cute. If you can't tell, Gav is the guy riding the tricycle (LOL!) and holding the #15.



He he! I love my three little goofballs. :)

And, just for fun, here's a pic of the boys in a basketball game.

They're not the highest scoring team to be perfectly honest, but these guys have heart for sure! And they have a lot of fun, which is really most important.

Last but not least: quick house update. The storage is finally almost completely gone through! Halleluiah! Shouldn't be too much longer and we can eliminate the expense of the two smaller units. And most exciting: windows are ordered! Woohoo! So Matt has given himself the next two weeks to finish the demo so that he can be totally ready by the time they come in to get them installed. Fingers crossed! :)