Strawberry Mountain

Snow Day at Home

The kids and I had a great day outside today playing in the snow. After we got done actually rolling around in it, we got out the plow and plowed the driveway, it was too fun.

Christmas in 24 Hours

I'm trying something new. This is "Smilebox" and this is the free version. If I want to pay, I can get rid of the adds, but you know me, Ms. Cheapskate, I'm am not going to pay if I can get it for free and all I want to do is try it out.

Today was a really nice day. It snowed most of the day, and even though this is my 5th winter in MT, its my 1st White Christmas. The last time I looked out the window, it was still snowing. I'm hoping it stays warm (above 0) tomorrow so that I can take the kids out on their new saucers to sled down the driveway. It has a bit of a snow pack right now. I'm thinking it's going to be very very fun.

Back to Christmas. The kids, for once, didn't wake up until about 8AM this morning, which meant I got to sleep in longer than I had for a long time. Rick was up when I woke up and finally the kids got up. Brian came running in the bedroom, saying "Santa REALLY did come and he brought us a MILLION presents".

Leslie woke up ready for the candy she has been talking about for months.

The kids really loved everything that they got this year. Still in the end, the mongo set of Magnatiles are still the favorite. Grandma spoiled them this year buy buying them 3 new sets to go along with the ones they already had. You should have seen them, they were sooooo excited. Leslie got baby dolls and a stroller, and swing set for them.

I was very surprised my little tom boy went girly on me this year by proclaiming that she wanted dollies to play with from Santa. Boy did she like them. She took them to bed, she took them to nap. She played with them ALL day long.

They both got laptop computer games, and really liked them.

After we opened everything this morning, We made a nice breakfast of steak, sourdough toast and fried eggs. It was just a nice mellow day. After breakfast, and after I got our huge ham in the oven, I had a wonderful Tom and Jerry drink, and then snuggled down in my bed with my baby girl for a nap. How much better does it get than that?

Seriously though, I'm just not one that wants to do events and visiting on Christmas. I want to be home with my family, and it made me so happy to see my kids so excited and happy. I am glad it's over now though, I guess we are now officially starting to get ready for Christmas in 2009.

Rick is going shopping for a new FAKE tree tomorrow. We both LOVE real tree's, but with subzero temps all the way through December every year, we have to run the fireplace almost constantly for weeks. That has dried our poor tree out for 3 years in a row. It starts out grand, beautiful, full and lush. By the time Christmas actually arrives, it's dried, shriveled and just plain fugly.

So we finally decided that the big leap to fake is in order and we are going to take advantage of the big after Xmas sales tomorrow and buy ourselves a new fake tree.

I truly hope your holiday was as nice as ours was.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Photo's of Brian and Leslie on Christmas Eve 2008

West Family Singers!

The kids wanted to sing Jingle Bells for their Grandma!  Lets see if this works.

Brian's Winter Program

A few highlights from Brian's Kindergarten Winter Program.

Singing Mommy Style

-25 Degrees and Falling

I'm freezing, seriously freaking fracking freezing.  I don't even want to go to bed because it's cold up there and the heater is broken. 

Someone wish a heater repairman on me tonight, pretty please?

I think I'm going to get my two little heating pads and put them in bed with me.

School Pictures

Here are Brian and Leslie's most recent school pictures.

Driving West

Well, not really West, but I couldn't help myself.  I took a little video coming home from my errands today.  Brian and I set out to do a little Christmas shopping.  We got to the mall, did our shopping and when I was putting him back in the car, I noticed that my front right tire was going flat.  So, do it yourselfer that I sometimes am (NOT), I drove to the gas station to put some air in my tire. 

Seriously dude, I couldn't get the valve cap off.  It was frozen solid.  I guess now would be the time to mention my car temp reader was bouncing between -5 and -7 outside.  I was beginning to become stressed, because my tire was really starting to look like a pancake.  When I called Rick on the phone, he told me to take it in to the place we bought it, because we had "road insurance" on it.  So I slowly drove to the tire store.  I walked in, and asked them if they could fix my tire, as I could not even get the valve cap off because it was frozen.  He looked up my info in the computer, and sure enough, I did have this "insurance" on my tires.  Man, was I ever grateful.  He told me there were two people ahead of me, and it would take "awhile" which he then explained was "about an hour".  I figured an hour in the tire store was better than an hour with a blown tire outside so I said, "go for it".

Brian and I sat down, and then I realized they had a free cappuccino machine with hot chocolate in it.  So Brian and I shared a really nice cup of hot chocolate.  This place was huge, and had a bunch of toys and Lego's in the corner, so Brian was happily playing, and I got to read about two People magazines.

I wasn't in the mood to complain and honestly,  it wasn't such a bad place to hang out, much better than broken down somewhere with a frozen tire valve.

After about 30 minutes, they were done with my truck, and I was able to go, free of charge, and happily warmed by a feeling of nice warm hot chocolate, nice people and a happy son.

We then went on to Wally World, which was surprisingly crowded for as cold as it was outside.  I hurried to get what I needed, and bought Brian and I each a container of popcorn chicken since we were starving.  We nearly ate it all while standing in line.  Today was one of those uncomplicated Walmart trips, thankfully.  By the time we got back to the car, we were both ready to be home and out of the cold.  I took the video below while driving up "our hill" as I like to call it.  I really was going slow, so no worries

Later Gater,

Monica

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