I chose my love, and I love my choice: January 2014

Frozen?

In Minnesota we don't have your typical "snow day" when school is canceled. I'm not sure what you would call it - DANGER ZONE DAY - DO NOT GO OUTSIDE!!! (High of -18 degrees, feels like -50)

Temperatures where your face could freeze if you were outside for more than 5-10 minutes!!!

Well school has been cancelled five days this month.

Brooks' work had a 'work from home' one of those days. Nobody went anywhere the first two days. We just hunkered down, and hoped it wasn't too much for our heater to handle. When we got a third day of school canceled a week or so later we thought we'd get out of the house and play with some friends. After loading and reloading the kids in the car in the cold I decided it was not worth it. So this week when we got another two days of cancelled school we just stayed put and enjoyed our days at home.

We did a couple experiments with the cold weather on the first day: evaporating hot water, freezing a bubble, and imploding a balloon. The first two worked, but the balloon seemed to shrink when it went outside, but it definitely didn't implode. The bubbles only worked in the garage because there was a bit of wind outside, just enough that I couldn't keep a bubble on the wand. It was cold enough in the garage to freeze the bubbles though!! I was the only one who went outside and I could only be out for 3-4 minutes before my hands were freezing!

Our frozen bubble!!

Great day for an indoor fort!! What an awesome Christmas present - fort in a bag!! We are definitely making good use of that gift!

The first day was a jammy day for most of the family - especially because everyone was sick or just getting over a fever/flu bug we all got once we were home from Utah.

Yay for manditory stay at home days!!!

December's fun

As always our December felt like the busiest month of the year. We always have so much fun and it always
gets forgotten on the blog because we are having too much fun! We started off the season with our annual gingerbread house party with some friends from the ward.

Then we quickly enjoyed the Holiday Train. We stayed long enough to see the train, watch the ice sculpturer, and grab a cookie. It was so cold. We bundled everyone up really good, but we definitely needed more.

Off to Utah! We had our usual traditions and parties with a trip to the oral surgeon mixed in. I finally got my wisdom teeth out. Besides not being able to eat any of the amazing holiday food it was not too bad. I truly got to relax and rest. After a couple days of rest, I was definitely ready to be up and going.

As seen by this. Grandma Riska got so mad at me for lifting these huge snowballs!! We got a lot of snow a few days before Christmas. Snowball fight, snowmen and snow angels!! We made two different snowmen. The group picture snowman fell down about three days later. The snowman on the top right was in front of Grandma and Grandpa Riska's window, and . . .

it is still standing today (1/30/14). It's over a month old!! That is one sturdy snowman, built with a whole lot of love!!

Christmas Eve we all decorated gingerbread men. Grandma and Grandpa came over and judged. The picture at the bottom left is all the winners in categories like - most festive, most likely to be eaten, overall best. A big thanks to our judges! Grandma was sure she was going to get mobbed after if she didn't pick the right ones!!

Rebecca shared her white elephant gift so we could all have a good laugh!!

Christmas morning! Lilly fell in love with her stroller from the beginning and Spencer loved his ninja pajamas. Benson was happy and pleasant for being sick (gunky eye and ear ache!) No fun!