Ice Storm 2013 - Revisited

Can you tell that I have my laptop AND nice camera back?! :)  Just trying to get caught up on blogging b/c I really do want to remember these days that are flying by and this is my favorite space to do so....

Now that the ice is a distant memory, I can really appreciate how beautiful it all was. If it just wasn't so dang dangerous. Here are some pictures from the good camera....

We woke up that first morning to this crepe myrtle completely weighted down by ice. It usually stands so tall.

I love all these hundreds of little icicles. 

Branches facing downward from the weight of it all. 

This icicle was so fun to watch! It started out much shorter than this but as the days would warm ever so slightly and it would sort of begin to melt, the nights would re-freeze it. Pretty cool to see over those 4 days.  

My Dad put out bird seed since there was nothing else for them to eat.

And more of what we did while indoors together. Lots of PJ time and fun together....

Lots of wrestling. Walker gets the biggest kick out of Grayson throwing him around ;)

"Tickle, tickle, tickle!" - Grayson

Walker loves to jump! Just like Grayson used to :) 

Well, he still loves to ;) We were so bored, Mimi and Pop even let them jump on the bed! Mimi would say, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

New House: Moved in! (Kinda)

We have been moved in to the new home since December 11th and have loved every minute of it! It's a little strange to sit in the middle of a space that I saw as a construction site for so long. It has now been converted to a house, which we are still in the process of trying to make a home. We hit a bit of a wall with unpacking recently and seem to be okay living among boxes that we just don't know what to do with! I think it's a sign that it's time to purge some of it but we just aren't ready. Back to getting busy this week while Beau is home! In the meantime, here are some parts that are coming together. Please note that I made the mistake of taking pictures in the evening so the light from our fixtures assaults your eyes. My apologies. :)

Beau so kindly hung our new light fixtures that I'm positively in love with.  I fell in love with in the Stan Pac model home where we had a contract for 48 hours. It was a Level 12 upgrade with them. I got in online for a fraction of what they wanted. And I mean that!

The other side. Still a long way to go with getting things unpacked and figuring out where it all goes.

This baby gate was a beautiful thing around the tree. Not one kid touched it once! 

That dining fixture and these 2 entry lights were among the first things we did and they make me so happy.  I actually had these sitting at my parents' house for months waiting to move in! The builder refuses to install anything form the client. Boo.

Sorry for all the light. While they do light the house nicely, this is overkill.

Behind getting beds installed and fresh sheets on, getting Christmas up was a top priority. A sweet
friend made that canvas for me after I attended a craft night at her house and we all ran out of time. She surprised me with it! :) 

Sorry again for light. The breakfast area has a cute little bench in it that I have NO IDEA what to do with. Threw a few pillows up so it wasn't completely bare and I'll revisit with Andrea when "decorate bay windows" is closer to the top of the list. :)

OH. MY. In all my days, I have not been so happy about "things" like I am about these bar stools. They were for sure my splurge since I ordered them without knowing the space and had Restoration Hardware hold them for 2 months until the house was ready. I even had their delivery guys show up at the same time as our movers (who weren't happy about that). I HAD to have them as soon as possible. That's all I'm going to say about them. :)

I swear the underlighting is great and not obnoxious!

We don't have the living room figured out yet. This space is surprisingly a lot like our last house, where we were stuck with furniture positioning as well. We're getting a round ottoman, an area rug and nesting tables that should help pull it all together. (Fingers crossed!)

Beau surprised us with having lights put on the house this year! We arrived home to this! It was the icing on the perfect cake and a Christmas to remember!

Family Pictures & Soccer Season Wrap-up

We had a good friend of mine shoot our family pics back in October. Shannon D. is in my MOPS group and does these shoots as a fundraiser for our chapter. So how cool is that - we have wonderful family photos and a portion of our cost was donated to my MOPS group! 

Walker at 9 months

Grayson at 3 years 4months

Shannon's monkey sounds are about the only thing that can capture 4 smiles at once!

As luck would have it, Grayson also had his soccer team pictures (and last game) taken that day. 3 year olds hardly like one photo session, but two?! :) Regardless, he did great at both! 

This year of soccer was such a fun, frustrating, rewarding new journey for us! Coach Casey took a bunch of 3 year olds who had NO IDEA what was going on and assembled a team who, by the very last game, was running in the same direction, toward the correct goal, shooting goals and even playing some okay defense! Boy, did we not see any of that happening at the first game! :) We look forward to next year as Grayson has been saying that he wants to play again. Woo hoo!

Merry Christmas: 3 Men and a Lady version!

I have tons to write about but still no charger! And I dislike typing too much on the iPad. More to come on the big move (we're in!), the excitement of Christmas with a 3 y.o. and Walker's 1st one. But in the meantime, here is our 2013 family card and Santa pictures!

Haha, Walker went from crying to snacking on Grayson's sucker when he wasn't looking in 2 seconds flat! ;)

ICEmaggedon 2013

Here is the post on this crazy ice storm! Earlier this week, my favorite local weather guy started getting really giddy about the unavoidable ice storm we were certain to get and that the DFW area would be "entombed in ice." He was not kidding! This storm has been everything they promised with 1-4 inches of ice covering every surface of the metroplex. Many trees have lost limbs b/c they can't stand the weight of the ice, EVERY school district, church, city building has been closed and Christmas events canceled. Usually you'll get spots of cities who have delayed starts and don't cancel anything but not this time. The entire city has been shut down since Friday and because our temps haven't gotten above freezing, things will melt slightly during the day and then re-freeze at night making things more dangerous than the day before and putting cities in difficult situations not being able to keep up with the sanding/de-icing demands. Almost 200,000 homes have been without power - I can't even imagine! Oh, and we have learned about things like "freezing fog", "angel ice" and "thunder sleet." Amazing, really. 

I'm going to focus mostly on how fun this has been for us and what we've been up to but my heart is very heavy this morning with the images of hundreds of stranded 18-wheelers, some who have been there for days and one who called into the news b/c he is desperate. He has his 2 year old son with him, is running out of supplies and can't get a response from police or emergency systems. They just can't get to him when 35 is a parking lot of big rigs. We all joke about being stir crazy in our warm, roomy homes with young kids but I can't imagine being out of food and diapers and possibly gas and trying to keep a toddler happy in the tiny cab of a truck. Prayers go out to everyone!

So now that I've covered the severity of it all, I'll tell you what's going on in this house. Since we've known since about Wednesday, we knew we probably wouldn't close on our house and had time to go to the store and stock up with groceries for my parents' house! I also got some Christmas crafts from the Target $1 shelf! They have AWESOME crafts for a 3 y.o. and I don't care what happens to them since they're so cheap :)

Heavy sleet fell all night Thursday - the creation of inches of ice on the ground. It was loud
and kept us up through the night. Grayson was fascinated. :)

We awoke to this! This crape myrtle used to stand straight and tall. While it's beautiful, I'm not sure what it will look like after
days of weighted ice!

We've been keeping busy with crafts, playing soldiers, building things, iPad time and relaxing. Also….

Mere seconds in the ice ;)

bath time. It works!

Mimi made us hot cocoa from scratch.

Lots of cooking. This was turkey chili... 

Plenty of dressing up as Batman. And then taking off the costume. And then putting it back on. Repeat...

TV watching in PJs. Just happy that the cable stayed on!

Wrestling and horse play. Hey, they slept like babies. No complaints here!

A lot of baby brother getting in the way of Grayson's new duck hunt game. (Mimi and Pop brought out a Christmas present we were so desperate!)

Lots of play time with Pop.

And baking snickerdoodles with Mimi.

We have been out of the house twice. Once to see the new house and Friday night for Annie's 32nd birthday. Both times were pretty scary but manageable since we stayed on some well-traveled roads. We saw may broken trees, cars that had slid into each other or things and a lot of dumb drivers. I am so,  so lucky to be married to a man who just seems to be so GOOD in these situations. He stays calm and knows how to manage his 4-wheel drive! I didn't stress a bit with him at the wheel!

Our pretty church lit up in the distance.

The car is indeed entombed in ice! 

My parents' neighbor. Trees were completely snapped in half.

You'd never know there was an ICEpocolypse outside!

Enough with the noise! Cabin fever felt by all!

Praying for relief tonight and tomorrow although it doesn't look like it's warming up/melting any time soon!