Snowed in and Other Adventures

It's so funny that I was so excited in that last post about our having fire wood, because now we have none. We were snowed in for at least a week soon after, and it was sooo incredibly cold, that our fireplace was continuously burning for a while! It was such a god-send. 

It's like the world is intent on our staying cooped up at home. But we survived the wintery cold and the lack of much to do. We did a little fun prep work for my brother's wedding- trying out clothes, making sure we had clean nails, and Miss E wanted bangs, so I cut her bangs. I also made silk flower arrangements for a dinner my parents are hosting the night before the wedding.

 

Miss E loves playing with makeup and doing her nails.

We invited Mr E but he kinda just sat on the bed with his tablet and talked to her while I did her nails.

There was a lot of sitting by the fire and playing, cooking, eating, reading, watching tv, playing games, and stuff like that.

 

We played Barbies and Calico Critters a lot- of course there was always a friendly dinosaur or such. I forget how exactly our dolls ended up with broken limbs, but the Squirrel (Mr E) immediately decided to take care of us while we healed and was an absolutely excellent nurse.

And of course the day of V-Day we celebrated with chocolate and cards.

I melted the chocolate. They dressed for the occasion and got to work!

We made tons of little mice- too many in fact. Sadly, a lot of them went bad before we ever got around to eating them.

For a few days, it was too cold even for the kids, so we all just sat by the fire. They didn't even ask to go outside. But then after a while things got less icy and more conducive to play. So play they did!

Even the dogs got in on the action. I'll post a couple videos below:

 

Today it was actually very nice and warm, so I went outside for the first time in a while to clean up the backyard a little and water the plants. I think everything survived- things have started sprouting, and hopefully even the Texas sage will come back to life. It still has a little bit of green left in it, so there's hope. After I had finished my little bit of work, I sat on our bench and looked around at the yard and thought to myself:This is HOME. This is my little bit of Earth, our safe heaven. And I was flooded with gratitude.

We were able to sit back and relax (for the most part) while the entire rest of the world seemed to be struggling to deal with this unexpectedly strong winter storm. We were happy together, warm, and sufficiently fed. I think people call it having basic needs met, but "fundamental" might be a better word. Of course we were already going a little stir-crazy, and the moment it warmed up enough I took the kids to the park. By the end of the week I was making ramen noodles for lunch. But we were protected when we needed protection. However imperfect our family and home might be, we are incredibly blessed. My sister's prayer this morning at "church" (through Facebook) reminded me of that. We should be hyperfocused on our blessings, because they are realistically many and very fundamental, instead of the few and unimportant things I let bother me so much. We are blessed. Truly blessed. Ebenezer. Hasta aquí nos ayudó el Señor.