It Was the Best of Times: 02/01/2013

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Ice Storm

January 25th brought the area an unusual ice storm. I'm used to a version of these from my Michigan days, but this was worse. About 1/4 in. of ice covered EVERYTHING. People and cars were sliding around all over the place. Thank goodness for a pile of snow by our mailbox or my brother would have taken it out with his car. My neighbor slid into her snowbank too and when she tried to get out of the car she fell. She had to crawl across her driveway in order to get to the ice-covered snow before she could make it into her house. I stayed inside that day. Except for a couple of pictures, of course. ;)

My brother's car only got this close to getting to the driveway.

He's trying to walk on it. The wet looking part is actually completely frozen.

This was a chunk that he picked up as he and Dad were trying to chop away at it.

His old car. The picture doesn't do it justice. It had a layer of ice all over it.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Little One's Birthday

January always brings us to Little One's birthday. This one being her 8th I wanted to do something special. First though, we had our usual family get together on her actual birthday.

Cute Justin

Our sweet Lexi and Nathan

Opening Epic Mickey for her DS

Cinderella is her favorite!

Karate legos!

She was getting tired of smiling for me.

Patrice, a rare Terry sighting (so glad he wasn't working that night!), and Ben.

I don't really do friend parties much, but being her 8th birthday we did a little princess party. She wanted to watch Tangled on the big screen downstairs so we did a Rapunzel theme. We found some cute ideas online.

Mom did laundry bags for the girls to bring their pillows and blankets in. They turned out SO cute!

These invites were so fun! I loved the hair hanging out of the window.

Pascal party blowers

This took forever to make but turned out awesome!

Here is a little video of us braiding this thing.

Frying pan necklaces for the girls to make.

Making pizza for dinner.

Introductions for the two girls that didn't know everybody.

We played "Pin the Flynn" with frying pans, of course.

Cute Maddie

They loved dancing after the movie!

Such adorable girls! Little One is so blessed to have such amazing friends!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Family Visit

I love Facebook in most ways. Every once in awhile I find things out on there that I shouldn't have to find out on a social media site, but for the most part it allows me to keep in touch in a way I only dreamed possible when I was a kid.

Such was the case in early January. I happened to be on and saw that a cousin and her parents were coming to town for a couple of days. Sweet! We arranged to have some lunch together. Unfortunately the girls were with their dad so I didn't get to introduce them to Ira or introduce Little One to them (they'd seen her as a baby.) I still had a blast anyway though and it was really good to see them. I don't believe I've seen any of them since Little One was less than a year old. Love you guys!

Me, Payton (Jolene's little one,) and Jolene

Uncle Joe, Jolene, Payton and Aunt Julie :)

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Christmas

Yes, this finally finishes up last year. As usual, I take a ton of pictures at Christmas so you are spared and I'll only post a few. :)

First up is the annual tradition of going to the Melt-a-Center for the sing-a-long. There just isn't anything like sitting in an arena and singing your heart out with a couple thousand people. Last year we didn't go because of the lovely inversion blahs but I made a special effort to go this year (or should I say last year?) It was a blast and even Ira was singing! This year's special guest was Collin Raye.