Snow Day!

 It's always so magical having the first huge snowfall of the season! The kids are dying to get outside and play in it.

Nicky doesn't remember ever seeing anything like it. He is thrilled! It takes about 40 minutes to dress them all in warm winter gear, and they rush out the door, happy as can be:

They take their new sleds and dive into the powdery soft goodness of the fluffy snow:

They eat snow and pull each other on sleds:

And 15 minutes later, they stand at the bottom of the stairs and sob until I come get them.

To be fair, Calvin and Autumn played for about an hour, but Nicky did about as well as the rest of them did at his age. So he came inside and we packed away all the wet clothes we'd just taken out. Hooray for snow days!

A Day in the Life

Highlights from an average day at the Nelson house:

While I was taking out recycling, the kids begged me to leave this box. Calvin says that when they're like this:

It's a rocket.

And when they're like this:

It's a Disneyland Rollercoaster.

This came in the mail for Andrew:

I texted him that if he had joined the NRA, he was getting a little too weird for me and it probably wasn't going to work out. He swears he didn't join and that they're probably sending memberships to everyone, bulking up their numbers for the current gun debates.

It was beautiful weather, so we spent the afternoon at the park:

 No idea why I only took shots of the kids trying to hang on long enough for me to snap a shot, and then screaming for me to come grab them before they fell. We did other fun stuff too.

Autumn wanted a picture of her:

And then she took one of me:

I think I was looking something up (though I can't remember what) because it has been months since I've been able to sit and read a novel. I look much more relaxed here than I ever really am, but I do like the belly shot since I haven't been taking any pregnancy photos this time.

And that's your typical day at our house (without pictures of tantrums, time-outs, sibling fights, and other unpleasantness).

Pirates

Last week Calvin's friend came over to play, and he brought a treasure map that he had drawn. The kids spent the day playing pirates, pirate Mario, pirate Angry Birds, pirate baking, pirate fighting, and all things pirate (except for pirating music). Here is a shot of them on their ship with their treasure chest. We had to get creative with the costumes:

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