snowy skies

This was a beautiful end to our first snowy day.

I said on Instagram today that my ideal winter would include one good snow.

One where sledding was possible and fun.

One where a day off of school was necessary.

One where I could watch the snow fall from my window.

Today met all of those criteria

(although they were out of school anyway today).

And this sunset was the icing on the cake.

Now let's move on to spring!

the year we only went to school half the winter

Our view out the front door this morning.

There is a porch and sidewalk and driveway deep down in there somewhere.

And out the back door

I believe this is snow day number 8 for us.  Luckily the school board voted to stop making them up after number 9 so that we won't spend our summer at school.

I actually like looking at snow and watching the kids have fun in it.

I don't like the cold temps that come along with it.

Nor do I enjoy driving in it.

But I believe I am in the minority when I say that I like snow days.

I like how they force you to slow down and stay home.

Today I gave up my job of shoveling the drive.

I even bought an extra snow shovel yesterday in anticipation of my retirement.

In fact the only time I went outside was to take these pictures.

Oh and to plead with them about 36 times to keep the shovels away from the car.

They loved that and never once rolled their eyes!

Their friends decided to help so that Minecraft could resume as quickly as possible.

Because that's what you do on a snow day around here.

back in the groove

Over Christmas break, a friend texted me, with however much giddiness you can text, that she was engaged!  I cried.  I knew it was coming sometime in the near future but had no idea it would be then.  I've known her for several years, watched her grow into a wonderful young woman and watched this love blossom from the beginning.

This past weekend, you know.....Polar Vortex weekend.....she asked if I could meet up with them to photograph them in the snow.  I was a little nervous but so excited that she had asked me!  I hadn't really picked up my camera much since September.  I had started to feel like I had lost all desire to use a lens and a memory card.  Things were mostly contained chaos at our house the latter part of 2013, and photography was pretty much at the bottom of the priority list.

The night before I was to meet up with them I started scouring Pinterest for some ideas.  I am always able to find good ideas but not always able to remember them when I get to the shoot.  So I saved them to my camera roll on my phone this time so that they would be easy to find.  Of course I didn't really remember to look at it except for maybe one time.  But it didn't matter, because she had come armed with the best ideas anyway!  These two made this shoot so fun!  I can see why photographers love to shoot weddings.  The full-blown wedding makes me completely nervous, but I would love to do the engagement part - such fun!

So my hope was that I would be able to get at least two good shots for them to be able to use.  And her posing ideas turned out really adorable, so I think we met the goal.  

And I believe my love for photography has been rekindled.

Thanks for tromping around in the snow with me you two!

a photo for friday

Pretty much sums up our day yesterday.

And today.

Without the falling snow.

The boys are now making snow houses, Minecraft style, in the huge 

snowpile left in our cul-de-sac by the snowplows.

They love when that happens!

We got about 6 inches yesterday which equaled another 4 day weekend

for the boys.

Guess who is pretty happy about that?

snow visitors

It hasn't been all sunshine and warm weather here in January - although that would be so nice.

We've had a couple of snows now.  Not really much but I still love seeing it come down.

It always seems so quiet when it's snowing.  Peaceful.

We weren't really expecting snow this day, but these birds showed up on our deck while we

were eating breakfast before the snow started.  We had never seen them before and thought

it was strange that all of a sudden they were here.  There were several of them, too.

Brian commented that maybe they knew something we didn't.

That always makes me nervous because of all the issues we have with birds nesting

on our deck, front door wreath, wherever they want that is very inconvenient for us.

I left for the morning and came back to a snowy afternoon and found the birds on the deck again.

Seemed like they were really enjoying it, and they were so pretty against the white background.

Does anyone know what kind they are?

a photo for friday

I was thinking that maybe I could at least commit to writing one post per week - even if it's just my favorite photo from the week.  We'll see how it goes.

We finally got snow on New Year's Eve.  It really wasn't much.  A couple inches maybe?  But the boys wanted to get out in it right away, of course.  It was actually good snow to make snowballs and snowmen, so they had fun playing with some of the neighbors for a while.  I would be fine if this was the only snow we saw this season.  They, on the other hand, would not!