WATCH: Crazy cookie video

See for yourself what my little angels are up to this morning...

Fresh air! The sun!

It warmed up to 34 degrees yesterday and the sun was shining and let me tell you it was really nice out. We are so yearning to be outdoors everyday. I keep telling David Tre (and to remind myself winter will eventually end) that as soon as it warms up to near 50 we will be playing outside again. He and I talk a lot about all the warm weather things we'll get to do hopefully starting in a few weeks. I can't wait to get back to walking around our neighborhood, riding bicycles, and going to the parks. I'm so excited for the birds return and to see bugs again! I would love it if those stupid sugar ants would come back to our foyer floor and march by the hundreds in a squiggly line. Every spring when it rains a ton those jerks get in the house. When I see them this year I may kiss them all and greet them, 'Hello old friends! Welcome to my home! Isn't Spring lovely!'

My equestrians

We can't leave the grocery store until they both get a turn to ride Sandy. 

Cookie monsters

These two LOVE girl scout cookies. I can use girl scout cookies to bribe them to do anything. Here they're gobbling up my fave new flavor Rah Rah Raisins. Our little neighbor who's a girl scout goes door-to-door with her dad every year selling cookies and since I'm all for supporting kids (my tastebuds are so caring and generous!), I buy a few boxes. My boys love them and eat them up!

WATCH: Oak eats his first sucker

WATCH: Snow! Snow!

Today the snow hasn't let up...not for a second. We have a good foot of snow on the ground. (That may not be accurate but there are drifts in our backyard and Willow can't squat to pee. That equals a foot of snow to me.) Meanwhile, our whole house is sick. Chest congestion, raw throats, runny noses...I'm wiping a different nose every couple of minutes. Poor hubby is outside shoveling while the boys and I keep warm and watch the snow fall from inside the house. I caught the boys on video...in it you can hear Oak yell "Snow! Snow!" and when big bro walks away Oak calls for him "Day Day!" and when Oak realizes I'm recording him you can hear him say "Cheeeesse". For a couple of sick boys, they have pretty good energy don't they??

Feeling like a Winter Badass Supermom

Here's my morning.... take two boys to the store because I'm out of Everything important to eat in this house. Obstacle 1: It's 9 degrees outside. Obstacle 2: Both boys are sick. Obstacle 3: Ice on ground, blowing snow in face. Obstacle 4: Gotta fill up gas tank because gas is dirt cheap right now. Obstacle 5: I'm sick (new cold) and have maybe 40% hearing in both ears and my nose is simultaneously clogged and running. And go.
If it had been two years ago I would've died. Just lost my mind in a frozen overwhelmed sad stupor. I remember thinking during our first winter here 'HOW do people live like THIS?? These people are NUTTY to live in such cruel wretched weather." Now I'm am proud to say I'm accepting, adapting and overcoming these tough wintry elements and I feel really really good about that. Don't get me wrong, I still HATE these winters. I think February is the month that God completely forgot. In fact, I would go so far as to say that February is straight up the devil's work. They HAD to put Valentine's in this month because otherwise Northerners would kill everyone. I think chocolate sugar highs, gifts and love notes help us regain our sanity during what is unequivocally the worst four weeks of the entire year.
So anyway, back to my morning...  Here's my street:

 Nice huh. That's all icy slickness on the road there. A little pressure on the accelerator and the tires spin without traction. My boys are in the backseat and in a few min I have to walk them through an ice/snow covered parking lot into the store where we'll spend the first 10 minutes taking off all the shit that we have to wear to not die outdoors. Side note: the shopping carts up here need a Texas-sized upgrade. After putting Oak in the cart along with three winter coats, hats, scarves, gloves, and a diaper bag, I have enough room to buy $6 worth of groceries. I digress.
Here's the temperature gauge in my car:

That's registering a few degrees high in actuality. It was closer to 6 degrees. Tomato Tomahto, both suck. So we first stop to gas up the tank.... it was painful but my saving grace was being able to sit in the car while the pump ran. Task done and not only did I survive, I was still feeling capable and ready for the next stop. We get to the Kroger parking lot and I tell Davey the usual, "get your hat on, coat zipped, seatbelt off, be ready to get out of the car quickly and carefully." Davey's efficiency determines how long Oakley and I stand outside in the cold. This morning, Davey was outstanding. And we even laughed as we half-ran half-walked through the parking lot. Thank gosh for my two sweet boys who graciously bestowed good behavior in the store. We were there a long while and they were terrific. Of course we still had our usual trail of raisins and cheerios I had to frequently pick off the floor and carry around with me until I met a trashcan but still the boys were really good and that helped me out immeasurably. After we check out, we have another 10 min round of cold weather preps before we can leave the store. I dig under grocery bags for all our winter gear and then dress the three of us all over again. Sweaters on, coats on, three hats on, six gloves on, zip three coats, car keys ready, off we go. Now here's what will blow your mind. Shopping carts don't fly. You have to push those four tiny shopping cart wheels all the way to your car. Something you don't often think about: what happens when those little wobbly wheels meet up with iced-over snow-covered parking lots. I never wondered about such a thing...at least not before moving to Ohio. It's actually a fascinating moment. You're a lot like an itty bitty mouse who captured a giant chunk of cheese way too big and immovable that you may never get it back to your mouse hole to enjoy it. You got your cart full of well-picked groceries that you just paid for and all you have to do is get that payload to your car... oh but it's stacked on four of the most rickety unbalanced wheels ever and you have to push them through piles of snow and ice. Oh and more snow is falling so you're getting wet and so are your groceries and so are your precious kids whose noses are bright red and their eyes have glazed over. In this moment, I promise you your first instinct is to haul ass with that cart. I next promise you that is the absolute wrong move. You have to fight the urge to drive the cart like it's open wheel racing in Indy 500. In this case, steering and controlling the cart is crucial just so you don't smash into a car or another shopper. Most people around you have their heads down, hats pulled low and they're walking fast so it's kinda on you to not slide and bash them.
Here were my boys after we made it to our car without a single issue like frostbite or a cracked egg:

After two horrendously brutal sub-zero snowfall-record-setting winters here, I think I've finally mastered the wintry weather/shopping cart challenge. It's one of many inconvenient chores that just goes with living outside the South. People around here deal with it. People adapt to it. And amazingly so have I. As silly as it is, it sorta makes this Texan gal feel ten feet tall and bulletproof. So bring it Winter... I got this now. (Hurry the hell up March)

How we roll

This is how we shop... Transformer rides shotgun.

Cowboy pajamas make us happy

I wish I hopped out of bed with this kind of energy. Oaks is high steppin around in his cowboy pjs this morning. Not sure exactly why...if it's the hair, his sublime happiness, or those little man pajama he's wearing... but I think this squishy ham of mine is the cutest thing everrr. I want to eat him up!

Valentine's con mis tres amores

For Valentine's Day mis tres amores took me downtown to the conservatory. Boy was it a great day to go since it was a freakin blizzard outside. Being inside this beautiful plant museum with its warm humidity and frangrances....it was wonderful. The boys fave display is the little train that zooms through tiny cottages. That's what Davey is looking at in the picture where I'm holding him up on my shoulder. Their second fave spot is of course the fish... giant koi that swim in a little pond in the pacific island exhibit. And Davey was super happy to shred the coat and long sleeve shirt and give us all the cutest gun show in his sleeveless shirt. The kid is a true Southerner...he wants to wear sleeveless shirts and shorts every day of the year.

Dream about stars...

So our sweet sweet Davey Tre has a very sentimental side. Here is a conversation he and I had in his bed a night ago that made me melt:

ME: "Dream about stars." (I've always told him this before bedtime. But this time he had a different response than 'ok'.)

TRE: "Mommy, no. I want to dream about something different. I mean I'll still dream about stars but I'm also going to dream about you. I want to dream that you and me are under the twinkling stars and we're with each other."

ME: "Oh I love that!"

TRE: "Yea so that way even though you're in your room sleeping and I'm in my room sleeping, we can still be together."

And cue those joyful mommy tears

3 2 1 Blast off

Davey Tre is watching a rocket about to blast off on the NASA channel. He thinks it's cool that the rocket is named Falcon which reminds him of the superhero with red wings who has the same name. When the countdown began and the rocket boosters exploded and then it lifted up Oakley got super excited pointing and yelling at the tv. He was glued to watching every replay of the launch. Step aside Elon Musk. My boys got space exploration covered in about 30 years.

My shopping buds

There was a time I wished I could go grocery shopping alone, sans kids, because I would enjoy the peace and calmness of leisurely perusing every aisle while reading every label and taking all the time in the world to pick out shampoo or soap or pizza... but not really anymore. Now when I shop alone I'm kinda bored and I miss having these two cute little sidekicks. In all seriousness though, shopping with them is a multi-tasking challenge like none other. It's like being stuck in a room with a ticking bomb and you have to use whatever random items are in front of you to save yourself and stop the bomb. All the while trying to remember what things you need for taco dinner, checking your coupons and remembering whether you also need to grab eggs, hair spray and toilet paper. Meanwhile tick tick tick boom Oakley starts wailing. ..like people outside the store can hear this scream it's so horrible. And I'm clawing in my bag to find whatever snacks or toy or object will make the screaming stop. If there's nothing then I have to leave the frozen foods or whatever section I'm in and schlep our rolling siren to the other side of the store to grab some snack food off a shelf and open it right there in the store to silence my son. Then I spend 90% of the rest of the time picking raisins and giant cracker crumbs off the floor because we look like Hansel and Gretel lost in the forest. (Side note: unintentionally I know all the trashcan locations in Kroger, Target and Meijer and they're all filled with my sons' snack trash.) Davey Tre is a big help sometimes but the other day he was being kinda crazy playing with a small toy he got from school and he accidentally threw it under one of the giant store shelves...way outta reach. He was sad and I was mad. After lecturing him about good vs bad behavior and telling him the toy was gone forever I felt sad for him. I walked to the brooms, grabbed a long one and walked back to where this stupid tiny plastic superhero lay in dirt and gunk that's probably been there for years and got down on my hands and knees and used the broom to swipe him out. The shit we do in a store with kids. But I still swear that shopping without them is no where near as enjoyable or entertaining! I wish they stayed this size forever! 

 

Seeing Niagara Falls Frozen!

Hubby had a hankering to see Niagara Falls frozen in winter and suggested we take a little weekend road trip to Canada. The boys and I were in and super excited, naturally. We drove up Friday night in good weather but woke up in our hotel Saturday morning to blowing snow from a winter storm. Luckily, the storm eased up and we were still able to walk outside along the falls for a while. The falls are breathtakingly beautiful when they're covered in massive ice formations. It was worth seeing it up close....until parts of us turned numb and then we bolted inside. The big bonus was that we got a hotel with an indoor waterpark and arcade so we had fun stuff to do INDOORS. We drove back home Sunday afternoon in another pretty big winter storm. Our car was covered with a thick layer of ice... it was wicked. But snowplows were everywhere salting and clearing roads. I think we all have a better appreciation for the beauty and seriousness of winter... and for living 350 miles south in Ohio where temperatures were only in the 40s.

The view from our hotel room. You can see the American falls (smaller mist cloud to the left),
and the horseshoe falls (bigger mist cloud to the right). Most of the river is covered with that thick white ice.

Monkey is standing beside our open hotel window. Thank goodness for those bars!

Closer view of the American Falls. Hard to tell from pic just how massive it is.
There are people up top standing right along the edge of the river but they're
so tiny you can hardly see them. 

Looking farther down river...as you can see it's solid ice.

The boys all have their swimsuits on...we're walking to the waterpark.

Monkey looks good in a bikini  ;)

Seriously, it was so great to get to do this during February. A little water slide action is
great therapy for those winter blues! That's Davey Tre and me holding hands while sliding.

Arcade time! Oakley is playing Wack-a-Shark.

Big D has both boys in his lap and they're driving a racecar.

We're walking along the river to see the horseshoe falls up close.
Oakley is having the time of his life. Or not  :)  Actually he's just tired.
He fell asleep on me while we were walking out here.

We're getting close to the edge of the giant horseshoe falls. Check out the ice formations along the side there.
The mist floats out onto everything and then freezes making very cool formations.

This is looking down river from the top of the falls. That ice on top of the river is at least three to four feet high.

The edge! There's a four foot high railing between us and the falls. That's it.
It's pretty amazing to get to stand this close. Freaky and a little terrifying too.
We watched giant ice chunks float to the edge and then plunge over.
We're still wondering what happens when fish do that. Do they survive?

This is the edge right here above this dotted line-------------------
And you can see pretty far down the river...most of it frozen over covered in that huge ice.

And we're done.
These two frozen faces were born in South Texas...this is all the Canadian cold we can take.
Plus we're getting pelted with sleet and our legs are numb.
So we bolted inside a souvenir shop to warm up and my sweet sweet hubby walked all the back
by himself to get the car and come pick us up. Our hero!

WATCH: Boys at hockey game

We took the boys to the Blue Jackets game last night...had a blast. Davey Tre got pretty excited about the Zamboni...the machine that comes out on the ice to resurface the ice. Zamboni is the word he's saying over and over again in this video...and Oakley is just happy to be in the middle of it all.

 

WATCH: Driving Grampa's Tractor

When we were in Corpus Christi, my Pop taught Davey Tre how to drive his tractor and operate the bucket. They scooped and dumped and scooped and dumped... and it looks like Davey Tre is getting the hang of it. Now he says he wants to "go back to Texas and drive Grampa's tractor again!"

Winter storm watcher

Little man is watching the snow fall...from where it's toasty warm!

Baby wearing

I'm wearing this little dude because he won't let me finish dinner. So he's strapped to my back so I can cut up some onions. He's so cute!