Brrrrrrr....

Winter has definitely arrived and after Christmas it is more than welcome to leave! I'll take 2 more weeks of the white stuff but that's it!!! I felt like a kid last night excited about all the snow we could get and the schools had 2 hour delays. Alex is travelling and I knew it'd be a big one...it always snows big time when he's not home to shovel. The meterologists suggested we'd get 6-10 inches overnight and blowing snow all day. I woke up early to watch the news this morning and saw the schools were cancelled for the day. I was excited to find out how much snow b/c surely it was enough to cancel school!! I looked out and sure enough there was about 8 more inches. Then reality sunk in...I had to work today. So, I peeked out the window hoping the snow drifts were tall enough that I'd be blocked in and could stay home today. But to my surprise, my driveway was cleared...the Snow Plow Fairies (our neighbors) cleared my driveway and I had no excuse to play hooky!! The roads were not great, I used our 4WD on the 4Runner and lots of people were getting stuck on the side roads.

Sidenote: Schools were cancelled not b/c of the amount of snow, but for the dangers of the blowing snow and whiteout conditions. This is Minnesota!!!

Evan too was excited about all the nose.... pronounced " NO-se". He tends to flip syllables....snow...nose

Since Thanksgiving, we've been busy playing and hanging out with friends and enjoying the holiday season. Austin kicks off the holidays with many celebrations. In my last post, we went to the Christmas in the City "festival" where they had a lighting ceremony for all the downtown Christmas lights. Each day last week, the city put on activities in different areas, i.e. Christmas in the Northwest, Christmas in the Northeast and Christmas in the Southwest. All the businesses the respective areas had various activities for the kids. Culver's (Burger/Frozen Custard joint) had live reindeer, Applebee's face painting, sleigh rides, etc.

Well we did Christmas in the Southwest on Thursday where we had photos with Santa and a small petting zoo outside my favorite store Sterling Main Street Gifts. It's like Pier One meets Steinmart (without clothes) meets Michaels meets Starbucks meets the Dollar Store meets McDonald's Play Area. Seriously it's a mini grocery store with pharmacy, furniture, kitchenware, candles, scrapbooking/knitting, toys, coffee and ice cream parlor, dollar store section and best of all it has a play area for the kids. It's great...they even sell Crocs!!! It's Evan's favorite store too because he loves the "Choo-Choo"---they have the full Thomas the Train play table.

It was nearly blizzard conditions but we made it and Evan was happy to show his shoes to Santa. Evan was just proud of his dirty sneakers that he wears everyday! So our photo is him pulling on his pant leg showing St. Nick his shoe. Maybe Evan really does want new shoes, or Santa thinks he NEEDS them! Anyway, Evan got three boats from the big guy and plays with them everyday. He'd be happy if that's all he gets for Christmas!!

On our way out of the store, they had three sheep, rabbits, chickens and a donkey. Evan fell in love with the "Baa". Evan does not call animals by their proper names, but by their sounds. He know what a cow says "Moo", but yet he calls it a "Moo".


So, yesterday we drove back to our favorite store to pick up some paper. I'm driving through the parking lot in the snow and Evan points to the front of the store saying "Baa! Baa!" I was speechless....how does he know where we are in the car?! I didn't have that much perception at 16 when I got my driver's license!! (some would say I still don't!) But, he remembered and now more than ever is it his favorite store...baas and choo-choos!!!

I'm just amazed at his ability to catch on to things so fast. I'm sure it's expected but as a first time mom I like to think he's a little genious!! Another recent moment was when we opened his Little People Nativity Set and he pointed to the angel and said "Angel" before we could tell him.

He's our little genious and it's so much fun watching him grow up... we love every moment...genious or not!!!!