I love snow!

As many of you know, we were hit pretty hard with a snow storm Tuesday night. Officially we got 12.8 inches of snow, more than Muncie has gotten in 50 years! In order to save money this winter, the mayor had announced they were cutting back on salting and plowing, particularly overtime hours and side streets. Well, I had to work on Wednesday and getting to work is a story on it's own! NOTHING had been plowed and my little Nissan Sentra just LOVED getting stuck in the intersections... scary!

I work on a very busy road and it didn't get plowed until one in the afternoon. It turns out the mayor was on vacation in Hawaii, and she got back late Wednesday. She missed out on all the fun! When I got home from work the sun was just setting and they had just plowed our road. Thankfully, our neighbor had shoveled our driveway, so I didn't have problems getting into the garage. However, after work I did have to get shoveled out of my spot and then pushed out!

Anyhow, it was just BEAUTIFUL outside when I got home and I couldn't resist some pictures. This is something that I have enjoyed since moving here!

Our little miracles!

Carter and I received an Aerogarden for Christmas. When we first moved to Indiana, we thought that we maybe would be able to have fresh herbs all year round in our outside garden, but it turns out the 4-8 inches of snow we are going to get tonight may prevent that (oh, and the cold, ice, sleet that we have been getting ALL winter may prevent it as well!) Ok, we didn't REALLY think we could do that, but we did think we could grill in the winter. So far, we haven't even been tempted ;)

Anyhow two weeks ago we planted our crops in the Aerogarden: Sage, Genovese Basil, Lemon Basil, Parsley, Thyme, Oregano, and Savory. 

Here is Carter trying to stop my from taking his picture by making a goofy face... has that EVER stopped me before?!?!?! :)

Take Two: Carter deciding which 7 of the 14 herbs to plant

After two weeks, we are seeing the fruits of our labor (or electricity bill, not sure which ;)  

The Genovese Basil is our strongest competitor so far, with the others following closely behind. I think we planted the Oregano in the rocky soil, because it sprouted up quickly and has since withered to nothing but a very small sprout. I am not sure that is the right analogy (maybe the shallow soil?), but you get the idea. We'll keep you posted on how our little babies are growing. :)

Spoons...

My last night in Philly Maddie and Evie came down in matching Wheaton shirts and tutus... very cute! 

Then I went upstairs to the CLEANED UP girls room. Evie was so excited that she had floor space, she and Jamie decided to have a hoe down and do some do-ce-do-ing. :-)  (I have no idea if any of things are spelled correctly... please forgive :)   )

Evie also did some spinning...

And after the kids went to bed, our family broke from our traditional games and played spoons. The game did get pretty vicious, but there were no broken bones... thank goodness. It was a very active and very fun change of pace from the norm! Chad, Brian, Dad and Kristie all made it to the final four, with Brian ending up winning.

Such goofballs (in a great way!)

Carter and I were fortunate to fly to Utah over Christmas to see his parents and his sister Jeanne and her family. We also got to see some of his extended family too, which was great! We had such a good time... The time was just too short! We took a few pictures on Christmas Eve and by the end of the photo shoot, we all went a little crazy! :)

Girls Nights Sleepover

Over Christmas break I visited the kiddos in Philly (and the siblings in Philly too :)  ) We arrived in Philly around the kids bedtime, and Evie immediately asked me to sleep in her room. I told her I'd think about it, and asked her where I would sleep. She told me she would clear me off a space on the floor. Well, I got up there when I went to go to bed and this is what the room looked like:

I don't think there she got around to clearing a space!

Evie and I took a self-picture in the morning...

and here is Maddie showing off her Christmas present from her lofted bed!

work and snow

For those of you who are reading this and don't know, I recently took a job at a bank. Last week during training our trainer let us go home early because of snow. I took this picture to show all of you in Cali what it's like here on a pretty regular basis: gray and dirty snow :)

Actually, you can't tell but it was snowing a lot in this picture and we ended up getting a good amount of snow, so this day ended up more pretty than "non-snowing" days. :)

catching up...

So I haven't blogged in a while, so I figured I would just post a different pic every day. Here is a picture of a BEAUTIFUL Indiana sunset we had last November. I am hoping that we get some more of these soon :)