chilly willy

Flannel PJs keep baby warm.

(Yep, those are size 18 months!)

Baby had the warmest seat in the house!

We lost power for 9 1/2 hours on Saturday. We had the fireplace on, and paired with several layers we endured until it came back on. The house got down to about 64 degrees, but it felt warmer in front of the fire. As you can see, baby took her nap with several quilts where it was the warmest while The Hater and I huddled under several quilts in our bedroom. We were really glad when it came back on.

I really wanted to get outside and take some snowy pictures, but baby's cold prevented it. We did go out on the front porch and look around a couple of times, but we didn't bundle up and pose for posterity. She was especially fussy today, too, so mostly we tried not to rock the boat.

She's taking a few steps on her own from time to time. She can take one to two on her own without wobbling, and up to five or six steps on her own if she's really concentrating. She's everywhere she wants to go if she's holding both of your hands, and a slower version of the same if she's holding just one. We're just trying to keep our socks on and enjoy sitting while we can before she's totally running everywhere on her own.

The Hater is holding his breath hoping he won't have to go to work tomorrow. We're hoping it'll be a day where we can drop baby off at day care, he can take me to work, and then come home and rest. Fingers crossed.

peek-a-boo

We've gotten about 6" of snow on top of 1" of ice. It's been coming down hard all day, but looks like it's starting to ease up. According to the local news it's done snowing, but it's still coming down at our house, albeit considerably less than it was earlier.

We lost power this morning for about 3 hours. Fortunately, this happened shortly after I got out our "bad weather box" which holds the wind-up flashlight, wind-up radio, and other exciting sundries. (We found out at the Xmas Eve blizzard that my trusty flashlight that I bought at boot camp at Ft Knox had some corroded batteries in it. We've not fixed it yet.) I pulled some other flashlights from our bedroom, and just in time. (We also have flashlights in the car and truck, if we were to need them.)

We'd made food that we could eat warm or cold, so that was set. We found batteries for the wind-up radio, but didn't play it. Our Coleman lamp was primed and ready to shine. We added another layer of clothes to everybody.

The Hater lit the pilot light to the gas fireplace yesterday. We'd read that it should still work if we lost electricity. Sure enough, when the power went out, we turned on the fire. It was a constant adventure keeping baby out of it.

After three hours the power came back on. We're ready in case it goes out again, but don't expect it to do so.

Baby was not impressed at all about losing power. I plan on getting her outside briefly for some more snow pictures tomorrow, despite her snotty nose.

Oh, by the way - in the case of power outtage our wireless internet router won't work. Although we really appreciate the emails wondering if we're okay, we have no way of checking or responding to them when the power is out. :) For those of you in LBG, we've called The Dorks every few hours to check in and let them know we're not dead.

It's headed your way. Stay warm! Get your bad weather box out now just in case...

if you're happy and you know it

I know you can't truly appreciate this through the picture above, but someone has figured how how to clap her hands. She's not doing it all the time, but you can tell she's really proud of herself when she does get them together.

reaching for the golden ring

or in Baby's case, the remotes...

shadowed portrait

We had May weather this afternoon. It was 71 degrees outside, and it just seemed wrong not to go out and play in the beautiful afternoon for a little while. Baby's teeth are bugging her, so she wasn't much in the mood for posing and playing -- but I did manage to get a fun shadow picture.

building immunity

Mommy says that eating dust bunnies

makes good roughage for my tummy.