The Christmas Blizzard

'Twas the night before Christmas, and Danny was a tired boy. After partying with Grammy, parents, brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins his eyes were a bit droopy. But his stocking was hung by the chimney, and he was really hoping that all the teasing he'd been given about being on Santa's naughty list was not true.

Santa was tracked on Norad throughout the day Christmas Eve. Once Rudolph's nose hit the Pennsylvania area, the boys decided they didn't want to cut it too close and headed off to bed. It's a good thing that Santa Claus had Rudolph this year to guide his sleigh, because the heavy snow and hurricane speed winds were a real deterrence for their visit. Thanks to Rudolph's shiny nose he came. Santa came just the same. The foul weather and near foot of snow may not have stopped Santa from landing on our rooftop, but our blizzard made it impossible for my family to receive visitors or to venture out on Christmas Day, or Boxing Day for that matter. We were snowed in.

This is our air conditioner unit after we dug out the back door. Yikes, we couldn't get out the back door until it was dug out. Good thing our front door is much higher off the ground.

And this is the drift that locked us inside. It's more than 3 feet high, oh my!!!

It was just the seven of us and Joe's roommate (and longtime family friend) Derek for the day.










The boy's seemed to get everything they wanted and then some. It was (almost) comical watching the younger boys open boxes with clothing, Christmas Story style, and throw the well-intentioned garments over their shoulders in anticipation of a better packed gift. Brats!!!










After gifts were opened, I put the turkey in the roaster and then we enjoyed a brunch of cinnamon rolls, egg/ham/cheese casserole and oranges. After brunch, I put the ham into the oven and we spent some time hanging out, playing new Wii and DS games and listening one of Rick's new CDs, "Spirited Away". Very different.









We had a full scale dinner in the late afternoon/early evening. The menu: turkey, baked ham, mashed potato casserole, gravy, green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, pumpkin and pecan pies. I think I was too busy either cooking or relaxing to take pictures of the food. But rest assured, we ate very well, but missed family that would have joined us if the weather had been better.

I hope you and your family had a very Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve 2009

Christmas Eve arrived with rain, lots of rain. The rain soon turned to freezing rain and then drizzle and finally a steady supply of sleet. Despite the winter storm warning, my mom, brother, sisters, brother-in law, nephews and niece arrived for a fun gathering.







Left: All Lauren wants for Christmas is her two front teeth. What a cute smile for a six year old.

Center: The Fabulous Four at our tree. Daniel is not into pictures on this day if you haven't noticed.
Right: Joe and Richard enjoying the evening.

Left: Mom opening her traditional box of candy. We also loaded her up with iTunes card to update the iPod.
Center: Santas Kevin and Robert
Right: Raymond, Kevin, Daniel (the night's drama king) and Lauren ready for their main event. Notice the pile of presents!!!!!

There was a lot of good food.






The stars of the table; on the left: Ellie's mushroom spread, my caramel popcorn and nuts, and Mom's pumpkin roll
Center: Steve, Lauren and Daniel enjoying the spread. At the end of the table is the my cherry cheesescake
Right: Ellie's mushroom spread and Joe's mexican-style 7-layer dip






We were missing Christy, Ryan, Allen and Katie. So we made phone call to Hawaii so at least Christy could join us.


Sheila, Ellie, Robert and Anne

Somewhere in all the fun, the snowstorm changed over to a blizzard. Getting home was an intense experience for all of our dear guests who set out to make it home before Santa arrived. It took my sister and mom an hour and fifteen minutes to make a usually 20 minute trip. We are talking near zero visibility. Robert ended up spending the night at Mom's.

Another Day of Melting

I could get used to this. The other day I was wishing that the patio furniture was still out, and today I am feeling the same way. The melted snow left a vision of brown grass on the lawn. I could get used to the warm, but since winter is only a week old here, I am not holding my breath. I ended up taking a walk, but it ended up being a bit muddy with all the melting happening.

Anne and Kevin left today and the house was quiet for about three hours until Joe and Steven returned from their time away. Joe was visiting his dad with a few of his siblings and Steven was visiting with his Grammy.

A Wet White Day

Joe left very early this morning to visit his dad in Oklahoma and left in the middle of a thunderstorm that soon turned to ice and snow storms. I was thinking we may be in trouble as soon as it was light because the rain that was coming down was freezing as it was so cold on the ground. Often that is what happens before the power lines go down and we are out of electricity for hours or sometimes days. Since we bought the new generators after last year's ice storm, I think we may never have to use them. It is funny/strange how that is how it works sometimes.

While we enjoyed the snow coming down, my sister and I pretty much just sat around and visited. The weather let up just in time for the road crews to clear the roads before my son Joe had to go to work. The boys were trying out more of their new Wii games and we watched new movies.

Good-bye November

There are just 25 days until Christmas. There is snow on the ground, which has been a great thrill for the boys, and for Daniel especially. The boys went out to catch snowflakes last night before bed and then played in the snow today. The snow was pretty wet, so it made some good snowballs. They cleaned off the patio furniture and then made paths in the snow in the yard. Oh, and they did get to sip on cocoa when they came in to get warmed up.

The major part of my Christmas shopping is done. I put the last order in yesterday. I just have a few things to pick up for my team at work and the boys' school gifts and then just a few small finishing touches that are more fun to do when shopping. The little boys also need to shop for their brothers, so Joe or I will take them out to do that soon. I have had plenty of years where I waited until December weekends and more often I had waited until my Christmas break to do the bulk of my shopping. Last year's ice storm knocked out a lot of my shopping time as we spent two weeks before Christmas dealing with electricity and heating issues, so I wanted to make sure that being unprepared with shopping was not repeated this year. Two years ago I had all of my big shopping done the first week of December, but I procrastinated on the finishing touches and the wrapping until my break. I know I don't want a repeat of that either.

Still on my to do list:
( )Finish up Christmas cards
( )Order pictures online
(X)Wrap 24 Christmas themed books so that the little boys can unwrap 1 book each night to read until Christmas as a countdown
(X)PTO agenda for meeting this week
(X)Let family know about plans to pick up tree Wednesday evening
( )Plan for cookie baking
(X)Check calendar for parties and programs

Friday is finally here

This winter weather is really affecting my mood. We had one day this week that would really be considered okay weather. Next week is supposed to be better, but we have to make it through a cold, wintry Friday and Saturday before the warm-up. I can make it through this. I can make it through this. It snowed all morning, but didn't have much as far as accumulation. In fact the streets never did get any coverage. Next Tuesday they are forecasting 62 degrees. Since it only got up to 22 degrees today with 10 degree wind chill, I really will have to feel it to believe it.

Snow Day

The phone rang this morning at 4:33 a.m. It was the counselor from my school starting our limb of the phone tree. As soon as I had pushed the off button of my home phone, my cell phone beeped to signal I had received a text. I pulled my cell out of my purse and read that my son's school was cancelled for the day as well. I called the next person on my school's calling list and got an answering machine, left a message and then went down the line to call the next sleeping individual. As a teacher, I meet a snow day with mixed emotions. First is the initial joy of having a bonus day off, a holiday of sorts. Then comes the realization that lesson plans are going to have to be shifted and meetings are going to have to be rescheduled. Then my mind reverts back to that childish instinct, "But it's a SNOW DAY!!" So I can go back to bed and sleep in for a while, or get up and start my day home with the kids. Or, as I did on this snowy February morning, both.

So what do I do when given a day of extra time? I have actually cleared my desk. That is a feat. I have started tax preparations, but need to have uninterrupted time to finish. I have put all of my scrapbook supplies into groups of like items into drawers in my file cabinet. I have boxed up some craft supplies to drop off next week, and put ones that I want to use, but are not scrapbook supplies, into a tub and inventoried the contents.

Over the course of the day I have been a momma penguin, bird, rabbit and fox. Daniel has been the baby of each said animal throughout the day as well. He loves to pretend he is some kind of animal and I am always his momma.