Long Time No See!

Yeah, I know. My efforts are very sporadic, at best. But hey, I'm still posting, aren't I?

Anyway..... We had our first measureable snow fall over the weekend. Monticello was graced with maybe 2 inches, enough to make everything icy and hard to travel. Gary was extrememly excited, and as soon as he saw we got that much snow, he wanted to go outside and play. After breakfast I dressed both boys in their winter garb (holy cow, that took FOREVER!!) and I also put on my boots and snow pants, and we headed outside. I took some plastic containers out for them to play with, and while I was shoveling our deck and sidewalk from the garage to the deck, the boys played in the snow. We have a few different shovels, so Brendan really wanted to help, and he shoveled snow from the yard back onto the sidewalk. Rather unproductive, but cute! We played outside for an hour and a half or so, and while we were out, daddy come out and used the snowblower on our parking lot, er, driveway and the main sidewalks. Brendan was fascinated, and just stood and watched.

Brendan's poor little face was bright red, so I decided to take them inside to warm up for awhile. When I took Gary's boots off, his socks were soaked. I had noticed that the boots he was wearing didn't cinch up around the calves, and his snow pants were a little short, so his boots filled with snow after his first snow angel. I got the boots from eBay, so I didn't know what they were like until I got them. So after lunch I ran to Theisens and got him new snowpants and new boots. The snowpants he had were 4T (and HUGE last year) but were too short this year. At Theisen's, they had 4/5 snowpants, and 6/7 snowpants. Not wanting to risk the 4/5 being too short, I grabbed the 6/7's. They certainly aren't too short! I actually have to put one roll in them so they're not too long. What do you do....what do you do.... His boots don't necessarily match, they're bright blue and black, and his coats is silver and black with bits of red. I guess I'd rather him have warm, dry feet, than to match perfectly head to toe.

I've been fairly lazy lately. Must be winter. Well, that and I've been icky lately, I started with what I'm assuming was a sinus infection last week, and has moved to my chest, so I've been coughing the past few days, and now my throat and lungs and stomach muscles all hurt from the constant hacking. Did some dishes and cleaned my living room yesterday, and that was it. I watched some really bad shows on E!, and just snuggled with Brendan. I only had Brendan at home, Mimi (jerry's mom) picked Gary up from preschool and took him with her for the day, so I only had Brendan from 8 until 5. It was nice; both my boys are ever so sweet when they're by themselves, and Brendan was just so happy and giggly and super cuddly by himself. He didn't have any competition for the toys, and he didn't have big brother there taking toys away from him, so he didn't have anything to get upset about! So we played and snuggled a lot yesterday.

Last night was the premier of American Idol, one of my guilty pleasures. They were at Minneapolis, and can you believe that they only chose 17 out of 10,000 to go to Hollywood. Unbelievable. I think they could find that many from Monticello alone that can sing well enough to go to Hollywood. You know a lot of them are as bizarre and "unique" as possible just so they can get their audition aired on TV.

Talk about singing..... I had my second practice with Joyful Noise Monday night, the local women's choir. I couldn't sing because of the cold in my chest, but I went because we're still reading and learning music, so I just wanted to be there. Glad I went, we got three new pieces of music. One of them we got was called Altos Lament, and I SWEAR we did that in high school, or at least read through it in high school...."Why do altos always seem to get....stuck with all the crummy parts". It's a piece that goes back and forth between the altos and sopranos. Anyone remember that??? Francie directs the choir, and she is just so fun to work with. Her energy is amazing. I'm really glad I joined. I'm not the best singer out there, but I just really enjoy singing (I'm guilty of singing balls-out in the car), and it's something that I look forward to doing each week. (I am too shy to sing by myself, but I love singing as part of a group) I've needed something to do, just for me, and for now this is it.

Today is Wednesday, and I don't have a thing planned today, or tomorrow, or friday. Or saturday, or sunday. Cleaning and movies are in my future, I guess. And some sledding over the weekend. I really wanted to get out and do something on Saturday, but my babysitter is going to be playing in an honor band that day (she plays the oboe, how cool is that??) She said she could watch the boys friday night, so I may just take her up on her offer. Hey, Lis, you busy Friday night? Wanna do Houlihan's sometime?? I haven't been there in a long time.

Hope you enjoyed my brain spew. It was quite jumbled and didn't really have any order (which is totally unlike myself), so I hope it all made sense. Have a great rest of the week! Stay warm!