Before and After

********It was rather surprising yesterday to observe what happened to our neatly plowed driveway in about a two hour period. The west wind decided to blow the fresh new top snow, therefore causing our north/south driveway to become a convenient snow depot. Thankfully, Chris Schwartz came several hours later with his plow and opened it back up - not without getting stuck 3x first. The snow in front of his plow got so high that it pulled him off center. Anyone want to come for a visit? The snow is so inviting....... ;)

Measuring up

We had our annual measuring of height for the kids today. Everyone grew at least 1.5 inches, but one grew 3.5 inches! The winner this year is:

ISAAC

He is 5 ft. 3.5 inches! Taller than his mom now. That doesn't take

much, though. The wall he is standing against has an accumulation of measurements since 2005. It's fun to see how much they've grown.......not sure what I'll do when it comes time to repaint the room!

Snow + Boy + Energy =

Jacob in the fort/tunnel he made.

Jacob scooping snow in front of the garage. Isaac shoveled the other half earlier.

And then he came in the house and worked on a k'nex roller coaster

Another snow day!

The trees in our back yard.

The kids are out of school today! Exciting for them now, but likely another story come June when they they have extra days to make up (they are up to two). The original last day of school was May 29th.
Jacob went out with a yard stick and measured some areas of the snow (as you can see in the pictures below).
Not so exciting for Rebekah. A snow day doesn't affect a homeschooler! Being homeschooled has its perks, but a snow day isn't one of them!!

We're Moving Up!

Wow! I did it! I managed to get a blog spot set up! Now we are looking forward to sharing a bit of our lives with family and friends. I was inspired to create a blog spot after discovering and reading bits and pieces of other distant relatives and seeing how this form of media can make family such a part of our long-distance lives. There has been many a time when I wish I could just 'drop in' on one of my sisters to help her in some way or that we could borrow from each other when we know something the other has that we need right now! Well, I still can't do that on here, but at least you can feel like you have been over and maybe someday...someday....when you've upgraded on your computers, I can do the same :)
For now though, I'll start with what is going on around here this cold January day (18 degrees!)

Our front lawn.

Rebekah doing a rollerblade jump in the basement.

Tyler Schwartz, Ethan, and Stuart Schwartz having fun in the basement (we are babysitting the boys over the weekend).