Icestorms and Guinea pigs

Over the last couple of years I  have become very familiar with the Midwestern icestorms, and how they can shut down the entire town. It is not uncommon for work to be cancelled,restaurants to shut down or church to be cancelled. One thing I have not had experience with is the school closing procedures.  No one ever told me that if there is an icestorm in the forecast, (but at the present time it is clear outside), they will cancel school, put your 5 year old on a bus and send him home 2 hours early without contacting you.  As a mom, you are supposed to sit home and watch the news and wait for them to post a message that scrolls across the bottom of you television telling you which schools have been cancelled.  Had I known any of this, I would have been home yesterday at 2:00 instead of out trying to get some last minute Christmas shopping done.  I also would not have received a phone call from my very nice neighbor telling me that there was a little boy sitting outside on my front porch in the freezing cold.  Needless to say, today I feel like the world's worst mom.  I am just grateful that Ammon was very calm and collected about the whole situation, I am grateful that I made him memorize my cell phone number and I am grateful that he remembered it.  Thank you to my annonomous neighbor who was kind enough to help Ammon, thank you to Brittany for letting Ammon come to your house until I could get home and thank you to Tausha for explaining to me why Ammon was home at 2:30 instead of 4:00. Sometimes I feel like this whole parenting thing is a big experiment and I have been given three little guinea pigs to test my methods on.  Poor little Ammon gets to be the one who tests out everything first. Sorry buddy. I think I have school cancellations figured out now.

Redundancy

I know I have posted many, many times about the cold winters here in Iowa; but I still can't get over how freezing it is here.  This morning it was negative 3 degrees with a windchill of negative 25.  I thought I was going to get frostbite just walking Ammon to the bus stop.  Good thing I had Ammon all bundled up. (we also added gloves, boots and his coat hood.)

The good news is, by 1:00 this afternoon it is supposed to warm up to 1 degree. Something tells me they are going to cancel first recess again.

I have to add to this post that I just discovered that our heater is broken.  Of all the days for a heater to break.  It is 58 degrees in here, and dropping. We may be going to the mall today.

Smiling!

Abbi has officially started smiling this week.  I had to take about 20 pictures to get one of her smiling, thank heavens for digital cameras!  

When I first got the camera out she got really serious.

Then she started screaming.  I guess we'll have to postpone this photo shoot until tommorow.

That's almost a smile...

Finally,  there it is! 

  Mom is also smiling today because Abbi slept for 5 hours last night,  Hurray!  Now if only she could make a habit out of that...

Little Miss Crazy Hair

Our little Abbi has a lot of hair (for a little peanut) and it is naturally curly.  I haven't quite figured out how to get it to cooperate.  I do know that she already needs "hair product"  (i.e. moose, gel or hairspray) and that it looks much better with a bow or headband.  Still, her hair is pretty crazy and you never know what you're going to get.  Here are a couple of her "do's."

Headband aftermath.

Her first barrette (which barely stayed in).

Rockstar baby.

Colby likes to call this one "the Bernice."

Beanie baby.

Those crazy curls right out of the bathtub.

Colby has told me a couple of times, "you can do better than that!"  I hope eventually I will get the "girl hair" thing figured out!  Until then,  I'm sure having fun experimenting.

The windshield factor

Iowa is cold.  Somehow, even though this is our third Winter here, I had forgotten how cold it gets.  So, how cold does it get?  This was Ammon's comment at dinner last night....

"They had to cancel first recess today because there was a windshield of six..

(after pausing for a moment)... I don't even know what that means."

A windshield of six. Now that's cold.

It's always fun when Grandpa comes, when Grandma comes- HURRAY!

For the past week, we have been lucky enough to have Grandma and Grandpa Stewart visiting us.  Grandma and Grandpa came to Iowa to meet Abbi and to spend Thanksgiving with us.  We had a great time!  We spent lots of time hanging out, eating, shopping and playing.  We were sad to see them leave.

Abbi got lots of attention and was held constantly!

The boys spent lots of time with G & G wrestling, playing, talking, watching movies, and just hanging out.  Having both sets of Grandparents visit this month has been great, but it has led to more than one request to "move back to Utah." 

Thanksgiving day was a riot!  Unfortunately, I didn't have the stamina this year to cook a homemade feast.  We had dinner at the Marriot (which was excellent food- almost as good as mine!) and took the kids to see Bolt in 3D afterwards.  I was kind of sad to miss out on a home cooked Thanksgiving dinner, but it was sooo nice not to spend the day cooking and cleaning.

Saturday we went swimming at the YMCA.

I even got to take a couple of naps while G & G played with the kids.  

My parents braved the portrait studio with me and we took all three kids to get their pictures taken.  I thought Abbi looked like a little doll in her Christmas dress. (The boys also looked very handsome, but I didn't get a great picture of them)

They also braved the cold to walk Ammon to the bus stop in the morning.  I don't know who was more excited about this,  me or Ammon.

Thanks Mom and Dad for the fun visit and the great Thanksgiving.  We would love to have you come back any time.