This All Seems Vaguely Familiar

Well. It has been a long time. It has been so long that I honestly and truly forgot my blog's password when I tried to start this post. I had to go through an entire process of resetting it and it was nearly enough drama to cause me to just give up (why are there SO many crazy steps?!) I had my password (or what I thought was my password) saved in a safe place, but apparently I had changed it at some point because clearly it did not work.

ALL of that to say, we're back! At least for the moment. Life will get hectic again and we all know what that means for my poor, neglected blog.

We are on Day #4 of Icemageddon. I crack up every time I see or hear that term. But it is true! Four full days of North Texas being "entombed" (another fun word I heard on the weather channel) in ice makes for quite a blog post! The streets and highways are covered in inches of solid ice. Temperatures have not been above freezing since Thursday night. School was cancelled again today (Monday) because while things began to melt a bit yesterday, it refroze last night, making travel very dangerous. Reminds me of a very similar situation. And then I just died remembering this one - how it seems like yesterday! Can't believe it was almost three years ago.

The storm rolled in late Thursday night into the early hours of Friday morning. Luckily we were able to squeeze in a choir performance Thursday evening before it got bad! 

Lauryn joined 4th grade choir this year and is absolutely loving it. She sang a solo in their first performance! She sings all the time, so we knew the performance songs well before the actual performance. But it was still so much fun to watch! 

Here she is getting ready to leave for the show! 

So glad she was front and center! I felt bad for the parents of those kiddos in the back row. :(

Anyway, Thursday night brought the much anticipated "winter blast". The storm didn't bring any fun, fluffy snow. It was freezing rain and sleet. We woke up the next morning to a solid sheet of ice. The girls couldn't wait long enough to get dressed - they HAD to get out there! So we had nightgowns layered with pajama pants and Allie figured Daddy's boots were just as good as hers. 

It was Lucy's first experience with winter weather! We got her from a lady in Houston, so I know she had never seen snow or ice before. She ran laps around the yard and kept trying to chew on chunks of ice! She went outside every time the girls went out and loved every minute of it! 

Friday morning I found him in the garage building a sled with metal runners. I knew that we were about to make some serious memories :) 

I am so frustrated that I didn't think to turn the camera the right way before filming this video. Just turn your head (or computer) to the side to get the full effect :) 

Our street probably had at least 2 inches of solid ice on it. If we had ice skates, it would have been no problem to literally skate up and down the street. The sled was perfect and all it took was one big push for the girls to just slide down the street...laughing all the way. 

Ha Ha Ha.

(sorry, I had to do it)

Eating icicles, of course! 

I found them like this one afternoon and wished, yet again, for time to stand still.

Since I started working full time, I have been on auto-pilot for the past several months. Each day has its own, predictable routine. The weeks and months are flying by. I began to feel a little holiday stress when December 1st rolled around. This is when I would have normally done my shopping, baking, wrapping, etc. Instead I didn't think things through and was truly wondering how I was going to possibly get everything done before Christmas. I was truly missing my "alone" time to get things done while the girls were in school.

We are now well into day #4 at home together. I honestly don't want it to end. After the last two weeks of stressing out and worrying about when I would have time to do the things I wanted, I didn't realize that what we really needed was time to do absolutely nothing. No school. No work. No stressful commute. No shopping. No rushing. No cleaning (although I'm breaking down today and mopping these floors). What we all really needed was to just be home together. Taking a break from the routine (and stress) of homework and cooking dinner and practicing spelling and piano and logging reading hours. Time to laugh together, watch movies together, and make new memories together. I couldn't have asked for a greater Christmas gift than these 4 days at home! 

It was just what we all needed.