Who's who?

Here are my boys at 5 months old. Can you tell who's who?

The Cousins Chorus

After a 15-hour journey through the night we finally made it to Jon's parents' farm in Illinois. Jonah got straight down to business playing with his cousins. There are thirteen kids in all. Needless to say it's a little chaotic at times, but sooooo much fun. The three two-year-olds are really enjoying one another and loving doing two-year-old stuff together. They've been having long sessions of jumping up and down, yelling at the top of their lungs, and running in circles around the house. Here they are singing ABC's together.

Snowlapalooza

Here's Jonah all bundled up ready to play in the snow. He reminds me of Ralphie's little brother from "A Christmas Story".

Last time it snowed here about two weeks ago I was just barely able to buy snow gear for Jonah, but I couldn't find a sled anywhere. I started calling around looking for a sled the day before this blizzard hit and struck out again. So we resorted to using an inflatable pool toy that we had and tying a rope to it. We can't do real sledding because the snow is just too powdery, but it works pretty well on the road with "Dad power".

Here's my car all beautifully shoveled out.

But we had to sacrifice Jon's car in the process. There was nowhere else to put the snow so he just piled it onto his Tempo. I guess he'll have to take my car if he tries to make it to work tomorrow.

"Snowpocolypse"

An article on ABC.com called this weekend's snowstorm "Snowpocolypse". This type of snow is normal in Chicago, so I had no idea how debilitating it would be in this part of the country. I just figured it would be a matter of digging ourselves out and then we'd be able to go about our business. Not so. The streets are hardly plowed, if at all. None of the parking lots are plowed. It really is impossible to go anywhere. I'm sure we won't be making it to church tomorrow and who knows if Jon will even be able to get to work on Monday. We have over two feet at our house. Here's a car across the street. You can tell there's a car under there because of the side mirror.

Here's a picture of our cars during a pause in the downfall. There's more by now.

Benjamin's enjoying the view from his jumperoo in the kitchen.

Thankfully we have plenty of food in the house and we didn't have anywhere to be today. Our only problem was figuring out what to do all day. We basically just dinked around all morning. After Jonah got up from his nap we all bundled up and ventured out for a little bit. We even put Benjamin in his little snowsuit and put him in the baby backpack, but he didn't last for long. Jonah and Jon stayed out longer playing and Jon shoveled out the car so we'll be ready when the roads are passable.

Benjamin's first experience with Willie Nelson.



Yesterday when he was getting fussy this bought me a good 15 minutes of happiness.

Storytime

In continuation of my last post, here is Benjamin being completely enamored of his big brother. It was so sweet to see them "reading" together. I just can't get over how much Benjamin loves Jonah already. It's so cute to see him light up whenever Jonah's around.

Big Brothers Are Hilarious... And Moms Aren't

Benjamin is only four months old, but I think I've already been replaced as the most interesting person in his life. He thinks Jonah is hilarious. This is probably the hardest I've ever seen him laugh. These two videos are pretty similar, but I had to post them both because I thought it was funny how Benjamin gives me the same bored look at the end of each one. He cracks up at Jonah and as soon as he turns to me the grin is gone and he has this look like, "Yeah, whatever, Mom."

Grandpa and the boys

Here are the boys wearing their matching outfits on Thanksgiving Day with Grandpa. We had a great Thanksgiving with family. We drove out to Paul's house again in Ohio. It was so nice to have Jon along this time! After a full day of travel on Wednesday we all packed into Paul's mini van on Thanksgiving Day and drove the extra 3 hours to my grandparents' house near Toledo. It was so good to see them and to introduce Benjamin. Unfortunately they are not in good health and they had to wear masks. Jonah was afraid of the masks and wouldn't go near Grandma and Grandpa. It was too bad. I really thought he would be brave enough by the end of the day to go in and see them, but he was just too scared. We had a fabulous Grandma-style meal prepared mostly by my aunt, Angie. I was so amazed and thankful that she stepped up and took over and made everything like Grandma would have made it. This Thanksgiving was hard in many ways and it was comforting that at least the food was the same as always. Thanks again, Angie!

The day after Thanksgiving we celebrated again at Paul's house with Dad and Elaine. Another huge delicious meal prepared by my sister-in-law, Vashti - her first time hosting a Thanksgiving meal. She did a great job! I contributed Jello and put together the green bean casserole. Lame, I know. Well, we're hosting everyone over New Year's, so I'll get my chance do more cooking then.

Every time we see Evelyn she's more fun to play with. Here she is being easily amused by Grandpa throwing a wiffle ball against an exercise ball. Who knew that this would be so utterly hilarious to a one-year-old!

A message for Oliver