Snow. and Snow.

Yesterday Nate left at 5am to catch a cab. A cab to the airport. To catch a plane to SanFran and then on to Shanghai. This morning at 10am we videochatted with that fool who'd stayed up until 11pm after traveling halfway around the world, just to say good morning to us. He'll be gone a week, and we already miss him around here, but it sounds like he is going to have a really great trip, and we should be able to talk a few more times throughout the week. Thank goodness for Google videochat.

Also this morning at 9am, it started snowing. Just flurries at first, I thought it wouldn't add up to much of anything. Then it picked up, and kept snowing the whole entire day long. After lunch I took the little one outside to play. We walked down to the mailbox, picked up the mail and stuck it in the back of babygirl's sled. Her gorgeous little wooden sled on metal runners that her Great-Grandpa Troutman made. Made from a sled that was Grandma's when she was a little girl. So it's a pretty special sled. And she absolutely loves it. Sitting in the sled, walking in the snow, eating the snow... she seems to be a cold weather girl.

Catching snowflakes on her tongue.

Now she's down for the count and I've cozied myself up on the couch for another evening of solo TV watching. Though I've cut myself off from doing anything like watching 4 episodes of Criminal Minds right before going to bed... I couldn't fall asleep for anything last night. Every little noise I would open my eyes, all "oh NO! It's an intruder! A rapist! A murderer! A kidnapper!" Normally I can watch things that freak me out, and then later when I start to get all pathetic and creeped out I just scoot over to Nate's side of the bed and while he doesn't wake up, he's still enough to reassure me that I just have an overactive imagination, and that everything is normal and fine and okay and it's just the wind, for crying out loud. But not last night. I was all on my own. So tonight it's just straight home renovation shows. Maybe a little Hoarders. Those will let me sleep.

And now, even though it's kind of chilly in here, I've got a hankering for some ice cream. So I am about to go serve up some mint chocolate chip and I will leave you with some comparison pictures.

Making a snow angel on patio table last March.

Making a snow angel today... though I did still have to move her arms and legs.

Last year she wasn't so sure about the whole idea of snow.

This year she looooooves it.

Oh, and PS? The girl is 15 months old today. 15 whole months. She's got her checkup on Monday, so be prepared to be regaled with all sorts of stats and percentiles as to just how tiny she still is.

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Lame.

I don't even want to try to make excuses. Two months? Pathetic.

And we've done so much and been so many places, I'm hesitant to even try to write a catch-you-up-on-our-lives entry. Soooo. Let's do a quick recap of the last two months. Thanksgiving in MA. Came home, set up our Christmas tree and did our little Christmas #1 here at home with just the three of us. Went to PA to visit family and have Christmas #2. Then we came home and were here for all of a week before we took off again to visit family in ID, where we stayed for nearly 3 weeks of good times and loads of food. That included Christmas #3. Also New Year's. Also, a ski trip to Montana, during which I left my little chickadee with her grandparents and spent four WHOLE DAYS doing nothing but drinking tea and reading by the fire and not worrying about if the baby was about to wake up from her nap and end my quiet. Finally came home in January and we were here all of what, a week and a half before we took off for the Poconos for a weekend for Christmas #4 with the Grimes side of the family. Ended up taking 2 siblings home to VA with us, Erin and Jonny were here with us all last week, which was really fun. Then this past weekend was the March for Life, which meant various members of the fam were independently coming to DC. Heather came and stayed here for the weekend, and Mickey stopped by for dinner on Saturday. Yesterday after Mass and a lovely coffee date with some Walkers everyone left for their various homes, and we are back down to just the three of us. It is quiet.

So that brings us up to today. Not the most riveting paragraph I've ever written, but it covers the basics of what has happened in the past two months.

Now to begin writing about the banalities of everyday life again. To start with, my child has an inSANE love of bananas these days. I mean, she wakes up and we go down to the kitchen, she just starts in with "Nana? Nana? Nana?! Nana! Nana!" until she's got the banana in her hot little hands. Then she eats the entire thing in like 2 minutes flat and starts asking for more. I think the girl would eat an entire bunch of bananas if I let her. It's fairly hilare.

Also, she has started doing this little fakey cry whenever anybody else is sad... I first noticed it yesterday when we were at Mass. There was a little boy a few pews behind us who was getting kind of cranky, and when he would start to cry, Fiona would glance up at me or Nate and make a little pout face and start to whimper in empathy. Then last night we were playing with a little Fisher Price girl, I would balance her on my knee and Fi would knock her down, I'd say "Oh no, she fell!" and Fi would start to do these fake little sobs until I said "She's okay!" It's so cute.

In baby #2 news, we've had the midwaypoint ultrasound, and everything is looking good. I'm at about 24 weeks now, and starting to really feel pregnant. I've got the obvious pregnant belly now, which makes me happy cause I no longer just look like I'm getting kinda chunky. I've also been having the whole charlie horse thing, which is not so awesome, along with the various aches and pains that are still more annoying than actually painful. BUT I also get to feel the baby move and kick ALL THE TIME, and he/she is still small enough that its not painful yet. So that's awesome.

Annnnnd that's all I've got time for, kids. Backyardigans is over. My blog writing window is closed. Now I've got to get to playing with this little monster, hopefully get some errands done, blah blah etcetera, boring things. Peace out.

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