My sunshines!

See these kids?

They are my sunshines. Or my mostly sunshines or partly cloudies, because there are rainy days, of course. But I can't complain. No matter how the day unfolds, Anika and Kaden bring color to it, whether  yellow or grey.

We've been busy these past few weeks, fighting off stomach flus and colds, sinus infections, ear infections, antibiotics all around... again. Just par for the course for a family with a preschooler. Kaden's immune system is going to be impenetrable by the time he starts school!

I gave him his first haircut ever last week - and boy, did he need it! He looks so handsome with his new do! That "Doc Brown" look just isn't flattering on anyone, even Doc Brown.

Before:

After:

He looks like so grown up now!

We finally got some snow a few weeks ago. Not every place around us got as much as we did, but because of our elevation and micro climate, tucked-in, valley locale, we actually got quite a bit and it lingered. We got snowed in for three days and it. was. AWESOME! Until day four and then I was ready to leave because everybody knows that allworkandnoplaymakesjackadullboy. (Relevant: Don't teach your child the word redrum, because she'll start quietly cackling it at random... down hallways, in dark rooms... and it will creep the crawlies out of you...).

We loved our three glorious days of snow.

Anika couldn't get enough of it.  Notice she's still rocking the dress, even with all her snow gear. She is such a girlie girl!

Our awesome neighbors let us borrow their inner tube, and Anika and Ryan had a heyday.

Up the hill...

... and down the hill.

Up the hill...

... back down the hill.

She had such a blast!

Until...

Inner tube flip into a hawthorne bush. Yeowch... So Ryan carried her up the hill back home where we hung mittens and socks by the fire to dry and filled our tummies with hot (and not so hot) cocoa.

In between tubing and playing outside, we pulled from our rainy day bag of tricks for entertainment.

Can't go wrong with good old fashioned cardboard box houses:

Before I forget to post about it, we had a wonderful, relaxing, peaceful, stress-free Christmas. Ironically, the kids being sick played a part in this. Both kids had pneumonia on Christmas, which put a kink in the already pretty kinky plans of coordinating the get together of multiple families. Having all of your family (and your family's family and your family's family's family) so near is in so many ways a blessing... but when it comes to holidays, it gets a bit complicated. This year, with two wheezing, coughing, nebulizer-puffing, antibiotic-chugging kids, we just hunkered down at home for Christmas Eve, just the four of us.

It was the quietest Christmas Eve I've ever celebrated.

Both Anika and Kaden took epic length naps, as kids do when they are sick. Kaden was upstairs, and Anika just snuggled into her blanket on the couch and passed out.

We woke them up enough to eat a little dinner, get re-nebulized, left some treats out for Santa Claus, and hung some stockings with care, of course.

I do enjoy the busy hustle of a big Christmas, filled with family and friends and food. But I really, truly loved being home with just us four, creating our own, private traditions together.

Sunset, Christmas Eve

After the snow and subsequent flooding, we've had some lovely, temperate days, even some with sun! Gotta grab the rays in January/February in Oregon while you can. So what did we do? We headed to the park. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything more thrilling to a three-year-old than going to the park. 

This park is actually a playground at the local grade school that I attended. These monkey bars Anika is hanging from are one of the two original pieces still on the playground. I used to swing from those same bars when I was a girl! Anika was in heaven. And even with a cold and an ear infection, Kaden was too.

This was the first time Kaden has been to a park since he's become a stable walker. I could tell by his big grins, that he felt like such a big boy.

He went down the slide quite a few times all by himself.

Anika helped too... because that's what big sisters do!

You just can't go wrong with a trip to the park.

As we are in February now, I can feel and see the edge of Spring coming up over the horizon, even though I have no illusions that the rain isn't just right around the corner.

But we'll take the sun where we can grab it.