Winter Wonderland

The first major snowfall of the season decended upon us yesterday and boy did we enjoy it!

Zach was the first home from school 2 hours early. He and a friend ( also from Florida and new to snow!) immediately jumped on the sleds I had just bought at Target that morning. At this point it had only been snowing for about an 2 hours. I was about 30 minutes away in Dartmouth, Mass getting some winter gear when the snow first started falling. It was a very scary drive home, but I just took a cue from the locals and followed in their tire tracks even if they crossed the white dotted lines. It seems that the rule is if you can't see the lines, they dont really matter!
I also only drove about 20 mph.....I figured my Florida License plate gave me a pass on that!

About 3 hours after the snow had begun falling...we've got about 3-4 inches here. It was falling at a rate of 1-2 inches an hour!

David tried to get a jump on the driveway and shoveled it off each time 3-4 inches had accumulated.

Michael and Madison had an early dismissal from school as well. They came home at about 2 pm and also headed straight out with Bren to play in the snow.

The snow stopped falling at about 10:00 pm. Here is what it looked like this morning. We got 8-9 inches in our area. It is supposed to be 39 degrees today, so I'm not sure how much will melt off. Tomorrow's high is 29 and then Sunday we should get another storm. A Noreaster this time which are usually longer and more spread out storms instead of the intense compact system that we just experienced.

The kids went to school as normal this morning! I could not believe it! I thought for sure that school would at least be delayed if not canceled, but these New Englanders are built for this kind of stuff! The roads look great this morning and the buses are running on time!
Hopefully enough snow will remain today for us to build a snowman! First I've got to venture out to find better gloves for Bren. Her's kept falling off and her little hands were freezing!

I'll post more pics of the snow as I get them!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.....

(sing it with me!)

Everywhere you go!

Take a look in the five and ten

glistening once again

With candy canes and silver lanes aglow.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Toys in ev'ry store

But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be

On your own front door.

We are a bit late this year, but we've finally got Christmas lights on the front porch!

And we went to a tree farm yesterday to pick out the perfect tree and have it cut for us. We had so much fun looking at all the different types and sizes and finally decided on this rather plump, but very tall tree.

Here she is all decked out!

And here are my oldest and youngest trying to outshine the Christmas tree!

Skunk tracks!!

We joke around that this place should be called "Skunk Island" for all the skunk we see here, both road kill and still roaming around.

There is one that lives under our trash shed beside our drive way. We've seen him twice as he's scurried back to safety when we drive up the hill to the house.

Bren now tells everyone ( I mean EVERYONE...waitresses, the pastor, her Sunday school teacher, any of Madison's friend's moms who come to pick up their daughters, the cashier at the store...absolutely everyone she meets!) that we have a "pet skunk that lives under our trash cans!"

Here is proof that he's out and about at night time!

We found lots of deer tracks too!

We woke up to what seemed to us to be a winter wonderland left behind by a blizzard....but to the locals, it was just a thin dusting that burned off by 10 am.

We had fun though!!! We explored the yard in our PJ's and winter coats looking for tracks and taking pictures of the winter magic!

Madison's friend Erin spent the night and though she was born here, was just as excited to explore as we were!

Bren has a new nick name!

Sassy Pants!!!!

It fits her so well, huh?!

These awesome sets came from the talented Brandi of Iced Couture!!

She's got lots of fabulous designs to choose from. Whether you are a "Haute Momma", a "Preschool Princess", or a if you are cute enough to wear a t-shirt that says, "Lock up your daughters", this site has something for you!

Perfect for those of you looking to put a little bling in your holiday shopping!!

And check out these blinged shoes! Have you ever seen anything so adorable!?

I've still got all of my shopping to do! How about you?

Get this kid an agent!!!

Check him out!!! I had so much fun spending time with this vivacious little boy! He just lit up the camera and really hammed it up toward the end. It was hard for me to choose a few to post here because there are so many cute shots!

Thanks Brandon and Zita for booking a session with me. I fully expect to see Brandon somewhere on the big screen one day!

Baby, it's cold outside!

I don't think there is anything quite as funny as seeing six southerners making a mad dash from the house to the van to go to church on Sunday morning when it is 21 degrees outside!

The van is just a few feet from the front door, but you would think we'd just walked 2 miles in a blizzard from the way we were bouncing up and down and rubbing our (un-gloved....ooops!) hands together once we got in the van!

We just sat there wriggling different parts of our bodies trying to generate enough heat to think clearly, way too cold to form words. I flipped the heat on to 90 degrees full blast and we sat there until the van warmed up. The teeth chattering gave way to comments of disbelief of our ability to handle the next three months!

From the still frigid back seat, Zach said, "Ok, so how are we going to get from the van into the church when we get there?!"

That comment said it all!

I guess for the next three months, our main concern is going to be how to get from warmth, through the frozen tundra and back to warmth again without getting frost bite!

Guess what we got last night?!!

Our first snow!!!
We only got about a quarter of and inch and it was gone by morning. Bren still made snow angels on the deck!

Michael found a leaf frozen solid in a piece of ice!

brrrrrrr!

We are expecting snow flurries for the next three days, but it's doubtful that any of it will result in enough to play in for long.

Christmas mini-sessions!

I thought I'd share a few from one of my recent Christmas mini-sessions.

Aren't these three kids just the cutest?

Little Cody wasn't in a smiling mood that day, but don't you just want to kiss his chubby cheeks?!