I don’t know, guys. My iPhone photos are getting worse and worse and I’m not sure this is even a thing worth posting anymore. I only do it because it seems like such a shame to quit now – I have every day of our lives since I was pregnant with CAROLINE documents in iPhone photos. But they’re not good photos. And I should really push myself to post actual content on the blog if I’m going to bother to blog at all, instead of just doing this once a week. I’m conflicted.

Sunday:

Poser

FOOTBAAAAAAALL

I am unable to stop myself from decorating for a party almost a week early

Monday:

Aspirational spring dress purchasing

Snow angels! FINALLY!

TWINNING

Tuesday:

I bought my mom fish like these at a craft fair this summer. These are at Target.

RAINBOWS AT TARGET

Important party shopping: sugar, flowers, lemons

Wednesday:

Tiny reader

Nappy time

Caroline is being supportive of Daddy’s workout

Thursday:

It is still Christmas at the florist

They both thought this was hilarious

Making caramel for the popcorn balls

Friday:

Linc and friends enjoyed the party food

We ate kind of a lot of baked goods

I TOTALLY forgot piano, but our teacher let us come late

Sunday:

Movies and house-trashing because…

…this was outside

She has given up on life because she can’t go out and build a snowman in a blizzard

We did not get the same giant storm that my parents did down in DC, but we got a few inches. The weather the rest of this week is supposed to be surprisingly warm, which means all that snow will melt and things will be boring and brown again. But it ALSO means we won’t have to sell any kidneys to afford oil to heat the house, so it’s a toss-up really. I’m still trying to find our floors after the combination of party-blizzard-snow day, because the kids seriously just destroyed EVERYTHING. It’s hard to find motivation when they’re just going to destroy stuff again.

I’ve already reached DESPONDENCE and it’s not even February. Send all the sunshine and salted caramel ice cream immediately.

January is just crawling by. It’s dark. It’s cold. The kids are making me INSANE every second they are home and not involved in a structured activity. They won’t stop torturing each other but they refuse to be separated. I feel so much sympathy for my own mother, since I’m pretty sure I was EXACTLY the same way with my sister as a child.

Sunday:

There was a thunderstorm, so Caroline tried to help Brutus be less scared

Frozen Monopoly

Linc cheering for the Golden Globes

Monday:

SURE FINE GO PLAY IPAD JUST STOP WHINING

Literally hiding from the whining

Judo time

Tuesday:

Babies who are awake at 7 have to come to the cold bus stop

Dentist sunglasses

Thank blankie is the most disgusting thing I have EVER seen.

Wednesday:

Loves swim

Love hoodies

I ordered this dress-up from China and it came in less than 2 weeks

Thursday:

Tiny sailor boy in his bunk

So cold, but so snuggly in his fox suit

By Grabthar’s Hammer, you will be missed

Friday:

Friends let friends eat their extra waffles

Piano lessons

Bored at the very busy grocery store

Saturday:

2 am. Baby screaming in my face while I try to watch Friends. #blessed

Super happy about her baby oranges

OK, I guess comforting his crying sister means he isn’t THAT much of a jerk

I have my first photoshoot of the year tomorrow and there is SNOW on the ground. I don’t know if my clients are super thrilled but I sure am. It’s going to be gorgeous. But cold. Super cold. So I plan to spend the rest of the day (no school!) hiding under a blanket while my husband (no work!) keeps the children from killing each other. Because that is what I do on the days HE has work. I AM REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.

We survived our first busy week back at real life! Almost all my pictures are of people sleeping.

Sunday:

New picture frames!

Building his – I mean EVAN’S – new Legos

Playing with Christmas presents like a big kid

Monday:

Trying to put clips in his hair, always

Naps

FORCED SIBLING LOVE IS THE BEST KIND

Tuesday:

He would have slept with that wrapping paper if I let him

It is slightly less dark when the kids get off the bus

Swinging

Wednesday:

Rainbow carwash

Finding new uses for my newborn posing beanbag

Thought process: Oh look how pretty that beam of light looks. End result: Unremarkable random photo of moldings.

Thursday:

Sleeping baby

Sad baby

Happy baby

Friday:

The cat hates being cold in the winter

Doing important baby work

MORE NAPS – we had friends over but he was so tired he ASKED for naps

Saturday:

I am SO GLAD I am not in charge of the basketball clinic

Showing off their new basketball skills

Caroline can’t hang past 8 pm.

It is now the worst part of the year, where it’s always winter but never Christmas. We haven’t had any remarkable snow yet, which would at least give us an at-home-jammies day and I could take the kids sledding to wear them out. Luckily they CLEARLY seem to be getting enough activity to be tired anyway.

There are a couple of snowflakes on my weather app for next weekend though, so I’m hopeful.

We realized this year that because of the way our summers play out, we’ll probably always do warm weather vacations with my parents and the holidays with E’s parents. That means that when we’re in Ohio it is probably always going to be cold, raining and/or snowing, and dark. We’ve made it our goal to find as much kid-friendly indoor stuff as possible. Luckily, Ohio KNOWS it is cold and dreary in the winter so they’ve made an effort to provide us with lots of options.

We visited the Richland Carrousel Park* on Monday I think. After a brief mix up with what time exactly they opened (11 am, not 10 am) we had a really fun time. A book of 50 ride tickets costs $35, so not only did all the kids (mine plus two cousins) get to ride as many times as they wanted, the grown ups got to ride too. By the end Caroline wasn’t even saying “JUST ONE MORE PLEEEEASE ONE MORE??” There were a few other people there at 11 am during school vacation but not a lot, so the kids got their pick of fun animals. It’s a really nice wooden carousel, not the ugly plastic kind we get at the local fair, which made ME like it a lot more even if the kids didn’t care.

I took way too many pictures, as usual. Between the huge windows and the lights on the carousel and the Christmas decorations still up I couldn’t stop myself.

*Their website and signs say “carrousel”. My spellcheck tells me that is not a work, and perhaps I mean “carousel”. I did, in fact, mean carousel, so I wrote carousel everywhere else in the post but I can’t do anything about their official name. According to the internet, that’s the French spelling. I guess Richland, Ohio was feeling pretty international.

I’m late again, but it wasn’t my fault this time, I was having laptop issues and my iPhone photos wouldn’t load. I know you were really concerned.

Sunday:

Annual Nutcracker Conference

You’re “welcome”.

Teaching the children naval dominance

Monday:

Pretty pleased with his own driving skills

THE FORCE AWOKE

We play a lot of cards in Ohio

Tuesday:

Child-sized hamster run was quite entertaining

No caption needed

HEY GUYS I FOUND OUTSIDE

Wednesday:

The doc is in and she’ll fix you up…

Drive thru banking is so convenient

This is what happens when I want Linc to pose for a picture

Thursday:

Cousin Christmas is a little crazy

Trouble face

More cards

Friday:

Out?

I forgot to bring my phone inside COSI, but it was REALLY fun

Disco sparkle tree

Saturday:

So many pine needles

Post-Christmas disaster house

Post-Christmas ER trip for some face-gluing

I got both big kids out the door and off to school on time with no crying and no screaming, so reintroduction to real life is going pretty well. It’s currently softly snowing outside while I drink coffee and watch Lincoln destroy the house I already cleaned once today, so my day is going well. That’s not sarcasm, that’s a perfectly lovely day with a 17 month old.

I went a little crazy signing the kids up for activities (again) because bored kids trapped in a cold house are the worst, so this week is going to be B U S Y. Let’s hope they wear themselves out too much to whine, since I am all full up of whining children after 2 weeks off school.