We had to get out of the house on Saturday so we went to the Velvet Mill, where Stonington has their farmer’s market in the winter. I had to wear the baby on my back to keep him from a) running away and b) freezing to death between the car and the door (also the mill is huge and drafty and most people didn’t even take off their hats and scarves inside). When I have a baby on my back my photography really suffers – he’s wiggly and throws himself back if he can’t see what I’m looking at, it’s hard to carry my camera strap on my shoulder when the carrier strap is in the way, and crouching down/bending over is hard when your balance is being thrown off by 28 lbs. But I still managed to take a few pictures at the mill (plus a few after).

All that delicious farmer’s market food and my kids begged for cheeseburgers for lunch.

I am really enjoying using our stay-at-home down-time to work on my documentary photography skills. I actually signed up for a photography class specifically on that topic that starts on Monday. I’m nervous – the last time I paid for a workshop I quit after 2 weeks because I couldn’t keep up with the assignments (also I was 39 weeks pregnant), but this one was more expensive so hopefully my guilt keeps me motivated. Today we are going to leave the house even if we all freeze to death though, because these children are driving me bananas.

The kids went to school for 2 whole days this week, which was the first week back after vacation. We had Thursday off because it was snowing all day. We have Friday off because the wind is terrible and all the shoveling I did today was useless. Then it’s the weekend again. Hopefully by Sunday we can go back to our regularly scheduled activities because this house is starting to feel REALLY small. I might have ordered 12 different kinds of organizing storage container today because if I have to be trapped inside all the time at least it’s going to be in a clean house.

Here is some of what we did today.

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Merry Everything! We had a lovely holiday here in New England. A Christmas Eve pouring rain turned into a Christmas Day snowstorm so we got a true White Christmas. The snow blew in with a cold front; it’s less than 25 degrees now (and in the single digits at night) so we’ve been hunkered down inside enjoying the truly enormous and unnecessary pile of presents. My parents came up from Virginia to help celebrate and the kids we SO happy to have Mormor and Bumpa here. My dad helped me get a bunch of house and car stuff done (as usual) so the rest of our break week I can relax and just stay on top of laundry while packing up Christmas decorations. My tree was dead and out on the curb by 4 pm on December 27th. I know my Roomba is relieved – and might actually finish a cleaning cycle without needing me to empty all the pine needles out of the bin.

We had a stroke of good luck with Navy scheduling and E was able to be in port on Christmas Day so he watched everyone discover their Santa presents via Facebook messenger video. It might be the last time we get to talk to him before he comes back (which is still months away) so it was a very nice treat. He was a little bummed not to have matching pajamas or a delicious beef roast with us, but we’ll make up for it next year.

Please enjoy many, somewhat blurry photos of our day.

Please note Caroline’s shirt in the above photo: it says “Young, Scrappy & Hungry”.

We had 6 inches of snow on Saturday, which was beautiful but incredibly inconvenient. It ruined my long-planned styled photo shoot with a whole bunch of very cold children, and then the roads were terrifying when Caroline and I attended the Nutcracker. I hate driving in the snow, even after a decade in New England. But we made it and had a lovely time. The boys stayed home with a babysitter – Evan was so excited to “get babysitted”, for some reason he thinks that’s the coolest – and she reported they were great. I guess I’ll know if she’s telling the truth if the next time I text her she’s unavailable forever. The roads were clear and the snow was still on the trees on Sunday, so we went back out to get a photo for the back of the Christmas card.The kids are hoping this is the start of a very snowy winter, which I am totally ok with as long as from now on I don’t have to leave the house during the storm.

Here’s an update in photos of what we’ve been up to in the past few weeks.

Poor Finnegan had his regular check-up this week, and what I thought was just a baby cold had turned into a double ear infection. You’d think a baby in that much pain would complain, but he’s just been a boogery ball of sunshine (except when you put him outside in the snow)(he haaaates the snow).

Caroline does not hate the snow.