beating the winter blahs

Yikes. I just saw that my last post was over 2 weeks ago. But I guess that's just how January is for me. Not because I'm busy, but because I have 

nothing exciting to blog about and my fingers are too lazy to type the 

pointless thoughts parading through my brain.  

For that you should be thankful.

But we have been trying our best to beat these winter blahs. Here are a 
few ways we've succeeded:

*****

Pulling a chair up to the window to stare at the snow.  

I know... sounds exciting, huh?

 But Tate loves it.  At least for a few minutes.  And Millie loves playing mommy to Tate and having him sit on her lap.

*****

Having a slumber party with our cousins and Nana and Baba.

 We all pulled up our Pillow Pets and watched "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs."

Tate did his best to bother the girls as much as possible.  Of course, he was very successful.  He's just practicing for all those girly slumber parties in our future that he'll be crashing.

(p.s... isn't that owl pillow cute?  My sister-in-law made that for us and there's an owl for each member of our family.  Usually it's taken care of much better than that... I promise!)

 Chad went to a youth retreat for two nights with my brother and sister-in-law, so my parents came up to help me take care of the kiddos.  They were planning on watching them alone so I could go too, but after my dad's heart issues and pneumonia, he didn't have enough strength to help with all those little rascals.

Poor Baba... we kept him in the La-Z-Boy all weekend.  But he was good for cuddling with the little ones.

 And here's my super helpful mom!  Don't think I could've survived without her!

***** 

Another way we've been beating the blahs...

Practicing our balancing acts on Daddy's back.

 ...which may explain why he now has a knot...

*****

Cuddling up with our siblings.

 This was such a rare moment.  Tate never lies or sits still for longer than 5 seconds.

 This may have lasted a whole 20 seconds.  Just long enough to grab the camera.

*****

Attending Princess parties!

*****

Scrapbooking with Mommy!

 Addie's been asking for several months now if she could scrapbook with me (although I rarely get a chance to do it), so we got her a scrapbook for Christmas.

We took advantage of her having yesterday off of school and spent Tate's 
naptime scrapping. It was so fun!!

*****

And last but not certainly not least, Odie is great for helping us laugh during these cold days.

So... what have you been doing to beat the winter blahs?