Happy Hug Day!

Disclaimer 1: As far as I know, it's not actually National Hug Day or anything of that sort.
Disclaimer 2: These aren't from today; they're from the beginning of January.

Now back to our regularly scheduled post ...

In case you haven't enjoyed a hug of your own today,

I thought we'd share some of ours

since we always have plenty to go around.

Happy Hug Day!

Just me?

Am I the only one this happens to?

At least she approved of my new bra.

Deciduous evergreen

On this mid-March day when we should be having a last hoorah blizzard, we're instead suffering through a sunny, warm day that's supposed to top out near 80 degrees.

To celebrate this unseasonal weather, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures from a few weeks ago when we actually had some snow ... and when our evergreen tree decided to try out being deciduous.

No, it didn't lose its needles, but check out it's "snow shadow".

It's an evergreen tree

with a deciduous-shaped snow shadow. 

How spiffy!

Our winter - Part 3

At Christmas celebrations this winter, the girls kept themselves quite busy (and well-decorated) with any bows they could nab after someone had opened a bow-adorned present.

On Christmas morning, the kids each got to open one present before we headed to church.
Laura's was a tiny stuffed puppy. 

Evan and Kendra's were a Bible for each of them. 

After church, we opened presents with just the five of us. The "rule" was that you had to sing a song to be able to get your first present. It was terribly fun! 

(No, that's not actually a video for you to watch. It's just a screenshot of the video from my computer.)

Evan came up with his own gift idea for someone this year. He wanted to give his cousin Owen the book Owen by Kevin Henkes. I thought it was too sweet of an idea to pass up, so I hunted online and found a very nice hardcover copy for a very nice price.

Oh, and did I mention the bows? 

Ambidextrous

While I've been going through pictures to create my winter pictures make-up posts, I came across this picture and the accompanying video and decided it deserved a post of its own.

One afternoon late in December, I found Kendra at the table drawing in one of her new little notebooks with two of her new yellow markers. Why two markers? One for each hand, of course.

She had drawn the entire picture with both hands at the same time. Her left hand (her dominant one) had drawn the left side of the picture, and her right hand (generally reserved only for using scissors) had drawn the right half of the picture.

After watching her, taking a quick picture, and then flipping over to video to capture her finishing the picture, I asked her (on video) how she drew it. She very thoroughly explained which parts she'd drawn with each hand.

And, while I realize she wasn't drawing a cityscape with one hand and a horse with the other hand, I sitll thought it was pretty impressive.

You never cease to amaze me, little girl!

Our winter - Part 2 (Laura's birthday)

Now that Laura is 4 1/4, I should probably post about her birthday. Really, I do still have intentions of catching up on blogging. Promise.

As usual, Laura was in the kitchen to help me. But this time it was to make her birthday cake. The birthday cake she'd been planning for nearly 11 months. I wish I had started taking notes right after she turned 3, when she started telling me every single night at bedtime about what she wanted on her cake when she turns 4.

The day before her birthday, we got our first snow. Not much of it, but snow nonetheless. She wanted to go out and feel it. 

And then she decided it was awfully cold on her fingers. 

Here was the long-awaited cake. A Care Bear on a purple slide, with pink flowers and a blue four.

Laura shared her birthday party with her cousin Lukas whose birthday is at the end of December. Chad spent a portion of the birthday party snuggling our youngest nephew and snuffling up all that yummy baby smell. 

Here are the two birthday kids for Laura's 4th birthday and Lukas's 5th birthday. 

On the way home from the party, Laura wanted to give me hugs in the van. She really is the loviest kid I've ever known, and I love it! 

On her actual birthday, she requested Hy-Vee for donuts for breakfast. 

Then after a stop at a library and a "Go Fish and mocha date" for our whole family at a coffee shop (where Laura guzzled the end of my mocha when I turned to put the cards away), we headed home for Laura to open cards and presents. 

One of the presents she got at her party was this box with nine rolls of stickers. The day after her birthday, she brought the box to Chad and I and said, "Can we do these stickers? If each of the lovebugs has 3 sets, then we can fair share them!" We were so proud to know she'd mastered division now that she had turned four! :)