Winter in Full Swing

We've hit the part of the year where there is either bitter cold and dirty snow or a lovely fresh dusting of white everywhere. I love it and hate it at the same time.

Our most recent storm was on Sunday. Scott and I decided it would be fun to go sledding at Sugarhouse Park where there are plenty of hills to choose from. We took turns holding Patch and riding down with him. One of us would ride to the bottom and call up to Patch while the other was riding down with him in their lap. He enjoyed having someone to look at during the ride. Eventually I could tell that he was over all of that and really wanted to crawl. Scott and I tried to occupy him in other ways as his snow suit is not water proof. We put him on a sledding disk and pushed him back and forth on a tiny tiny little slope. He liked that for a few minutes and soon enough he was crawling off of the disk and playing in the snow. He LOVED it. Giggling and grinning behind his binkie and just having a blast pressing into the snow with his hands and crawling through it. Such fun.

Scott's sister Stephanie told me a while ago that she always saves all her soup making for this time of year. They have soup almost every night for dinner and she says it's something their family looks forward to every year. I've made two different kinds of soup myself so far this year: tomato and black bean. The tomato soup was ok but the black bean soup was AMAZING annnnnd bonus, I found avocados for sale at Rancho Markets 5 for $1...and they were good ones! Killer deal.

This part of the winter season brings other interesting things like really dirty cars covered in salt and grime and icy sidewalks. One evening, two young boys knocked on our door. They had shovels in hand and asked if they could shovel our walks. I'm thinking "wow, what nice boys". Scott informed me that we should pay them and that they were likely trying to make some money. When they finished, I gave them a $5 (we have a small house people and a very small amount of shoveling was done...and the job was not super through). The second kid said "Oh, I thought you were going to give us two 5s". I told him that one was all I have and thanked them for shoveling. Kids these days. ;)

We're hosting Patrick's first birthday party at our home on Saturday. That's another rough thing about the winter...it's obviously far too cold to celebrate his birthday in our yard or at the park. Our home will be cozy and fun though. I'm already decorating and trying to get things ready so that I'm not trying to do everything all on Saturday. I'm proud of myself because I plan to come in $200 less than last month in our grocery bill and that includes supplies and food for the party!!! Go me!