Such a nice day

Saturday was Kevin's semi-annual paintball trip, so the kids and I made the most of the day on our own. We started with Louie's basketball game. The team has two groups that take turns playing every other quarter. How cute is the little girl with basketball ribbons in her hair? She also has matching gold socks that go up to her knees and she's a pretty good baller!

Louie is cheering on his team.

Sorry for the "non" action shot. If the kids are going to be playing sports we should probably invest in a camera that takes good action shots. Not too exciting when they're standing still, but it's better than the blurry ones I got!

So many kids at the game! Here is a picture of Meredith with her friend, Audree. Sometimes it seems more time is spent corralling the kids than watching the game!

The newest addtion to the bunch--Alivia. She's so sweet with the shock of hair that is permanently standing on end. Just jealous, I am.

After the game we played out in the snow. I have to admit, Saturday's weather was perfect snowman-building weather for me! I don't have much tolerance for cold and wet. Part of that has to do with me not being properly outfits for such occasions. I wore gym shoes, jeans and a jacket for this (relatively) mild day, but I had the kids all bundled up. Mere's not too excited about this.

How much longer before they're not "stairsteps?" Do you like how they've learned to do this without even being asked?

Charlie was so proud of himself that he made a snowball. It was perfect packing snow!

They boys delight in being able to do things they normally cannot, like launch things that their brothers.

Louie was so bummed that his "snow gun" broke before I got a shot of it. (Ralphie from The Christmas Story.)

Do you see his mischievous look? He soon realized that the bigger the snowball, the shorter the distance it went.

Meredith was wearing Charlie's old snow boots and they didn't allow her much movement because she kept falling down. Too big. Soon, I went to get her gym shoes so she could enjoy her time outside. She did, for a few minutes, before she decided a nice, warm bed beckoned her.

Successful snowman! The boys had fun finding all its pieces. They included a golf club for him. Then, tried to hit snow golf balls. This is not recommended. Either a club and/or snow ball will inevitably hit someone in the face.

The rocks used for eyes and mouth are from Louie's rock garden--the one he made with stones found when we were in Cape Cod.

Benny fell and he couldn't get up. (Randy from The Christmas Story.)

Charlie licks ice found in a downspout (Flick from The Christmas Story.)

Normally, when the kids want to go outside to play in the snow there is probably 3x more time spent layering up than is actually spent in the snow. Today, fortunately was different. They were outside long enough to make the snowman, a fort, and plenty of snowballs to throw at "the enemy" (plastic lawn chairs scattering around the yard).

When we went in we had lunch and, of course, hot chocolate. Benny and Charlie passed out on the couch and Louie spent the afternoon making paper crafts from the book he got from Santa. He made some really cute stuff, including: a penguin bookmark; a gift bag; and the favorite of the day, a paper airplane. Apparently, I was never taught the proper way to make an airplane. The directions in this book were foolproof and they flew across the room with no trouble at all. When the others woke up, they each had to have their own plane. They made them with decorative paper and put googly eyes on, then raced them.

We had nachos for dinner and played a card game of "Chase the Ace" before watching a Chip 'n Dale cartoon and then headed to bed. As nice as the day was, it was brought up more than once how much we wished Daddy could have joined in the fun.


*All the Christmas Story references happened on their own, amazingly with no prompting from their mother.