F.r.i.g.i.d.

nothing else can explain how blasted cold it has been! we've had a couple storms where the kids and i built snowmen and made 'snowball soup.'  but mostly single digits and below for days on end. we are trapped inside, literally!the kids all got sick while ben was gone to the no-till convention in indiana. i kept them out of ellee's face for as long as i could, dowsed their hands in sanitizer, all while i had the stomach flu myself...but she got sick anyway. and it turned into pneumonia. bummer and scary at times when she couldn't breath and turned purple! glad that's over. we've had many priesthood blessings in our home, and i am so grateful for this. natalie stayed with us one nite, and camille one nite.  that part was great!  bridon ended up with stomach flu a day...there he is passed out on the counter after he threw up on the carpet while i was nursing.  good times.  i try to come up with a few projects while we're restless in the house.  there's bentley hanging up some streamers to welcome dad home after we picked him up from the airport.  we've done dress up, played games, ate mustaches (this is what emerson calls pistachios), etc.

it is so cold; it looks like the arctic.  we have an inversion going as well.  chores are cold!  here the boys are out scooping up dog poop out of the driveway.  apparently shera can't tell where the field is anymore in this kind of weather.  i also got the fire picture as a text from ben.  that was the christmas tree up in flames.  the kids loved it!  we also have quite the herd of feral cats coming out of the woodwork because of the cold.  all the dogfood was disappearing and then i realized cheetoh the cat was super hungry because she was getting bullied out of her food.  one saturday, i saw 7 different cats around.  siamese, one with a beard, bobtail, freaky!  the boys and ben went 'hunting' one day and it hasn't been too bad since.  bridon still waits for them with his squirt gun just in case...:)  we also had a huge flock of geese across the road for a couple days eating our grain field.  bummer on that, i wish i would've taken a picture of all of them.  they were huge!  and our well froze up one morning, so we had no water.

 

now on to a couple more pictures...miss ellee started smiling about 2 weeks ago.  so adorable!  she also absolutely loves her swing and lived in it while she was sick.  even at nite.  i think it helped she was upright and the swinging just made her feel better!  she also loves being swaddled!  none of our other babies have enjoyed this.  maybe because it's winter, but she loves it to go to sleep.


finally, yesterday we finally got to leave the house.  we all went to church again!  the kids wore their matching outfits i made them for christmas.  someday i'll get a better picture when it's warm outside.  we made it before announcements started without dad and ellee was even fed.  whew!! after church, i just really wanted to take a nap.  ben was planning to do some visits later in the day, so i layed down in my room until i heard pounding on the door and ben telling bentley 'get mom up!' i came out to find emerson drenched in blood.   bentley had accidentally hit her with a 10#, metal weight on top of her head.   we ended up having a pa friend super glue it together and it seems to be healing just fine.  we're definitely ready for a break in the weather before we have anymore breaks.  ha ha!