Ice and Spring

Still no good snow to play in but the kids did have half a day on Friday because of an ice storm.  That is typical for the South.  Roads were slippery and they got home from school by lunch time.  Justin and his buddies thought it would be fun to jump on the trampoline, they first tried without shoes and socks, too cold...shoes back on.  Everything was covered in a sheet of ice, but it wasnt too bad, no trees or power lines down.

Yesterday was 74 degrees here, shorts and tee shirts...crazy weather here!  But I love it! We never pack our shorts away and we wear shorts sleeves almost all year round.  We decided to take advantage of this spring like weather and played some hoops and football.  They say I throw like a girl, well that is good because I am a girl!

Cold Enough for Hot Chocolate

No school yesterday and today. Finally it is starting to feel like winter here.  On Friday we got a dusting of snow.  Temperatures have been below freezing at night.  This calls for hot chocolate and biscotti! Even though I am from NJ, I cannot stand to be cold, even in 50 degree weather I wear wool socks and at least 2-3 layers of clothing and that is inside the house!  But in NC I know that Spring is just around the corner.

My daffodils are already peeking up from the soil.

Snow but NO SNOW DAY

We haven't had snow in almost 2 years in Charlotte.  We didn't even get as much as a flake of snow last winter.  The kids new sleighs still have the tags on them from last year, just sitting in the garage.  But I don't think they will get to use them today.  It poured rain all day, really hard rain and then started snowing last night between 930-10pm, big beautiful flakes.  This morning when we woke, school was still on and there was no delay of start time.  Typically that isn't the case.  The hint of snow and the schools are closed.  But we have a new superintendent this year.  Only the grass was covered but the roads were clear. It is our first snow in our new house!

Ryan was off to the bus stop at 645am, so he didn't get to enjoy the snow but he did attempt to make a snowball but it wasn't snow you could even make a snowball with.  Too icy!  Justin and I went out to play a little in the snow, he doesn't catch the bus until 8am.  He tried to play basketball but the net was frozen solid and he had to use a bat to poke the ball up and out.

I even found a rose on one of my rose bushes still hanging in there.

Corn Holin'

This weekend our neighborhood had a fund raiser for an 18 year old boy who lived in our neighborhood who suffered a broken neck and trauma to his spinal cord this summer in an accident in Brazil. There has been an outpouring of activities to raise money for this family who has no health insurance: purchase blue ribbons for the mailbox, wrist bands, a charity swim at the aquatic center where he competed as a swimmer, Chic-a-Fil nite, corn hole and chili-contest this weekend.

So far they raised enough money $71,000 to fly him back on an air-ambulance to the U.S.  Don and Matt teamed up for the corn-hole tourny and came in 4th out of about 22-25 teams!

Glo-Chucks

During Christmas break, Ryan took a special class at his Martial Arts school.  It was glo-chucks.  Each student got a set of nun-chucks (not sure about spelling?) that you put a glo-stick in each side.  Ryan is the one with the red glo-sticks. He was going nuts with his kicks and nun-chuck moves....he LOVED it!!!

New Year's Eve 2012

New Year's Eve this year was different than the past, Don and I had no kids with us!  We both thought what will we do, everyone we know has kids and thought it would be nice to have a kid-free evening!  Frank and Jennifer are great friends of ours and they have no kids!  PERFECT!!  So we headed up to Huntersville for a fun filled, kid-free New Years Eve.  Since it is about 45 minutes from our home we decided it would be best to stay over and because they have an awesome hot tub too! One other couple joined us, we each brought appetizers and our favorite martini fixin's.

Had a great time, after the ball dropped we headed out to the hot tub for a soak, the fuse blew, so we knew it was time to get out.  I don't  think I have been up past midnight in years!  It was a great time with great friends!  I am excited for this coming year, so many great things to look forward to!!  Great kids, great husband, awesome new career, life couldn't be any better!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Christmas

So I'm really behind posting about Christmas and New Year's but  my real estate career has been keeping me plenty busy.  I'm not complaining but blogging comes last. Christmas Eve we went to the 8 o'clock mass, which was perfect and beautiful, I love all the music. Got home in time to put out the reindeer food, cookies and milk for Santa and the boys to bed.

Ryan woke up at 6am with croup on Christmas morning.  So that entailed running a hot shower and letting him breath the steam in and then going out in to the cold to open his airway.  Thankfully no trip to the ER this year. The doctor keeps saying he'll grow out of it!  But he gets it just about every year!  Christmas morning was spend with Don, Nick, Justin and Ryan, the usual way, tearing into presents and eating Cinnamon rolls.

Since Nick goes into the Army on July 9, 2013, all he wanted was cash.  We also got him a great Army sweatshirt to keep him warm!  Little boys are really into athletic wear, like Under Armour and Nike Elite socks. All the advertising these kids do for these brands...but it is the trend.  I liked the days of no name clothing but now that I have a middle schooler those days are gone and he likes to help pick out his clothing.  That is something new and always an adventure.

All the boys left by 1pm on Christmas day to spend the day with their other parent.  So that left Don and I alone, so we went to Redbox, put on sweatpants and watched movies all day and ate leftovers. RELAXING!

Christmas before Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas this year on December 21st. Mom was going to Drew's for Christmas so we had the fam over on Friday the 21st.  The boys were beyond excited to celebrate 3 Christmas.  One with Grandma Bailey, one with me, Don and Nick and one with their dad and Grandma Banash.  What lucky guys! I decided I didn't want to have to cook twice, so we made it easy, spaghetti and meatballs and I didn't even have to make the meatballs.  Thanks Mom!

Craig dyed his hair for the occasion and beyond, bright orange, like the heat miser!  Love that he marches to the beat of his own drum! Craig and Rebecca loved their gnome from the boys.

Ryan was excited about his new bike!

And they each got these weird squishy toys from Aunt Rebecca, one was an eye ball and the other a mouse.  When you throw them on a hard floor they spread out.  So weird and FUN!!

Traditions

One of the things I love most about the Christmas holidays is the traditions.  Every year we make a ginger bread house, cut-out butter cookies and grandma Sinnott's shenkely recipe, if I'm not mistaken the recipe is actually my my great-grandmother Farine's recipe (that would be grandma Sinnott's mother).  You ask what is a shenkely?  It is fried dough, similar to a butter cook recipe except there are 4 eggs in the dough and it is quite yellow.  You roll out the dough with your hands into a short tube and let the dough dry for 4 hours before deep frying.  The last 2 years Justin has been a big help with the rolling of them.  Soon he may be able to take over the tradition, well maybe not that soon!  Then you cover with powdered sugar and Enjoy! I only make them once a year.

My mom comes over to help!  Thanks Mom.

Christmas has come and gone

This blogging stuff is not easy...I haven't posted since before the holidays but we certainly have had our share of activity and fun. Nick went to his senior ROTC dance.  Don went to the dance to grab a few pictures and see Nick get his award.

Ryan had a Holiday Party in his 3rd grade class with Mrs. Fell.  They made ornaments, made an edible snowman and had fun with holiday games.