A South Dakota Winter

I was pretty disappointed in winter so far here until last week. My expectations were then fulfilled. Up until last week, we only had one real snowfall, and that was in November. 

We got some pretty good ice accumulation with that storm that came at the beginning of January. Owen enjoyed ice skating on our driveway.

Our little town is awesome. There is an ice rink and free skate rentals through the city parks and rec. Camille had been looking forward to ice skating for the last two years, so she obviously enjoyed it. I think she was a little disappointed that it wasn't quite as easy as Daniel Tiger said it would be.

Owen just walked on the ice until I put him in the smallest size skates, which were still a size or two too big. He was okay in the too big skates.

We finally got to put the snowblower to use when we got the big snow. Camille also was glad to finally build a snowman.

Since it has been too cold to spend much time outside, I have come up with a schedule (that we don't really follow...) and a list of structured activities for the kids to do so Owen doesn't destruct the house everyday.

One of the more popular ones (as in they lasted more than 5 minutes) was building things out of marshmallows and toothpicks. Owen only ever built little dumbbells, but Camille made some bigger structures.

Another more successful one was whipping up suds with a small amount of water and dish soap. I even put different food coloring in each batch. Owen was hesitant to play with it, and I made the mistake of putting it in the bathtub, so it was hard for him to reach. Camille loved it though, and I used the opportunity to scrub out the tub really well after.

Owen has been obsessed with vacuuming, which I consider a win. Although now he demands to vacuum at certain times and expects me to clean up the floor so he can.

Camille has been into stealing my phone and taking pointless pictures of things like the kitties on her pants and videos of herself yelling and singing.

We have been trying to figure out the best way to do temple trips. We did an overnight one, which was a big hit with the kids since the hotel had a pool. Things weren't as cheerful the next morning when I was watching them while Brian took his turn. But Owen slept for 3.5 hours while we went to a dealership in Omaha to test drive a car, drove home, and then left him in the car until we decided he should wake up.

Our Holiday Break Pictures

Besides getting more sick and spending lots more money not actually fixing the car, we enjoyed the holiday festivities.

Owen's favorite part of Christmas was stealing all the bells off the trees and singing Jingle Bells with them. 

We invited a family over for Christmas Eve dinner. We attempted a Nativity reenactment with their little boy and our wild kids. Arming the shepherd with a stick was a bad idea.

This year I just bought the kids Christmas pajamas. Owen's were on clearance after Christmas last year or maybe even the year before that. Camille's were kind of expensive, but were a huge hit.

For New Year's Eve we put Owen to bed at 6:30 because he was soooo tired. Camille was allowed to stay up for our 7:00 countdown and balloon drop. Brian rigged this up at my request. Apparently it was such a success that Camille shared about the balloon drop in Primary the next day.

Brian only had one day off work for New Year, and we spent it painting Camille's room. Her room had the same faux finish and sandpaper wall as the living room, which we wanted to get rid of. The color was just beige, which was okay, but I prefer cool tones. It's light gray, like barely gray. Camille really likes it and likes to just spend time in her "new room." Brian deserves most of the credit since I was somewhat sick and only helped a little.