Snow Day!

Dax still takes a morning nap for about an hour or so. With the cold weather and him being sick, this has provided a great opportunity for Julia and I to be able to play outside for a bit. (Dax is still not walking and since we've had nothing but rain for what seems like a month and temperatures have been in the low 30s for a while, there's no way he's getting down and crawling. BUT, he no longer sits still in my lap or the wagon so it's a very frustrating thing to try to take him outside.)

Yesterday during our outside time, we had the added attraction of SNOW!! After wet, drippy, cold days, we finally had a wet, flaky, cold day. Julia enjoyed running around in it and shovelling it off the chairs and table on the deck. The snow fell the entire day, but the weather and ground were warm enough that it didn't really pile up (except on the tables and chairs). It apparently continued to snow during the night because the ground appears to be covered now. We'll see if it sticks around through the morning.

(For those of you who are misled by the fact that we live UP in Tennessee, Knoxville is actually in a valley. Which means it stays warmer than the rest of the state. And we really only get one snow fall a year. It doesn't matter if one hour to the east or west of us has twenty million snow days. Those areas are either in the mountains (east) or on the plateau (west) and therefore get the snow. This suits me fine. Snow is not inevitable nor a constant presence; it might show up once a year and when it does you can enjoy it knowing that in a couple of days (if not hours) it'll be gone and life will go back to normal.)

Shoveling off the table
(I know, we need to get that girl some gloves. And a real coat.
She does have two jackets on [layering!] and I ended up putting socks on her hands.)

Shopping

Peeking out at the yard

Echo helped clean off the chairs

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I really thought Spring had sprung.

But the National Weather Service informs me that a cold front is coming through sometime tonight. Lows back in the 20s and 30s. Highs in the 40s and 50s.

Easter Sunday forecast: high of 51 degrees.

So much for my plan to have Dave grill ribs. (They were sold "previously frozen" and have been sitting in our fridge. Do you think I could just put them back in the freezer?)

Worse, this is the Easter dress my mother knit for Julia. (Julia will have to wear something underneath.)


I should have known. This happens every year. I take off the down comforter, put the quilt on the bed and one more cold front comes through.

So much for my tulips.

I like lists

It seems like forever since the last post, but it might just be that we've had a bit going on.

1. We've been hard at work on the nursery. It's still a work in progress so I'm holding off on pictures. We've got most of the wall "art" hung up and hopefully will have all our junk cleared out of the closet this weekend. It will be the only room in the house with matching furniture and decorations. Echo and I hang out in there on lazy afternoons.

2. My friends, Diana and Shara Tonn, came by two weekends ago for a visit. They were out of town the weekend of my shower and wanted to say hello and see the baby bump! We had a great time talking with them.

3. A friend of Dave's from high school, Claire, stopped by this Saturday to crash for the night. She is moving back to Texas from New York. It's always fun to see Claire even if she still calls my husband "Davey" :)

4. Nannie and Pa are coming to Knoxville for Thanksgiving! We're very excited to have them. We weren't sure when my doctor was going to decide to keep me from traveling, but had just assumed we'd be on our own for the whole holiday season this year (except after The Peanut arrives, of course!). Now, we'll be able to show off our house and the work we've done on the nursery as well as spend some time with family!

5. Dave and I went to the breastfeeding class at the hospital last night. It was a disappointment. I'm not sure what I expected, but spending the first third of class having the teacher tell us the benefits of breastfeeding was not it. It just seemed a waste of time preaching to the choir. And maybe we're just fortunate, but we haven't had anyone question our decision to breastfeed. In addition, the teacher didn't seem to have any opinions about anything ... except how awesome breastfeeding is. Every answer she gave was preceded by "Well, there's as many ways to do that as there are mothers and babies ... " Not exactly helpful advice.

6. I have another doctor's visit scheduled for Wednesday (tomorrow). I'm hoping it's with my regular doctor this time. I haven't heard otherwise, so I'm optimistic!

7. Echo seems to be adjusting well to all the baby paraphernalia that's popping up in her house. We set up the Pack 'N Play in the living room, and she now just ignores it. She also ignores the various mobiles set up. At first she would bark, growl and try to bite the mobiles whenever we turned them on. Then she decided to just tuck her tail and run from them. Now she just looks at us like she's thinking "That's old news, you guys!" We've been spending a little time each day with her in the nursery and trying to teach her that roughhousing is not allowed in that room. We are experiencing minimal success with that. She's given all The Peanut's toys, clothes and linens her sniff test of approval. The only problem came when I accidentally bought a toy that has a squeaker. We'll have to be careful with Henry the Hippo since he sounds exactly like Echo's favorite toy, the Heffalump Elephant. Oops! She's still not a big fan of the strollers, but we're working on it. I think we've got all the big stuff set up in the house so she can get used to it. We'll see how she reacts to the car seat that is soon to appear in her car!

8. It snowed here yesterday. Nothing that would stick. Basically, it was drizzling, then turned to teeny tiny sleet and then to snow flakes. It was pretty to watch while it lasted. The forecast calls for temperatures back up in the sixties for the weekend, though.

One post, many topics, lots of pictures

One:
This time we believed the reports of the vicious hail, winds and even tornados headed our way. We saw pictures of hail the size of baseballs and heard about the tornados ripping through the Nashville area. And we took precautions: moved the glass off the deck table and into the garage, put the plants under roof, cleared a spot in the garage for my car, put foam insulation under the garage door to prevent a lake forming in our driveway, wheeled Dave's grill under the awning, but what to do about Dave's car ...



We put it in our second garage. :)




Two:
I enjoy cooking. Trying out new recipes or making my favorites from my Mom's cookbook. I especially enjoy it at the beginning of each month when we have money in our grocery budget! Near the end of the month it gets rather boring trying to figure out how to make macaroni, canned tomatoes and ground beef not taste the same as it did last night ... or the night before that. This month I've been burning through recipes in my Cooking Light cookbooks. (Thanks, Jackie!) The Spaghetti Pie was yummy, but I took the picture mainly to brag about the salads that use lettuce from my garden (I harvested leaves before the hail storm.) My favorite dish last week was the Baked Chile Rellenos. Yummy! Roasted (and skinned) poblano peppers stuffed with mozzarella cheese, shredded chicken and cumin ... then smothered with a tomato and zucchini marinara sauce.
I was excited with how well they turned out this time. Last time I don't think I bought poblano peppers since we had to take breaks between bites to drink a glass a milk. We went through a whole gallon of milk between the two of us, and it still took three days for our lips to stop burning!
Three:
For the first time since we've been married, Dave and I owe money on our taxes. Boo. :)
Four:
On Sundays, we give Echo her treat bone: a Jumbone for small- and medium-sized dogs. She spends several hours walking around with it in her mouth searching for the perfect hiding place.
And she tries out dozens of hiding spots for it during this time as well: next to our shoes, under the dining room table, by the side of the couch, next to my chair in the kitchen, etc. She's not that sneaky, though, and we can usually spot the bone fairly quickly!

Even funnier, to us, is when she tries to bury the bone. She scratches at the grass until she gets a circle of dirt and sets the bone in the middle. She doesn't bother to cover it up. If she can find a pre-made circle of dirt, she's perfectly willing to use that as her hiding spot instead of making her own.






Eventually she eats it.

Weekend

Despite the storms predicted, for most of the weekend we had gorgeous weather. We took advantage of it by hanging out with Echo outside as often as we could. We worked on one of her newest tricks: Sit Pretty. The land was sloped just enough that she couldn't really keep her balance. So she ended up either barely lifting her front paws or falling over when she tried to sit tall.

The people who lived here before us evidently got a good deal on tulips. They planted them all over. And in really strange places and groupings. They are pretty, though. I took pictures of some that were blooming on Sunday. I'm glad I got the pictures before the massive storm hit on Sunday night.



Sunday afternoon the tulips were the epitome of cool.






Monday afternoon they were just sad.




I was on the phone with my dad when the storm hit. Echo started barking and as I told her to hush, I looked out the living room window. A huge sheet of white was just moving towards our house. First the house across the street disappeared, then the street, then it hit. Boom! I thought the hail would break the window. It tapered off after a bit and then started up again later in the night. All in all, we made it through relatively unscathed.

Other than worry about the windows breaking or trees falling, our power went out from 2 to 6:40 am and a small tree limb got stuck on our roof.






Oh, and the sad, sad tulips.





(My vegetable garden took a beating as well, but I don't have pictures.)

It's cold out there

When we went to get our lottery tickets last night (Is there a prize for only getting 2 numbers out of 30?), the snow was just starting to fall. The grass just had a dusting of white.
This morning was a different story. Dave got up early since he figured the commute would be pretty bad, but Knox County Schools were still in session. (They weren't even delayed.) Dave called and said the commute wasn't bad at all. Normal amount of traffic, etc.
Here are some "Before" and "After" shots of David's car.
(Before=right after we got up this morning
After=right after his precious wife spent twenty minutes working on it with a hair dryer and a broom!)

Echo wasn't too sure about the snow. She barked at it from her window perch, and once we went outside, she was content to sniff and paw at it from the sidewalk for a bit.
It wasn't long before she went tearing off into the yard and played.


I only wish I hadn't taken the time yesterday to mop all the floors!