To borrow a title from Laura Ingalls Wilder, it was a Long Winter. A long, long winter. That top picture was taken in November and already we had a lot of snow. Little did we know that it would snow and snow and snow some more until the pile in our backyard was big enough to sled down and easily at window height.
The past few years our major winter past-times have been snowshoeing and sledding. We took in a number of family snowshoe adventures, Dan and Joseph did even more, and Dan on his own was snowshoeing until April 24th. We decided to invest in some kids-size snowshoes this year! Despite the super cold, we also got out skating and Jude found great balance and was able to begin his skating career.
Dan spent a good portion of his winter writing his first youth fiction novel! Disconnected: The Broken Path was self-published March 19th. It's been a crazy adventure, to say the least, but a rewarding and wonderful experience for him. Joseph got the author's kid perk of reading a proof copy before the book came out. He read it in one day and promptly said it was in his top 5 books ever!
Joseph has become quite the hunter. To date, he's shot, cooked, and eaten three squirrel. They are surprisingly good meat! With Grandpa and Dad's help, he also brought in a rabbit and two prairie chickens this fall/winter. We ate them all, enjoying the wild taste of fresh meat.
Other outdoor winter activities included the annual big burn at Grandpa and Grandma's, complete with hotdogs and marshmallows, and playing with new baby kittens. You might notice in the above eating picture that all our kids are wearing their Bass Pro Shop hooded sweaters. This was another family affair this winter - acquiring the coveted camo! Apparently, I am no longer in the family because I've declined buying one, thus far.
My lame excuse for not buying a sweater includes the added pounds and frontal growth I've experienced the last 8 months. Baby #5 is just about finished and due on or around June 10th. The above picture was somewhere around 30 weeks and, I swear, I look bigger in real life. Lol. We are all excited to meet this new little member of our family! Hopefully, we can settle on some names before he/she actually is born. Jude is a happy little man with his own baby book now (see below) and can now move into the roll of big brother - we'll see how it goes...
Between school, shoveling, and eating food, we also spent some leisure time this winter building a number of awesome puzzles, working out in our basement, and celebrating the liturgical year (see Mardi Gras masks above). I'm not sure where all the time goes... but when looking back it always seems to have gone quickly. We are looking forward to the end of another school year, a new baby, and a busy, fun, outdoorsy summer.
