The kids and I visited my parents last weekend, and while we were there, it was brought up that Noah will be old enough to go to bible school with Emma at my parents' church this summer. Noah was really excited, at least until my mom pointed out that kids who go to bible school need to wear underwear instead of diapers. I can tell he's been thinking about this quite a bit lately, because a few times since then, completely out of nowhere, he has said, "I want to wear diapers to bible school!"

This morning he told me that he wanted to wear underwear so he could go to bible school so I gladly helped him put on a pair of his little Thomas underwear instead of a diaper. A little while later he said he had to pee, so he sat on the potty and did it. I sang our little "Noah peed in the PAH-TEE!" celebration song and we clapped and cheered. As soon as the fanfare was over, he stood up and said, "So, should we go to bible school now?"

He did great all day - enough that I encouraged him to wear his underwear while we picked Emma up from school and then stopped at Target afterward. Once we'd gotten everything we needed at Target, we went to check out and got in line behind a nice woman who turned around and smiled at the kids. She asked Noah his name, and he grinned proudly and said, "Noah, and I have underwear in my pants!"

(And because the pictures of Noah on the potty are a little too indecent to share with the world, here is a lovely G-rated picture of Allie, who is hopefully picking up some tips from her brother's new skill.)

I picked up all the Girl Scout cookies last weekend and have been slowly distributing them to the Daisy Scouts this week. We did end up having snow days yesterday and today so I still have quite a few boxes in my living room. I will be so glad when all this cookie business is over. My kids, on the other hand, probably won't. No matter how many times I tell them to leave the cookie boxes alone, they just look at the stack of boxes and see a big jungle gym and they can't quite keep themselves away. Those boxes have been played with so much in the last week that I'm a bit concerned that, instead of Girl Scout cookies, everyone is going to be receiving Girl Scout cookie crumbs.This week has been a little rough for me. This is a really hard month for Steve at work and he will be working minimum fourteen hour days throughout January. Tonight we picked him up and went out for dinner, then dropped him back off at work, and that was the first time he's seen the kids all week. Which means that I've been alone, stuck in the house with these three, all week long and there's no hope for an end to it soon. Really, for the most part it's not so terrible, but doing bedtime alone stresses me out. By the time I'm putting them to bed, I feel like my patience for the day is completely spent. Of course, they never want to go to bed and there is SO much dawdling and messing around that most nights are not without some yelling on my part. :( At the same time, I know Steve is probably feeling stressed at work so I'm trying to find a happy medium between wallowing in my own misery and feeling sorry for him, too. Besides, now the kids are asleep and I'm free to do as I please, and poor Steve is still at work at 11:09 on a Friday night. I hope we will get to see him for a few hours this weekend, although I'm not really counting on it. Heaven help me get through this month!

Anyway, that's enough whining. Have a good weekend!

Brrr! It's been crazy cold here and we've gotten quite a bit of snow recently. It's actually snowing right now with something like 3-6 more inches expected by tonight. I know a lot of people don't like snow, but I am perfectly happy to snuggle up inside (where it is nice and warm) and watch the snow fall outside. The public schools in our area have had four snow days so far this year, but Emma's school hasn't been off at all yet. I was joking with her other car pool driver this morning that her school isn't for the wimps, but it really does seem silly to call off school so much.
We've been getting a lot of citrus fruits in our weekly produce deliveries, and I've been wanting to try making some candied orange peels. Yesterday we gave it a go, and I think they were a hit. The kids liked them a lot, and I thought they were okay. After munching on them plain for a minute or two, Emma suggested we smear some Nutella on them. I love that kid. Candied orange peels + Nutella = a little bit of heaven.

Inspired by all the snow we have here, Emma was on a bit of a snowflake making binge the other day. She cut out dozens of paper snowflakes and when she was finished, it looked like a snowstorm had blown through our kitchen. Our table and floor were covered with hundreds of tiny scraps of paper, so I handed her the broom and suggested she get to sweeping.Noah and Allie soon realized that they could make a snowstorm of their own by throwing the little pieces into the air. After many of her attempts to combine all the pieces into a single pile were thwarted by her little brother and sister, Emma tossed down the broom in frustration and said, "How am I supposed to get anything done with these little kids around?!" I had to tell her, honestly, I have no idea. I've been wondering the same thing for years.