Granola Baby

Yesterday, Julia and I went out shopping because Daddy has two big tests today. Before we left, we couldn't help but snap a picture. Julia had on a vest and a little hat and scarf that made her look very, well, "granola." We have a lot of those people up here with their organic foods and their Prius hybrids. She was smiling for one of the pics, but then the flashing red light went on and she squinted....I have to figure out how to turn off the red eye reduction.

Playing in the cupboard

Julia has discovered mommy's toys in the kitchen cupboard. Her favorite part is how she can undo all of the nice neat piles inside. The blue box is (was) full of lids, which are really fun to take out and chuck all over the kitchen floor. Lucky for us, Julia hasn't figured out how to get the cupboards open on her own yet (we have to open them up for her.) If she did know how to open them, we'd be in trouble, since there are no knobs to tie them shut with!

orange peels

mmmm! Orange peels! Julia loves to try and EAT them. We laughed tonight as she took a bite and chewed it down. I guess we need to be grateful that she isn't fussy about eating stuff. (Mike feeds her sauerkraut, plain, and she loves that too!)

We took the orange peel away after we snapped the picture. Where's the fun in that?

Daddy's Pliers

This one is my personal favorite.

Julia found one of daddy's favorite toys today: the needle nose! She was "too quiet" and I knew something was up. I found her in the front entryway with a big silly grin on her face.

Before I swiped it away from her, I had to snap a few pictures. She LOVED that thing!

When baby toys aren't fun enough...

Helping daddy play in the dishwasher (daddy loads, julia unloads...)

mmmmm...

Hey! That's MY bone, Julia!!!

Climbing up doggie mountain...

Julia is only interested in her toys if we play with them, too. If we aren't actively playing with her, she follows us around the house and "plays with" our toys. In this case, she decided that she would play with Psymuhn's toys....and rawhide bones are meant to be chewed, aren't they?

It's a good thing our dog is so laid-back. He doubles as a jungle gym at times.

Digging

Mommy, can I go outside and shovel, too?
"Psymuhn, come!"
(a whole minute later, he is still trying to jump his way through the drifts...)

(I need a break after all of that. I think I"ll just lay here for a minute...)
Mike had to dig a path to get into the shed. Good thing the shovel isn't stored in there!


Anybody out there got a snowblower that they don't want anymore?

Today was spent digging. Mike shoveled for three hours straight today. That was enough to get the sidewalk around our house and the front walk. I took over for another hour after that and worked on our neighbor's walk (her husband has guard duty this weekend and she has twins at home that are Julia's age.)

I didn't make it to the hospital. There was no driving (you couldn't see the hood on the honda because it was buried) The snow plow still hasn't been to our street. My attending surgeon took his snowmobile into work, some of the other docs went in on skis. Only in Duluth.....

Lesson learned: don't complain.....

This is our yard, five short days ago when I was complaining that it was "dry" here. (See the blog from Feb 24th.) Good God. I will never, ever complain again.

This picture was taken today, five short days and four feet of snow later.... It is the same shot as the picture above it. You can sort of make out the gas meter on the side of our house. The snow drift in front of you is about five feet tall.

This is our front yard, the railing in the middle marks where our front walk is. It was nicely and neatly shoveled when I got home at 5:00. This picture was taken at 10pm, five hours later...

Digging out those cars in the morning is sure going to be a blast....

Today, it snowed. And snowed.

We got 22 inches of snow in the last four hours, and it hasn't stopped snowing yet. The weatherman says we're in for another foot before it's all said and done.

If that's not enough...there was also thunder and lightening and 65 mile-an-hour winds! Our dog took two steps outside and that was enough. Back inside he ran. We trudged through the snow to go to a friend's house for grilled cheese tonight. It took us 25 minutes to walk a BLOCK! Julia went in her sled, which has a neat cover that goes over the top of it. No wind in her face, so life was good for all. I have never seen a winter storm like this one. The snow is so thick that you can't see to the end of the street. The road has places where the pavement is bare, and other spots where the drifts are higher than your head! It's coming down and up and sideways...I could barely get any pictures of it because the snow got all over the lens.

The Duluth snow plows were pulled from the road and driving has been officially banned. The surgeon I'm working with offered to pick me up on his snowmobile to get to the hospital in the morning. Stores are closed tomorrow, no school for anybody, and I hope people went to the grocery store already this week...cause there will be none of that, either.

We had to pound the door open around a huge wall of snow to get into the house. When I tried to take a picture of it, all I got was millions of snowflakes in the air.

Al Gore, I hate to say this, but your global warming bit is losing a bit of "heat."