Look Mom Two Wheels!

I originally wrote this post back in May. I am not sure why I never published it? Maybe I didn't have my camera handy to download pictures?


I have to brag on my little girl! She turned 5 in February. Well, Wednesday (May 20, 2009) we took the training wheels off the bicycle she has had since she was 2 1/2. I had finally gotten my bike down and was riding it. She decided she wanted to take the training wheels off of her bike to be like Mommy. On Wednesday she got pretty good at riding with me holding onto the bike and for a few seconds at a time on her own. Steering wasn't much of a priority for her yet.

Yesterday, Thursday, I explained that the next step was for her to learn to get herself started.

This initially didn't go over very well with her. After all, what could her mother have to do that is more important than bending in half and running alongside a tiny bicycle for an hour? The housework fairy comes in and does all the cooking, cleaning, errands, bill paying, laundry, etc. ...right?! Well, after catching her in a dramatic moment out in the driveway crying because I "wouldn't help her", I informed her that she could always just put the bike away. Apparently, her calmer side prevailed and she began to practice pushing herself off to get started.

Well, this morning I have been watching my beautiful 5 year old daughter ride her 2 wheeler all by herself! She is so awesome! There is no limit to what she can accomplish when she puts her mind to it. I am so proud of her!

She has a goal in mind, though. Next Wednesday is the last day of preschool and the kids are allowed to take their bikes. She wants to be able to show Mrs. Tiffany her newly found skills. We will see...

This week...

Well, so much for being good about posting regularly. Oh, well, such is my life. For someone who from all appearances should have a life conducive to having a regular schedule, I most certainly do NOT. Since the last post, Mady did lose that tooth and didn't freak out quite as badly as I had imagined. She was very impressed with the gold dollar coin that the tooth fairy left since it was her very first tooth. I made sure to tell her that this may or may not be the case every time she loses a tooth. I am unsure if the tooth fairy has access to gold dollar coins for all teeth or just the first one.

This has not been the best week. My Mother's Day was not what I had envisioned. My husband who had been getting home around 3 or 4 in the afternoon on Sundays, did not get home until 6:30 pm. It had been a beautiful day and I had hoped maybe since the kids aren't baby babies anymore I might get to do something with my family - Including the HUSBAND. Don't get me wrong, but at this stage, I see my children all day everyday. I do not see my husband very often. This was not to be.

Well, our anniversary is May 11th, but based on most of what my husband did that day you could not tell it. For him it was just another day. From a woman's perspective that doesn't hate her husband's guts, this should be a special day. He knows that he doesn't have to spend a lot of money, but a little effort, a nice card, that is MY minimum. On this, our 13th anniversary, I got a whole lot of nothing. He will claim he said Happy Anniversary back to me when I said it as he was leaving for work and I got an invitation to a stressful dinner out with 2 misbehaving kids. Not the picture of romance I was hoping for. I made a comment with my level of pleasure of the Mother's Day/Anniversary combo this year on Facebook. He was less than thrilled at being (in his words) "slammed" on FB. I wanted him to know how disappointed I was and since I see him awake without kids around about 5-10 minutes a day, I did not get the chance to tell him to his face. Let's face it, during those 5-10 min he is usually working on going to sleep.

This time of year is so stressful for us. He thinks he is the only one that has any right to be stressed though. He has never been one that is good at putting himself in another's shoes. He doesn't think I have anything to complain about. I understand getting up at 4 or 5 am and working until 7 or 8 pm is not a walk in the park. He does this 7 days a week. (He works 7 days a week most of the year for that matter, but the start and ending time vary a little. ) Neither is dealing with two kids that don't see nearly enough of their father and proceed to act like freaks when he does walk in the door. Kids need more time with their father. Jeremy thinks that by working like this he can make us more able to afford a farm for the kids to grow up on. I am worried that while he is working himself to death, the kids are growing up without him.

I will be honest, I wish we still connected as a couple. We don't see enough of each other to do that. The kids went to Tennessee and stayed with Jeremy's grandparents for a few days the first part of May so I could go to the Oaks and so our kids could make an appearance at the decoration at the church Jeremy's family attends. I loved it this year. Last year all I did was cry because I was not used to being at our house without them. This year, I would have probably enjoyed more time apart. During those few days it felt like Jeremy and I were the old us. It was great. He invited me to ride along to some of his farms, we went out for a nice dinner. It felt like we were friends again. I usually feel like everybody's mama because he is too tired to do anything when he gets home. So instead of his arrival from work taking the pressure off, it just seems to compound it.

I can't make him see that while his job affords us a lot of things, it creates at least as many problems for our family. I bought The Power of a Praying Wife and it was a great book. I am going to try and read it again and hope it gives me a better outlook this time of year. I bought The Power of a Praying Husband and wanted him to read it. He ignored the book on the nightstand for months. I finally just placed it in a drawer. I bought a book a few weeks ago, that has tips from couples who have been married for 50 years and asked him to read a page a night. He has yet to read page one. I have tried talking to him and he only sees it as criticism and nagging. I just don't know what to do.

Also, this week, my father who has remarried proceeded to place a headstone for his current wife NEXT to my mother! Not on his side of the double headstone they have, on my mother's side. #1 He is her 4th husband, this may or may not last. #2 he placed the current wife next to the dead wife the week before Mother's Day. My sister saw it for the first time on Mother's Day when she went to put flowers on our mother's grave. How classy is that. Who does that for a 50 something year old woman when she is healthy and on her 4th husband?! That is what my family has become- a bunch of people who are led by spite. They want to keep things stirred constantly. I am so tired of this. I am able to distance myself both physically and otherwise, but my little sister isn't able to do this as easily. I really hate that for her.

We have a little baby at church, cute as she could be whose daddy found her blue and not breathing the day after mother's day. They got her revived with CPR, she was taken to the hospital. The outlook was never good, she was having seizures and had to be sedated. She passed away last night. Her parents are a young couple whose parents both attend our church. They had grown up in church together. It was their first baby. She had a head full of hair and pretty blue eyes. She was 5 months old and is gone. She was a healthy baby Sunday.

It has not been a good week. I hope for a better week next week. I am thankful I still have a husband even if our situation is a lot less than ideal. I have 2 healthy kids and I thank God for that in my prayers every night. Jack took a fall down the stairs last week and I am thankful it isn't us planning a life with an impaired child or a funeral. You just never know...

Be thankful for what you have; you could have it so much worse.

Who said you could grow up?

I have a problem when I have to think about my babies growing up. I have someone almost weekly tell me that my "baby" boy isn't a little baby anymore. He is even loosing his humongous cheeks that he has had since the age of about 2 months. I am so sad to see them go. Jack's cheeks and eyelashes are the #1 thing people comment on. Now the cheeks are going...

My daughter has her first loose tooth! Need I remind you that she JUST turned 5! Like 1 month ago! She came screaming and crying into the bedroom Saturday when she was supposed to be taking a nap. At first I could not understand what she was saying was wrong. I finally got her to calm down enough to get "my tooth is loose." She is the dramatic type anyway. ( I blame that on my little sister. They are far more similar than she and I.)

Anyway, you need to know that recently we had another person in our household who had a loose tooth. He is only 2 however! She remembered what a big deal we made over him and how a 2 year old with a missing front tooth is a problem. Well, she naturally assumed that ALL loose teeth are a problem so she was hysterical! I wiggled it and it wasn't bleeding and then it hit me. She is old enough to loose teeth now!!!! I just wanted to cry. This can't be. She is my little baby girl. Not some almost kindergartener with teeth falling out.

Over the next day or so, she managed to chill out alot and began showing everyone she saw her wiggly tooth. I think everyone at church saw it at least once. Of course, little brother (whose tooth was knocked loose a few months ago while running and hitting the coffee table) has a loose tooth too. (Not really - his tightened back up even after he tried to knock it out twice more in the two weeks following the initial incident.)

She keeps asking me when is it going to fall out? When is the tooth fairy coming? Where does the Tooth Fairy live? What does she look like? Typical Madalynn. Questioning everything and everything about everything.

As of 8:30 this morning when I dropped her off at school, it was still inside her mouth. I have instructed her to try and pull it when she is at home. I am afraid any amount of blood that is involved may cause a major dramatic performance and scare all the other kids! I also would like to be there when the first one comes out. I remember when the first one came in. (Well, not really. I know that is sad, I should remember it, but honestly - I don't really remember the actual event. Blame my 2 kids and loss of brain cells.)

Date Night

Last night Jeremy and Madalynn went on a "date". They have been out to the movies and stuff by themselves before, but this is the first time we have called it a date. M was very excited. Jeremy was on the farm back behind the house and called and asked if I thought she would want to go. I assured him she would and set about getting her ready. We changed into a cute outfit, curled her hair, even put on perfume and found a purse.

She says her favorite restaurant is Applebee's even though she might have been there 5 times in her life. So that is where they went on their date. Up until last night she had been asking her Daddy when they were going to "go datin". She got to order Sprite to drink. This is a rare treat at our house. She got to order a corndog and they even had a chocolate meltdown for dessert! She loved it. She was really hopped up on sugar when they got home.

Jack and I did one of his favorite things while they were gone. We did this not necessarily because he understands what the deal is, but to keep the crying over Daddy leaving him at home to a minimum. Jack LOVES tractors. So we went to what he calls the "tractor shop", otherwise known as Tractor Supply. We sat on lawnmowers outside for a few minutes on the way in and out. We tried out all the mule/ranger/gator type vehicles inside and purchased a John Deere t-shirt, a small tractor and a cowboy hat that was on clearance. We did this to make up for the fact that the two of us ate leftovers instead of a chocolate meltdown.

Busy Day

Today was a busy one. We have had a few days of spring like temps and no rain so I have tried to take advantage of it. Especially today.

This morning I actually got up at 6:30 am. I had to set my alarm for 6 so I had time to hit snooze a few times, but I was up by 6:30. I made the bed! Shocking I know. I washed my hair, got dressed, made coffee, put a load of clothes in the dryer and one in the washer and started the dishwasher. I then went upstairs and read my "thought for today" from my Joyce Meyer book and my prayer page from my Stormie Omartian book and said my prayers. I am trying to do better with telling the Lord how thankful I am for all that we have. I have especially been touched lately by how lucky I am to have 2 healthy children. My heart aches for those who can't have kids, who have lost kids, or are sitting in a hospital with a sick child, or worrying over a sick child. God bless you.

Anyway, back to my day. I woke the kids, made eggs and toast, got Madalynn dressed, and we headed off to school. Jack had to wait to get dressed until we got back home, we just ran out of time. We took Madalynn to school and then came back to the house. I sorted through a mountain of recycling, cleaned out the garage and trashed some stuff. By this time it was 10:30. I got Jack dressed and we headed out to do errands. We went to Kroger to drop off some plastic grocery sacks for recycling, and dropped off some stuff at Goodwill. We went to make the storage payment and put the baby bed in the storage building. :( We went to the cleaners, the car wash, Wal-mart (quickly), and picked up some Chinese food for lunch. Picking up the food made me about 5 minutes late for picking Mady up though. :{ Sorry Mrs. Tiffany! We came home ate lunch, took a nap. After the kids woke up they went outside to play and I sorted through some of the kids artwork. I bought some black frames and I had a couple of places I wanted to frame some of their work. I unpacked some boxes that had been in the garage. Can you believe I am still unpacking after moving in December?

After I finished the art project, I rearranged the back porch and swept it off. I put the grill back together (Jeremy!) I swept out the garage again! Please Lord send us grass! I scrubbed the car seat Jack had puked in back in January. What? I was waiting until I could clean it outside and not freeze to death! I then decided to plant some bulbs I had bought back in the fall. I have no idea if they will bloom this year or not. They were sprouting in the package. I don't know that that is a good sign. I planted enough bulbs that I rubbed a blister on my hand. By this time it was almost 8 pm! You can tell the time has changed. I hurried in and started hamburgers and oven fries. Dinner by 8:30. Kids baths, story, brush teeth, and to bed. Hallelujah AMEN!

Growing Up

Today Jack took his first nap while wearing "big boy" underwear and he woke up DRY! (Never mind that he later pooped in them.) He is getting so big. It is happening so fast. I finally talked him into wearing underwear all day yesterday. It seems like just yesterday that he was nursing. I miss having a baby in the house. :(









In the last week I took the front off the crib. Then put up the toddler bed and removed the crib completely. (This is the first time we have taken the crib down and not known we would be putting it back up in a few months.)



He really seemed proud sleeping in bed when the front was off the crib, but when we switched to the toddler bed, that was a different story. I would have kept using the crib, but I couldn't figure out how to make it into a toddler bed. I know it converts to one but I am sure the instruction book is long since gone. Plus after moving it 4 times, I know we probably don't have all the bolts.



The first couple of days he really didn't like sleeping in the toddler bed. He really doesn't like it much better now! He does it without as much of a fight though.




I was looking yesterday on Etsy and all the cute little baby girl things. Kelly at http://kellyskornerblog.com/ has really made me miss having a baby girl. There just isn't as much to choose from for 5 year old girls and 2 year old boys. I think I want one more baby and even then I think I will be terribly sad that it is our last. I just hate to think that the part of my life I dreamed of all my life, is over. I know there will be great times to come with school age children but it is still hard.



I think we will probably have one more though. I have told myself that I have to lose weight and get in better shape before I do. If I gained baby weight on top of the baby weight I haven't lost from #2, I would weigh 200 lbs! I can't let myself do that. (Jeremy up until this point hasn't really wanted a third, but the other day Jack was doing something cute and he said "I'm about ready to have another". I couldn't believe my ears, but when I asked him to repeat what he had said, he said "Nothing."



Oh, well I know I can wear him down. I am not ready now anyway. I want Jack to be a little older. Madalynn and Jack are 2 years 8 months apart and get along great for the most part, but I want a little more space between #2 and (hopefully) #3. We will see...

Our First "Real Kid" Birthday Party

I have to say a lot of thought and worry went into whether or not we should begin having a real kid birthday party. What I mean by that is a party at a child related place, invitations to several children that are not related to us, presents my husband and I didn't have to buy, the whole deal.

Well, I need not have worried.....IT WAS AWESOME!!!! We have some friends at church who have a little boy born the same year M was on the same day no less! (They just happen to be "boyfriend and girlfriend" to boot!) She and I had discussed having a "real" party last year and maybe doing it together. Well, this was the year we were talking about some short 12 months ago. I brought up the subject in January to see if she still wanted to go the "real" party route and if she wanted to do something separate or together. She was all for doing it together, so we went to work. Actually she did most of the work, she ran around looking at places in town. We wanted something more than just Chuckie Cheese's. More of an activity place or the kid's museum in town. We finally decided on Bounce U!

Let me just stop for a minute and sing the praises of this wonderful place. They took care of everything! You can opt to do as much or as little yourself as you want. We decided on letting them do cake, juice boxes, and balloons. You can add decorations for the table, pizza, cokes, gift bags, you name it! It just depends on how much you want to spend and what all you think your party needs. We thought cake and juice was enough for our age group and time of day. 3:45 is a little early for dinner, too late for lunch, and since we HAD to have cake there is only so much a 4 or 5 year old is going to eat with so much excitement. We had right at 25 kids and a lot of parents stayed and played too. (Adults are free and can use all the equipment too!) Everyone had such a great time.

They gave us "helpers". You usually only get two with the party package we chose, but we got an extra since one was in training. These college age girls were very helpful. When we first walked in, they helped get the kids onto the equipment. We had several younger sisters and brothers there who were too small to play on the equipment alone and they jumped in and took the little ones to play and have fun. We got to bounce for an hour and fifteen minutes and then moved to the party room for our Madagascar cake and juice boxes. Logan and Madalynn shared a cake and each had 5 candles on one side. We sung to both of them. After all the eating was done, we moved on to presents!

Madalynn and Logan were so cute. They took turns opening one present and Logan would just watch Mady and oooh and aaaah over whatever she unwrapped. He is such a little doll and will make a good husband someday!

I think this was a glimpse into the future for Jeremy. Our little daughter had no qualms about holding Logan's hand while standing beside her Daddy. Several times she went down the slide in her Daddy's lap holding Logan's hand!! Jeremy was caught between shock and wanting to cry.

I need your prayers! If she has the guts to hold hands with a boy at 5 WHILE sitting on her Daddy's lap, Lord help us at 15!

Overall we had a great time and I would highly recommend Bounce U to anyone looking for a place for a birthday party! The best part is we got to split the cost! The kids and adults for that matter had a great time. I would definitely do it again.

5 Years Ago

This is the year that my beautiful, outgoing, creative, loving, dramatic, talkative little girl turns 5! Five years ago tonight I was staying in a hotel waiting for 5 am to roll around to go to the hospital. I was a nervous wreak! I am tearing up as I write this. She shouldn't be this old! The time has gone by too fast. Is it normal to want to scratch and scramble and get those years back? I just seem to flash forward to when she is 10, 15, off at college. I don't think I am ready. I know nobody is ever ready for their babies to grow up.

This is the year that all the days fall the same as the year she was born. The year she was born Valentine's Day fell on a Saturday and it was snowing in Guthrie, Texas. Monday, the 16th that year I had a doctor's appointment in Lubbock and had gone ahead and taken the day off from school. I had been having high blood pressure and was supposed to be on bed rest anyway. (I disobeyed doctor's orders and just sat and taught rather than waste my precious maternity leave days on me instead of my little girl.) We lived so far from the hospital we were inducing anyway. My principal already knew that depending on what the doctor said, my maternity leave might begin immediately. I had everything all set up for the sub that would cover for me.

As I sat on my couch the morning of February 16th, 2004, I dozed and took a little nap before I had to get ready for my hour and a half drive to the big city. I thought to myself this would probably be the last time I got to nap when I wanted.

I got to the doctor and found out my blood pressure was still elevated (Yours would be too if you were a first time mom that had to take at least a half day off work and drive 3 hours round trip each time you had a doctor's appointment.) and I was starting to dilate. My doctor said she would call and get me scheduled to be induced the following day. So a little later I made the call to my husband back at the Mare Barn in Guthrie to tell him that he would need to get my bag and everything together because...we would be having a baby tomorrow!
To say that I wasn't ready and that I really would rather have gotten everything together myself was an understatement. It just didn't make sense for me to drive all the way back and then us drive back to Lubbock again. He did really well though. He had a list of things to do and pack about a mile long and the only things he forgot were my hair dryer and my wedding ring. ( I hadn't been able to wear the one for months and let's just say the horrendous hairstyle I had at them time looked the same + or - the hairdryer.)

We began the process at about 6 am on Tuesday. As I was pushing, she would move back up a little bit after each push. I still figured this wasn't anything out of the ordinary. After an hour and a half of pushing, our little girl came into the world; all 7 lb. 11 oz of her. She had the cord around her neck and this was the reason she kept sliding back up as I was pushing. I had a "reaction" to the epidural and was somewhat out of it. This was really a blessing in disguise because had I had all my faculties, I would have realized that I should be really worried. I remember thinking to myself "She looks like a little grape." Not necessarily the color fruit you want associated with your newborn!

We each got to hold her and then they took her off to the nursery. I had never done this before, so I had no idea of what "normal" was. She was born at 3:11 pm and I would not see her again until about 9:30 pm. By that time I was coming around and thinking she shouldn't still be gone. Jeremy had been back and forth to the nursery to see her since then. I finally made him go ask when they were bringing her to the room. Finally, after more than 6 hours they brought her back. She had so much hair. Not like a crazy amount of baby hair, but alot. I remember I just stroked it over and over.

I still doesn't feel like Jeremy and I should be old enough to have kids. Now we have not one, but two. I hope to someday have another.

So to my firstborn, I love you so much. You know I love you now, but you won't really get it until you are holding that new baby of your own. I want so many things for you. I pray every day that you grow up and become a good Christian girl and that you make good decisions. I pray that you get to live a long healthy, happy life. I want you to go to college and get a job you enjoy that makes you a good living. I want you to find a great Christian man that loves you more than life. I hope you are blessed with children that are healthy. At the very least, I hope that your life isn't always a struggle. I hope I am around to get to see and spoil grandkids! I know you are too young to understand all this, but I just felt like writing it anyway.

Happy Birthday Mady!

I'll update you on the first real "kid" birthday party we had over the weekend. It was great!

Another Busy Day

OK, I realize that I am not doing as well at keeping my blog up to date as I had hoped. This has been a busy week!

M has school 3 mornings this week and J goes on Tuesday mornings. This is the first time in about a month that she has had school all 3 days! Hallelujah!! (As I mentioned previously, we have not had good weather lately to say the least.) I didn't know what to do with myself. I thought I spent too much money all those days it was too cold to go outdoors and there was no school. Let's just say I cyber-browsed a lot at Gap, Target, etc. Not so much browsing as buying. I do have some great black (and brown) boots to show for it though!

Well, I thought the cabin fever spending was bad until today when I made a trip south to Hobby Lobby. Not a good choice for my pocket book's sake. I had a long list of places I needed to go in the 4 1/2 hours the kids were at preschool. I dropped them off and started with the place that was the furthest away- Hobby Lobby. I planned to stop in for a few minutes and then move along.

Well, I arrived at 9:30 am and did not leave until.....12:00 pm!!! That is terrible! Do you have any idea how much you can spend in 2 1/2 hours in a beautiful place like that? ALOT! I did however pick up some good stuff for the shelf above my front door, a great idea for a certain 5 year old's birthday, and a lot of half price ribbon. I am majorly feeling a crafty streak lately.

Anyway I spent so long there I had to bust it to get the stops I had to make done. M has a birthday party coming up Saturday so I was out buying her a new outfit for the occasion, plus birthday presents for a couple of her friends that have birthdays the same day and the day after. (By the way what do 5 year old boys like? Power Rangers I hope! )

This has also been the week for Valentine's day parties at school. I got the bright idea to make white chocolate dipped pretzel rods for all the teachers at our preschool at church and M's other preschool teacher. This was all fine and dandy until I figured out how long it took to melt chocolate, wait for the chocolate to cool down enough to actually stay on the pretzels, sprinkle pink, red, and red and white sugar on the ends of each one, place them in the freezer to ensure the chocolate stayed put, remove the first batch only to realize the baggies I had for this project were not long enough, and I didn't have enough pretzels for all the teachers anyway! Another trip back to Wal-Mart, more pretzels, different bags, and about 4 1/2 hours of hard work later, the teachers had a beautiful gift that screams thoughtfulness and too much time spent doing "projects" rather than housework!

Tonight I took it easy. I just did laundry, helped M decorate her Valentine box for tomorrow, hung some ironwork and things on the wall, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned out J's closet, cooked dinner, baked and decorated cupcakes for M's party tomorrow and updated my blog! And people ask me what I do all day!??!

How I got to this point

This is just an experiment.

I am sure I won't be able to keep up with chronicling all the things my little ones do on a daily basis. But I have decided to try. (Yes, I realize that I shouldn't begin a sentence with but. (or end one with but either)

There are some really great blogs out there. This is a new discovery of mine. In the past 10 days or so I have discovered the previously unknown world of blogging. Why does a mother of a 2 year old boy and a girl who is 5 going on 15 have time to read blogs you ask. Two words...winter weather.

I grew up in western Tennessee. (GO VOLS!!!) I am a "REAL" southerner. I remember one "major" snow in my entire childhood, as well as one big ice storm. When my husband entered vet school and moved us to the other end of the state, we got a few decent snows in the 3 1/2 years we were there. We lived in Texas for a few years and experienced a very cold wind many days, but usually only a light dusting of snow once or twice a year.

A few years ago, we moved up north. Central Kentucky that is. My husband and I have lamented before that you know we are living too far north when you can be in Cincinnati, Ohio in an hour and a half. You can be in our hometown in Tennessee or in Chicago in the same amount of time. In my world that just sounds crazy! Well, as all you geography buffs are well aware, Kentucky borders Tennessee on the north. Up until this point we have had relatively similar weather conditions. Not so this year! I am now enjoying week 2 of cabin fever. Last week it was 4-5 inches of freezing rain, sleet, snow, and a little more sleet. This week it appears that snow and lots of it are on the agenda. This morning when I left to take the kids to school, nothing. By 11 am the roads were covered...again. So in an effort for the three of us to make it home alive, I picked them up early from preschool. I had time to run into Gordmans, get my hair cut at Super Cuts, and quickly walk through a discount furniture store before returning to pick them up. I had appointments made and lots of errands to run. Instead, I enjoyed a scant 2 hours of "mommy time".

Tonight I look out on possibly 3-4 inches of snow. Just LOVELY! Now don't get me wrong, I like to sled as much as the next person. I own some great winter clothes. I even bought my kids snow suits. I do not, however, have the need for my kids to "get the wear" out of these snow suits. I have a need for a few "kid free" hours in my week. Snow/Ice = NO SCHOOL. So that is how I got to this point.

I go to my computer and read about other peoples lives in an effort to escape my own for a minute or two. ( I have also been doing some internet shopping, but let's not tell my husband.)

Just look at the snow drifts in the driveway, never experienced that before....