I've been talking Brooke's ear off about a really cool DIY ice trail at Wirth Park. So we made a date out of it, she claimed it wasn't going to be cleared and when we got there it was perfect. It snowed the day before with more snow coming this weekend so I thought no way was someone going to go through all that work to shovel. I guess I was wrong.  This was way cooler than I thought it would have been. I wish the kids had been with us. About a dozen other skating enthusiasts were out skating the circuitous circuit. 

Both kids said they wanted to make their own valentines this year. Meadow and I picked up some supplies and away they went. After Meadow successfully completed her "Don't-be-so-shy Cat Challenge" we finally adopted a new kitty, Pecan! Our first cat was named Peanut, so when our new little gal was named Pecan by the Rescue Crew , we had to keep the name. Petting her cat in her cat pajamas of course.

Snow got dumped on us again. They originally predicted 28" but we only received 13".  Only...Minnesotans like to complain whether we get too little or too much. It was a big snowstorm over three days! The kids playground is starting to get buried.    Now there's not much of a fall from the monkey bars. Meadow was home from school all week due to the snowstorm. She was done with e-learning early on Friday so we headed to Woodlake Nature Center to go skiing. This place is perfect for us newbies. No trail pass is needed and it's only a 2 mile loop.

  We had yet again another big snowstorm here. I love the snow, but after dealing with our car constantly getting stuck I'm over driving. I think you just need to bite the bullet and get a fat bike for the work commute. The snow was perfect for a snowman. The kids love the slide and fort half of our new-to-us playset in winter.

We were excited to decorate our Mario gingerbread house but had to let it sit over night after gluing the castle together.  Meadow has been asking for chocolate rye pancakes for awhile now. So today was the day.  Almost 2 months into moving and two weeks into December we finally got a snowstorm and I got to try out my new electric snowblower.   When I saw how long our walkway was from the garage to the house I was like, maybe we should invest in a snowblower.  The kids had so much fun making a gingerbread house over Thanksgiving that we had to get one for ourselves too. Of course we went with a Mario themed house.  By the time I got back inside Peach's gingerbread second home was nearly complete.       I took some time off of working on the house to play outside with the kids. All of our backyard needs a few more trees planted.   We have a few, but I wish we had more.   We played some football... And attempted to make a snow castle, ...

We were home again this weekend. After a snowstorm over night we decided to play outside. I got the fun task of moving the car. There was a layer of frozen snow on top of the ice and the windows were iced over. I love this Beetle and it looks even better in the snow. We thought we'd go sledding, but the kids just wanted to play with sand toys in the snow. Theo loves eating snow and Meadow loves picking on her little brother. We took a quick walk around the block, but the wind was brutal. I guess this was as far as we were going to get. As always we promise hot chocolate when coming inside. It's the only way to get her inside sometimes. The next day we decided to go ice skating. I wanted to try the free skates instead of using my own. I had a hard time finding skates in my size. We are trying to get Theo on single blades right away. He doesn't agree with this idea. His wooden sled slid right across th...