Happy Birthday Jameson!

My kids really enjoyed having their Pennsylvania cousins for a few more days after all of the other cousins went back home.

Britton, Thomas, Jenna, Jessica, Cameron and Jameson

 They played a lot of games together.

And made up plays and acted them out for the parents/grandparents.

But before they knew it it was back to school for my kids and off to the airport for McKay's kids.  This was their last goodbye.

My kids went back to school on Tuesday.  On Wednesday morning both of our phones started ringing at 5:40 a.m. It was the school district saying that due to the heavy snow/blizzard school was starting 2 hours late.  I had no idea that snow was even in the forecast and in the 8 years we have lived here (and there have been some harsh winters in that time) this was the first time they had ever delayed school by 2 hours for a storm.

Well, it snowed all .day. long and we got between 24-30 inches of snow in that time.  Adam had to pull out the snowblower 3 different times and it still just kept piling up.  At 9 p.m. that night the phones all started ringing again.  The school district canceled school for the next day due to continuing snow and extreme temperatures.

Wow. Our first snow day.  The forecast ended up being wrong, it didn't snow, and it really wasn't that cold (around 0 degrees), but the kids had an absolute blast playing in their winter wonderland.

The cul-de-sac pile was nice and big for the kids to play.

Then the temperatures started to drop.  On Friday morning I got up to help the kids get ready for school and while I was helping Jenna with her hair she said, "Gracie just texted "Yay, no school!" What!?  Turns out school was canceled for another day because it was -22 degrees outside and was causing problems with transportation.  I had turned my ringer off the night before and the call came in after Adam had left for basketball so we had missed it.  This was getting crazy. Another day without school!?  Definitely unprecedented.

Yes, it was very cold.  None of the kids in the neighborhood went out to play.  It also just happened to be Jameson's 5th birthday!!  He really loved that his siblings got to stay home on his birthday and play with him.  

Jmo and Dad before leaving for his birthday breakfast.

Jameson's friend birthday party was that afternoon at an indoor inflatable playground. It was the absolutely perfect place for five 4/5 year olds to run around to their hearts content on a VERY cold day. Every one of them had a big smile the entire time we were there.

We scheduled one of their birthday party areas for 1 hr and had cupcakes and opened presents.

I love a simple birthday party and this venue was the perfect fit for these boys.

That night it was back to the house for pizza and more presents. For Jmo the party went from dawn to dusk and he couldn't have been happier about it.

When the older kids turned 5 years old I made them a video montage of their first 5 years of life. Jameson has watched each of their videos too many times to count.  Well, this time he got to watch his own video montage!  "Jameson's First Five" is now his new favorite show and I must say he was a really cute baby.😀

This has been a crazy weather week and the forecast is predicting more will come. Yesterday it was still in the -20's and today it is snowing and tomorrow it is supposed to get up into the 40's and start raining.  This, of course, has the potential to cause a lot of flooding.  The plows did not come to our circle like they usually do with these storms and we were stuck for a few days. Even big 4 wheel drive vehicles were having a hard time getting out of our circle!  At last about 24 hours after the last of the snow fell we finally had someone show up to clear our circle. We are fortunate in that we can borrow my parents truck in situations such as these and were able to get where we needed to be.