Way back in September....

You know, before all the germs attacked our house???  Geez, it feels like forever because it has been forever.  I have no intention of letting this blog die.  This is how I capture our lives and document it for everyone to look back on, and if I don't blog I won't have anything to print into our amazing family blog books!  Thank you, Tori, for reminding me to make this a priority.

At the end of September, right before Riley spiked a bit of a fever and started out downward spiral, we headed to Crystal Bridges for one Saturday morning.  It was a beautiful day to walk the trail and we just loved our family time together.  I, on the other hand, hate that I've been lacking at my time behind the camera, because it definitely shows.  I just went through and deleted a ton of photos that were blurry or completely blown out because I feel like a newbie again when I'm trying to snap photos and all the settings are off.  I need to make that a priority, too, and not just rely on my iPhone and Instagram.

The turtle and the rabbit are always favorite stops on the walk...  The rabbit was in the sun though and hot, so we decided to hop on the turtle for a little photo opp.

There were beautiful flowers to stop to smell!

Gavin loved that he was finding leaves as big as his head!

I love shadow pictures! :)

We just love how beautiful this trail is...and I loved seeing this plaque at the start of our walk.  I'm looking forward to walking here with Amy, Harper and Maggie this spring.

 

Then, we stopped into the museum for some play time in the children's area.  Puppets are always our favorite!

My Birthday Storm!

We were forecasted to get a big storm, starting with sleet and freezing rain on my birthday and turning to snow.  It definitely happened!  Still, 4 days later, roads are pretty much ice covered and the snow is still piled up.  With temperatures in the teems and 20s, it doesn't seem to be melting any time soon.  We were scheduled to get another light dusting today, but it's been snowing hard for the past hour and is quickly piling up.  And, apparently there's another storm headed our way for next week!  Kind of crazy considering they aren't supposed to get snow like this here!   These pics are mostly taken from inside, but it was too cold or coming down too hard to go out.  

This was the beginning of the storm, when the sleet was falling and adding up!

 Looking out at the walk after Jarrod shoveled.

 Looking out of the back door at the patio...notice the snow piled up so high we can't really open the door without the snow falling in!

Officially a snow day!

We've had quite the snow storm here in Arkansas!  You know...about 3 or 4 inches!  That's quite the storm around here.  It shut everything down for the last couple of days.  We had a great time getting out to play.  Gavin loves it!

We went out yesterday morning and played some soccer.

 Then, Daddy came home from work a little early to enjoy the weather with us so him and Daddy did lots of shoveling out front.  Gavin was digging for treasure!

Gavin learns way too much from books and TV.  I was so excited to show him how to make a snow angel.  I asked him if he wanted to learn and he laid right down and started doing it on his own!  I didn't even have to teach him.  He's such a big boy now. 

 Admiring (or trying to find) his snow angel

Throwing snow at Daddy

Family snow pictures....thanks to the trusty self timer! :)

Bikes, Blues, and BBQ!

We heard a lot about Bikes, Blues, and BBQ down here, but I didn't really think we'd go.  It sounded more like a motorcycle rally than anything.  But, Friday night, Jarrod told Gavin we'd head down to see some motorcycles the next day and he was really excited so after our Home Depot adventure, we headed south.  I'm glad we ended up going.  It was a great afternoon for walking around Fayetteville!  There were more motorcycles there than I've ever seen before....and everyone was different.  It was pretty neat to see them all. Signs were everywhere stating that BB&B benefited local charities, and I saw bikers everywhere with shirts stating different causes - Bikers Against Child Abuse and Ride for the Boobs were my favorites.  It was a little surprising to me to see 'that side' of these big, bad biker boys. We had some barbecue from a couple different vendors, then split a humongous funnel cake.  Gavin surprisingly slept almost the entire time.  Motorcycles were EVERYWHERE, making more noise than you could believe, and he was sleeping right through it. He did eventually wake up and loved the motorcycles, too.

Sound asleep one minute, awake and enjoying the scenery the next!

Just some cuteness

Wednesdays are Jarrod's class day, so we have the whole day to ourselves.  These pics were taken last week.  I hadn't take many pictures recently and just wanted to start photographing our day.  Some random cuteness coming your way!

Eating lunch.  I loved the way his apple slices looked with his little teeth marks in them.

 Getting ready for nap....I set up the self-timer again to snap a few shots.  After the ones of him reading, he wanted one of me tickling him.  Even though it cut off our heads, I love it!

Then he asked me to take a picture of Woody.

 After dinner we went for a walk.  First stop was to see the cows at the end of the street, and then we continued around the neighborhood looking for leaves to use this week for crafts. 

Of course we miss Daddy when he's gone all day, but I sure do love my time with the Bug!