It's Almost February, Time to Catch Up

Happy Wednesday. It is ridiculously cold up here in the Northlands. It's currently -20, but this morning when I woke up it was -34 with a wind chill of -50 something. That's chilly! I was thinking this morning about how we refer to talking about the weather as small talk and something you might bring up if you don't know what else to talk about. However, weeks like this make me think otherwise, everybody downright likes to talk about the weather if it's extreme weather.

Due to the extreme temperatures the past couple of days Buirlen and I have canceled our errands and stayed home and cozy. This morning, Luke asked if I could run out and throw some more wood onto the stove. So I bundled up like Nanook of the North and braved the great outdoors. I will say, I am extremely grateful for Luke who is the regular stove stoker. I woke up early this morning to realize that Luke was just coming back to bed after getting up to go out in the dark to stoke up the fire. He's a good man. 

Obviously, with temperatures like we've been having, playing outside hasn't happened, but last week we did venture out and Buirlen sure did enjoy himself. 

Blazing a trail to the compost pile. 

      I checked my last post's date and realized that I haven't written since back in October. That's almost 3 months, oops.
       We spent Thanksgiving here in town with the Williams crew. Then that weekend, we headed south for a quick visit with my Grandpa and Grandma Kinney. It was good to see them.

Checking out Great Grandma's Christmas village. 

    This year we decided to shake things up and instead of everyone heading to my parents house for Christmas, they all came up here New Years weekend and Luke and I hosted. Everyone but my brother Jesse was able to make it. It was fun. The week of Christmas my younger sisters came up for their school break so they spent Christmas with us. Buirlen sure does love having his aunties come and stay. Christmas Eve my oven decided to quite working. We knew it was struggling, but we just kept turning the temperature up in the hopes that it would work. We finally gave up and I pulled the pan of unbaked cupcakes out of the oven. I then went into panic mode because I had a turkey in the roaster, but needed an oven to make other things. We thought it through and got creative. Luke stoked up the grill and before you know it we had baked the cupcakes, dinner rolls, and frozen pizzas outside in the snow on the grill. The following morning I learned that I could bake cinnamon rolls in the electric turkey roaster. A couple days later, my sister and I decided to make peppernuts, a spiced cookie that I grew up eating. They are made by rolling out ropes of dough and cutting bite sized cookies...Lots of them. I got the dough all mixed up only to remember that I did not have a working oven. What to do! I pulled out the turkey roaster once again. We got them baked but it took quite awhile. 

Knocking down ice-cycles with Poppy.  

New Year's Eve, we headed over for a visit with Luke's sister Martha and her family. It was a lovely day. Buirlen has some pretty awesome cousins!

This guy has decided that a favorite pass time is sitting on the counter and playing in the sink. I've learned to just strip him down and pull the towels out before we start. 

We went ice skating. Well, I went ice skating and Buirlen fussed about it. He'll come around. 

Standing like Daddy, really doing everything like Daddy and Mama do it. He's growing so fast. 

He has a thing for shoes. 

One of Luke's coworkers came by this awesome truck as well as some other fun toys. They needed a home, so Buirlen was the lucky recipient. Hopefully this summer Luke can get it working and it will actually drive. But for now, it's parked in the house. 

Catching some zzzzz's

Living on the wild side. 

These two are just the best little friends. Ephraim calls Buirlen his "best boy." I love their little relationship. 

Living the Walmart dream. 

I've let him play with a pan of dry flour a couple times. It keeps him quite entertained and turns him into a little snowman. 

We are now on the countdown to one of my favorite weekends of the year, Winter Retreat. That means, every Sunday after Church we have potluck and then often we stick around so that the band can practice music or do whatever to prepare. This week, Buirlen had a go on Aunt Abbi's violin. 

Recently he has discovered that he can drag the stool around to achieve his purposes. 

A few years back I planted a lemon seed. well it has been a slow process, but this summer it really took off and started looking like a pretty tree as opposed to a twig with leaves. 

Today after eating a grapefruit I decided to stick the seeds in some dirt and see what happens.

Also, my orchid decided to bloom again. It's lovely. 

Well, there you go, stay cozy. 

"No winter last forever, no spring skips its turn." ~Hal Borland