Ice storm

Well, tis' the season for ice storms!  It started raining Friday night and by Saturday morning, everything was all iced over!  Check out the ice on the shrub:

And here's our pine tree out front. It lost one branch yesterday:

And two more branches today!

And who needs icicle lights when you have real ones!

Looks like we're going to lose this pine tree on the side of the house.  Poor thing!  This tree had already lost the top of its truck about 5 years ago in another ice storm, prior to us moving into this house:

And this pine tree... "How LOW can you go???"

Bobby was out working in the yard cleaning up and noticed these trees up the street.  Wow!  I guess we're lucky that we still have power in our neighborhood!

So what do you do on icy days?  We stay home and play the piano, of course :-)

That was yesterday and unfortunately, today - Charlie was having a tough day with a fever.  So it was snuggle time with Mommy on the lounger chair with the boo-boo pack (thank you, Grandma!) on the forehead.

And once Charlie was back upstairs for his nap, it was Graham's turn with Mommy.  Mmm... yummy banana bread!

And then, not too long after that... another Charlie-and-Mommy session with the boo-boo pack on the forehead.  Looks like no break for Mommy!  

And Bobby always wonders why I stay up so late at night for "me" time!  

Update on the Pridgen boys

Well, Charlie is finally walking! At 16 1/2 months, he is finally getting the hang of it:

He will still occasionally grab my finger and drag me along everywhere for support. It's very cute/funny when he does that. Actually, he'll grab your hand when he needs you to do something as well, like pick up a toy or get him some food.
We've also upgraded Charlie to a forward-facing carseat.  He's so excited about it that even after a few days, he would still say "wow" everytime I put him in his seat!

Charlie is now sitting behind the driver's seat - basically taking over Graham's previous carseat. And now, Graham is in a booster seat - another milestone!  By the way, I asked Graham why he shut his eyes in the photo and he said that the light (flash) is too bright!
The boys are definitely growing up fast... and obviously still need to learn how to play together!

Snow!

So after returning from New Jersey, the boys ended up not having school on Tuesday because of the ice accumulation on the neighborhood streets.  So, what do we do on a day off?  We play in the snow!
Graham was quick to grab his shovel:

So busy!

Charlie wasn't sure what to make of the snow:

We went looking for animal tracks. I'm still not sure what this one was:

Deer tracks:

Bird tracks:

Delivery man tracks!?

Well, it was time to build our snowman.  I'm not sure how much the boys really helped:

Although, I'm not sure if anything would have helped this awkward looking snowman!

The snow was really soft and fluffy - I couldn't even make a good snowball! So we had a mound for a snowman. Ha!  If anything, he lasted quite a few days :-)

Visiting Grandma & Pop-pop

As promised, we finally made it up to New Jersey to visit Grandma and Pop-pop.  It was a short trip and unfortunately, Bobby and I ended up losing our voices!  It was quite funny how we would hold a conversation by whispering. Ha!

Anyhow, the boys had a good time with Grandma and Pop-pop's place.  They "cooked":

Graham loved lounging on the new couch:

Of course, at Grandma's - there's always cupcakes:

Yummy!

And lots of cartoons:

There was a quick visit from Uncle Doug and Graham obviously enjoyed it:

Later that week, we did get a chance to visit Uncle Doug again, along with everyone else in the family - uncles, aunts, cousins, and even the dog.  Charlie kept saying "woof, woof" everytime he saw the dog.

Charlie met cousin Madison for the first time - the only granddaughter among a family of boys in the Pridgen family!

Charlie really  enjoyed playing ping pong for the first time too:

Graham, on the other hand, was having fun trying to blow the ping pong ball across the table instead:

Obviously, Charlie was on a mission trying to get the ONE ball on the table:

Once ping pong was over, it was building with the train set. They really enjoyed doing that:

When it was almost time to go, I had changed Charlie into his PJs.  For whatever reason, he decided to just lay on his brother!  I think Graham was a little annoyed at that:

We weren't sure if we were going to fly home as scheduled but the weather looked like it was going to hold up just fine. It just started to snow in NJ when we were departing:

We had a connection to make in Chicago and literally just ran from one plane to the next.  And this is what we came home too.  Brrrr...!

And this is what Charlie decided to do at the baggage claim while we were waiting for daddy to pick up the car:

He wasn't throwing a tantrum or anything like that.  He just decided to crawl away and turn around and lay down on the floor!
Well, once we were home, it was back to our usual routine before bedtime (even at 10 o'clock at night!).  Yogurt!

I wonder how much yogurt actually gets into Charlie's mouth!

Thank you Grandma and Pop-pop for a great visit (and all the new clothes for the boys!).  As we were leaving their home and when we were driving back to the house in Tulsa, Graham would say "I miss Grandma and Pop-pop" or "I miss New Jersey".  Awww... it was too cute.