COLD

Winter is here. When I left for storytime this morning with Zach and Eleanor, the temperature on the mirror in the car read 3 degrees. When the kids and I were driving home from watching a middle school basketball game, the temperature read 1 degree. I'm grateful we have a warm house :-)

I went through all but one box of the baby girl clothes we have, which was fun...until Zach decided to help. I was taking clothing out of the box one piece at a time, but Zach would take them out by the armload and throw them at me, or he would put them in a different pile where they didn't belong, or he would throw them into the kitchen. I thought about doing the last box this evening while he's sleeping, but I'm too tired. Eleanor was excited to see all the clothes for the baby (Eleanor calls the baby Madison, but now we're deciding between Madison and Kate, so I say baby...but when I say baby to Eleanor she gets confused, if I say Madison then Eleanor knows I'm talking about her baby sister...if we end up calling this baby Kate, it is going to throw Eleanor for a loop and she'll probably call her Madison anyway...all the girls are voting for Madison). Eleanor was raving about how she loves Madison and how Madison has such cute clothes when I was going through the clothes. Eleanor is going to be a very excited big sister when the baby arrives!

I decided to take the kids to a girls' basketball game this afternoon at the middle school. My dad gave me a schedule of the games and today was the day to do it since the season ends soon and we'll have a new baby soon. The kids were very well behaved and they seemed to enjoy themselves. Emily was the only one who got bored quickly, plus she was hungry so through most of the game she asked when it was going to be over. Zach had to take his boots and socks off during the second half of the game, so he played with his boots and was happy. Eleanor made a lady friend a few rows behind us and showed off her artwork on her legs that she did this afternoon with a pen. Plus Eleanor's hair was sticking up everywhere from static, which was fun for people to look at. Being at the game went a lot smoother than I expected, so I'm glad we went. Next year we'll have to get the schedule earlier in the season.

Zoe tested my patience this evening when it was time to get ready for bed. Matt is at church this evening, so I was on my own during bedtime. I finally decided to let Zoe do whatever she wanted to do and ignore her instead of acting on the urge to yell and lose control. The bedroom she was supposed to clean is still a mess, she missed out on reading a book, scripture, and prayer, but she is alive and well and asleep now. I did put some of her toys in time-out before I reached my patience limit, so she'll have to earn those back. After all this, I found this picture in her backpack

sweet. I'm a LITTLE less mad now.

Oh yeah, Eleanor fell asleep on the way home from the game, so I put her on her chair in the living room. When I went to get her ready for bed, I noticed that her chair was wet and realized she had peed. So now I am doing laundry and washing chair covers that I have been thinking about washing for awhile now.