Cabin Fever

Yesterday was so unreasonably cold, the kind of bitter blustery cold that caused the boys and I to run, shrieking in dismay, across the parking lot into church when we arrived for the mom's group meeting that morning. So cold that I've sworn off grocery shopping, because there is no way that I'm stepping out of the car or the house if I can possibly help it. Easter is almost here, and snow flurries are still a weekly (if not daily) occurrence. It's a little discouraging!

We've definitely got a bad case of . . . CABIN FEVER!

In addition, Christian has been teething (I think so, anyway, probably his two year molars), so there has been a whole lot of this:

And in his better moments, a little of this:

In flagrant disobedience of two rules - no climbing up on the counter,
and no drinking out of beer bottles (even mostly empty ones). This is
what happens if I dare take two minutes to throw clothes in the dryer.

With Gabriel home this week on spring break, the boys are having a great time playing together. But all that excess energy needs to go somewhere, and right now it's being taken out on the couch cushions, in ill-advised wrestling matches, and on my sanity.

I'm not the best at coming up with fun activities for the kids to do, but once when I was little, my mom gave us each some bread dough so that we could shape it into bears and bake it. I remember enjoying this, and thought my boys would too, so I mixed up some bread dough yesterday afternoon and handed it over to them.

John hasn't figured out a natural smile for photos yet, but I
love seeing what he comes up with.

After spilling his juice on two consecutive sets of clothing,
Gabriel gave up and got in his pajamas.

Christian primarily used his dough to wipe all the flour off the
counter and onto the floor. 

Ready for the oven! Gabriel made a jack o'lantern, John made a sort of
car, and I made a teddy bear for Christian.

Finished! Somewhat mutated, but delicious anyway.

As sometimes happens when we attempt a late afternoon project, dinner was very much an afterthought. Not that I had any food anyway, having sworn off grocery shopping (see above). The boys had their bread with butter and smoothies for dinner, I had a salad, and at 8:00pm I headed out the door to pick up some Chinese food for Ryan.

I was greeted with this glorious sight, which gave me such a feeling of happiness, and of hopeful anticipation of a beautiful spring and summer.

iPhone photo, which doesn't show that it was still quite light even at 8:00pm,
one of the funny things about living on the extreme western side of the
Eastern Standard Time zone.

Sadly, I was headed in the opposite direction, but I'm looking forward to many
more of these. Indiana has wonderful sunsets!