Winter Carnival Snow Sculptures

We snuck out of the house briefly on Sunday to see the St. Paul Winter Carnival Snow Sculptures.  My friend Shannon was competing again and I was excited to see all of the entries.

 Here is the Snow Angels entry!  They like to do things related to girls and science.  I thought this one was so adorable!

 We walked through the maze quick before heading out.  The concession lines were way too long to try to get mini donuts, but we were able to distract the kids long enough to leave.

Farewell Walter

With purchasing a new vehicle, we needed to decide what to do with our old Mazda 3, Walter. We thought about trying to sell it, but figured we couldn’t get a whole lot. Then we decided we would try to find someone to give it to. I knew our pastor’s daughter would be getting her license soon, so I reached out to him and they were interested. 

Jimmy bought this car brand new with under 1000 miles and owned it for almost 15 years. It’s been a really good little vehicle and has a lot of good miles left on it. He isn’t pretty, but he’ll get you there. We did one last little photo shoot with him before saying goodbye.

Anagrace was pretty excited to have a car of her own! The fun thing about giving him to someone we know is that we will still get to see him driving around.

She will officially get her license in a few weeks and Walter will get to have some new adventures! Congrats Anagrace!

January 2020 Hodgepodge

The middle of January was a bit messy with sickness and other busyness. Parker was only back at school one day before he ended up sick for a couple days. He spent a lot of time hanging out on the couch resting and recovering.

In the midst of the sickness, we were car shopping as well. The kids have been fighting like crazy in the car. Parker was also leaning out of his seatbelt a lot to bother Esme, which was a big safety concern. We wanted to hang on to Jimmy’s Mazda 3 as long as possible, but it was becoming more apparent that a larger vehicle could provide some separation and flexibility for our family. I’ve never been a fan of other SUVs that have third row seating, which left us with minivans. After a few weeks of research, we settled on Toyota Sienna for our top pick. The last time we were vehicle shopping, it was when my car was totaled and we needed something as quick as possible. It was nice to be able to take our time since it wasn’t an immediate need. 

A good looking option popped up on Tuesday (7th) and I set up a meeting to test drive it. I loved it from the get go and was calling Jimmy to discuss before I even headed home. My mom was able to head to our house so Jimmy could come back to the dealer to finalize things. A few hours later, were headed home with our new ride.  

Esme hated riding in it the first few times. Her new spot is in the middle row and Parker is in the third row. She really wanted to be sitting next to Parker. Within a few days she warmed up to the idea and was saying “I like my new seat.”

Parker finally “lost” his snaggletooth on the 15th. I put that in quotations because he had some help with it. Jimmy had been talking about shooting it out with a Nerf gun since he lost the other one and he finally did it while Esme and so were at church. Before you call CPS, he didn’t just shoot it at his head and hope the aim was good. He held it next to the tooth and shot to the side, out of his mouth. He saw the tooth fly and was shocked that it actually worked. Parker wasn’t phased at all!

We were blessed with a date night from a dear church friend on Friday. She gave us a Benihana gift card and offered to watch the kids while we dined. It’s been a while since we were there and it was so good!

The kids were pretty well behaved for Jinjer. It was a nice little evening away.