Snowed in...again

Last night and all day today we are being hit with yet another winter storm. This one is the worst of the few we've been hit with in the last 2 weeks as it brought some ice first and now it is snowing on top of that. It's very reminiscent of the ice storm we had back in February where we were without power off and on for days and ended up having to go to a hotel. I don't think this one is quite as bad, though I have heard reports of power being out in different areas of Newton. Thankfully we haven't lost ours yet so keep your fingers crossed! Some good friends of ours bought a generator after the bad February storm so they have said that we can head over to their house if we lose power for too long. Cody went to work this morning, much to my dismay and protestations that he stay home. He just called and said that he is going to try to brave it at noon and get back home. The problem is that he'll be traveling in the thick of the storm but we're afraid if he waits til it's over it will be dark and it will be even more difficult for him. Please say a prayer that he makes it home safely! I even had a doctor's appointment scheduled for this afternoon and they called me this morning to say that they are closing I needed to reschedule, which was fine by me! They are even closing many community colleges and universities and many of them are in the midst of finals week! So that tells you just how bad it is! I took a few pictures out our front and back doors--I was too afraid to venture out any further!

Notice the ice on the power lines.

Now we're just praying that all this clears so my parents can get here for Christmas!

Snow Men

We got about 3-4" of snow on Thursday so Daddy took Owen out to play on Saturday afternoon. He wanted to make a snowman with him but the snow was just too powdery and wouldn't pack well. So they just ran around in the yard for a bit and then did a little sledding. Owen LOVED it! He got out there and said, "I love snow!" Then every time he would fall down he'd get back up and say, "I'm ok! I'm ok!" And at one point he heard a loud truck or something and he said, "I hear Santa!!!"

All bundled up on his way out the door.

I think he was saying, "Merry Christmas, everyone!" here.

Every time he went past me on the sled he'd yell, "Bye bye, Mommy!!!!!" (FYI: For anyone with little ones, these sleds are great!)

Our little ham

When he came in he sat with me on the couch for about 20 minutes under a blanket getting "toasty warm" as he put it. Cody was out shovelling so I couldn't get a pic of our snuggle time. :( However, I did get pics of us baking cookies later in the day so stay tuned for those!

The Muhses are definitely in the Christmas spirit. We went to a light display on Friday night and had a great time together. Owen loved seeing all the lights and even got to see Santa Claus, though he didn't feel like waiting in line to sit on his lap. He makes us listen to the Sesame Street Christmas album at least 4 times a day and walks around singing, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Jingle Bells" all the time. He is just mesmerized by everything Christmas and making it so enjoyable for Cody and me!

O Christmas Tree!

Well, we finally got our tree up and decorated. We got a new tree this year so I was so excited to get it up and see how it looked. The best part is that it is pre-lit! I think that is the best invention ever! Owen had so much fun decorating it! He had trouble actually hanging the ornaments but that didn't stop him from pulling them all out of the box and checking them all out. Last year my mom had my old Sesame Street Christmas record converted to CD for me. I have listened to that record every year for as long as I can remember as I decorated the tree. I was so excited to share the tradition with Owen and he just loved listening to it and singing along with it.

Grandma Debbie got him Thomas and Percy ornaments this year and he just loved when we brought them out of the box. He started playing with them but after we explained to him that they go on the tree he really hasn't bothered them since. He loves to look at them but he understands that they are for looking and his other trains are for playing. Thank goodness!

Here he is checking them out on the tree.

Helping Daddy put the star on top. The tree was too tall for Owen to reach the top though! :(

When we were all done decorating and turned the lights on he just wanted to sit in a chair in front of it and look at it. I think it's so funny because I used to do the exact same thing every year when I was a little girl.

Eventually he went and got his blanket and snuggled in!

The first thing he said to me when he woke up this morning was, "Wanna go see the Christmas tree?" He is just enamored by it! It is so much fun watching all of this through the eyes of your child. It just makes the holiday that much more special. Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year and I can't wait to share old traditions and create new ones with my children in the years to come. Hope all of you are enjoying the season as much as we are at the Muhs household!

They Really Do Say the Darnedest Things....

***Tapping his fork on his high chair tray he says to me, "It's a tap dancer!"***

***Yesterday I told him we were going to go get his haircut and he said, "Get haircut and see Grandpa?" (Because he usually goes with Grandpa Steve to get his haircut when we're in Murphysboro.)***

***Cody let me sleep in on Saturday morning and when I woke up I yelled for Owen to come in and see me. He climbed up in bed with me and said, "Hey, sleepyhead!"***

***When he is done with his bath at night he likes to run in to see Daddy and yells, "Oodie Nudie!" Daddy will say, "Hey, Oodie Nudie!" One day he was walking around the house in the middle of the day and said to himself, "Hey, Oodie Nudie!" He then realized he was dressed and changed his mind and said, "Hey, Shirt On!"***

***Last night Cody was changing his diaper and when he took it off Owen said, "Phew! Stinky pee pee!"***

***When reading his books to himself he sits down, picks out a book and says, "Wanna read this book? Yeah, that'll be a good one."***

***As I was cleaning the bathtub yesterday, Owen came up behind me, hugged me and said, "Oh, Mommy, you're so cute!"***

Slowly But Surely

Cody has been working very hard all by himself on our basement for quite some time now. We started it before we found out about the last baby last year! But with him doing all the work himself and also working long hours at work, he only has limited time to put into it. He has been working pretty feverishly lately to get it done before the baby comes. While we probably won't make our deadline we are fairly close, which is good enough for us. We're hoping to hire someone to mud and tape and possibly even paint, which will speed up the process and take some of the burden off Cody. I thought I would post some of the pictures of his hard work to this point.

As you come down the stairs, you turn left and go down this hallway. That first doorway that you see to the right is to what will be the storage room.

This is the storage room as you look into it from the doorway. There is a little more room in it than this picture shows. Eventually it will have built-in wooden shelves where I will someday put all my things in plastic bins, neatly organized!

Further down the hallway, you come to a second door and that is the guest bedroom. Like the rest of the rooms in the basement, it is small but it will do it's job just fine. It has a full size window in it so when we sell the house eventually, we will be able to list it as a 4 bedroom.

This is the view from the opposite wall of the bedroom, showing the closet.

Outside of the door to the bedroom, we will have an open TV room. The thing that looks like a closet that you see will house our big screen TV that we hope to buy someday, along with a new couch and a chair or two. Right now I'm pretty sure we'll be paying for all those with the money tree we hope to find miraculously growing in our backyard. There is a sliding glass door in this room which leads to the new patio and backyard. I think you can see it in the first picture.

The TV room opens to this...right now it is just sort of a catch-all but it will be the computer/game/toy area. The door on the left is to a bathroom, which won't be started until after the baby is born. And the door on the right is a small storage area that has the furnace and water heater in it.

And there you have it! It is small but it is going to fit our needs just fine and open up the 2nd bedroom upstairs (currently the computer room) for Owen to have his "big boy" room. We still have lots of work to do but we can't wait to show it all off when we're done! Hats off to my wonderful husband for all the hard work he's put into it all thus far!

One down, still countless to go!

Cody actually finished the downstairs patio in September but lazy old me kept forgetting to head down and take pictures of it! I finally asked him to do it for me so now I can post the pictures of his beautiful work. He worked so hard on it and did a fantastic job!! We are very happy with it and can't wait until the spring/summer when we can start landscaping around it and put a swing on it! We are even tossing around putting a water feature around it but I think we both fear it will just become a small swimming pool for Murphy! ;) It's so nice to have something finished, even though we still have a ton of work left to do on the house. I have a feeling that by the time we get everything done we'll be ready to move to a bigger house! But isn't that always the way life seems to go?

Stay tuned for pictures of the basement progress and tree-trimming pictures! I keep putting it off every night but I swear I'm going to get that tree up by the weekend! :)

Happy....Thanksgiving?

Well, this is what Owen and I woke up to on Wednesday morning....

It continued to snow non-stop the entire day until about 5pm. I never heard a final total but I believe it was somewhere in the realm of 2"-4". I called Maddy and told her about it and she said, "What?!?! It's snowing?!?! It's not supposed to snow on Thanksgiving! Only at Christmas!" While I do agree, it was beautiful and Owen and I loved it! I would have loved to take him outside to play in it but there wasn't really enough to do anything with and with my coughing I just didn't think I should be outside running around in the cold. So we just admired it constantly throughout the day out the back door. He just loved it!

His favorite part was we he got to open the door to let Murphy in or out and then he would get down on the floor and just study it until Mommy got too cold for the door to be open!

Thankfully the weather didn't hinder our travelers and Grampa Gary and Gramma Lynn made it here safely on Thursday morning. Gramma Linda wasn't able to make it this year and we missed her tons!!! Owen watched the Macy's Parade for the first time and loved it. He'd shout out whomever character he saw that he knew and at one time said, "Look at all these dancers!" It was so much fun to watch him. I cooked all morning and we ate a HUGE dinner around 1pm. Thankfully, I got my much-earned traditional Thanksgiving nap! We continued to lounge around the rest of the weekend.

Grampa took off on Friday evening just as we headed out with Gramma to the square in town to see the lighting of the Courthouse and the Lighted Christmas Parade. Owen had a ball running around the square in what little snow was left. He didn't have much patience to stand for the parade, so it was nice that it was only about 15 minutes long! He loved seeing Santa at the end.

Here he is all bundled up. It was so cold out there!!! The Iowa winter is really in full swing!

Owen and Daddy clapping as they turned on all the lights surrounding the Courthouse.

He kept walking around like this with his arms out saying, "Very (He thinks it's very and not merry) Christmas, everyone!" I'm not really sure why he started saying it because no one else was saying it. He's continued to do it at home but for some reason he thinks he needs gloves on to say it. So he will put my gloves on and walk around the house saying it.

Hope everyone else had a great holiday as well. We are gearing up for our first Christmas in Iowa with Grandma and Grandpa Glodo! Hopefully we are going to get the tree up tonight so stay tuned for more pictures!

Carriage Ride on the Square

Two weekends ago the retailers in our town had a Christmas Open House. It's something they do in order to get people into their stores before they head off to Des Moines to do all their Christmas shopping. We've lived here for 6 years and I had never been in many of these stores! It was neat to see all the Christmas decorations and we even got to sample some yummy goodies. Owen's highlight of the day was the horse-drawn carriage they had giving free rides around the square. He loved it!

A full view of the beautiful horses and carriage.

He would have rode it all day if we'd let him! It was beautfiul weather and we had a nice relaxing time. Now we're pumped for our first Christmas in Iowa!

A Date with a New Boy

Well, it's official. Unless he decides to come on his own (which he probably will because nothing in my life ever seems to go as planned), I will get to meet my new boy on January 14th. I'm hoping it all goes as planned since we have Grandma Debbie scheduled to come and be with Owen while we are at the hospital, but mostly I like the idea of all my boys having their birthday on the 14th of the month! Cody is Sept. 14, Owen is March 14, and hopefully Cameron will be January 14!

I have also reached the point where I start going to the doctor every 2 weeks now instead of every 4. Owen went with me to my last appointment and I when I told him we were going to see Dr. Nieves he just kept talking about it. When the doctor walked in at the appointment, I said, "Well, Owen, there he is. You've been talking about him for the last 20 minutes!" Owen turned around and smiled really big and said, "Dr. Nieves!!!" It was so cute. Who knew a kid could love an OB so much?! Anyway, everything is going ok except for the fact that I'm still coughing, wheezing, and having trouble breathing. He put me on an antihistamine for a week hoping it would help and told me to call him and let him know if it did. I just called today and told the nurse that, unfortunately, it didn't help. To top it all off, I think I'm getting another cold, which is actually making everything worse. Ugh! So I'm just playing the waiting game until he calls me back and tells me what's next. He's trying to avoid a chest x-ray at all costs, which I really don't want to do so I'm hoping that can still be avoided. Keep your fingers crossed!

A Party for Cade

While we were in Murphysboro we celebrated Cade's 1st birthday. We had so much fun helping with the party preparations and had a great time at the party. Here are some pictures of the baby of the family (though not for long!) turning 1!

Cade and Auntie Sarah sitting out on the porch watching the slide show of pictures that his Grampa put together. The heaters we had out there weren't working so everyone was a little cold. Cade was all bundled up in a blanket and just curled up on me and watched the whole thing. He was so cute! I miss cuddling a little one like that! Also, notice the carved "1" pumpkin on the table. I forgot to take pictures of all of them! Beth, Ryan, and I carved different ones into pumpkins a few nights before as decoration. They turned out so cute and were easy to do!

Modeling his new Elmo hat

Checking out the bath toy holder that we got him.

This is the pumpkin cake that I made for him. It turned out better than we expected and it was pretty easy to do! Beth put the stem and the one on it.

Getting ready for cake!

Singing "Happy Birthday" to him. He loved it and was so excited!

His first bite of cake. He had a double ear infection and was starting to get pretty tired at this point but he still loved that cake!

"This cake is so good Grampa!"

Cade is the biggest Grampa's boy I've ever seen! He just LOVES him! It's so cute!

Here's Owen checking out all of Cade's loot. He just sat there staring at all of it in amazement!

The little ones at the party: Cade, Adyson, Owen, and Maddy. Cade was on his way to the bathtub at this point!

Owen is still walking around the house singing "Happy Birthday" to Cade. Thanks to the Brookses for a great time!

Little Bowlers

The first weekend we were in Murphysboro Aunt Beth really wanted to take Owen to a local bowling alley that was just re-done. They added a special bowling area just for kids and it was so cool! The lanes and balls are smaller and the pins are on strings. There are also, of course, bumpers so you never get a gutter ball, though miraculously, Owen and Logan still managed to get a few! Owen loved it! I wasn't surprised though, since I'm pretty sure bowling is in his blood. Between the two of us, Daddy and I have 3 of our own bowling balls, Daddy used to play in leagues when he was younger, and Cody's Uncle Wayne and Aunt Judie managed a bowling alley for years. We Muhses love our bowling! Anyway, we went with Aunt Beth and Cade and Auntie Chelle and Logan. Owen was still a little young to get that you had to roll the ball and not just throw it. So Mommy got a good workout chasing him and making sure he wasn't just hurling ball after ball down the lane!

Notice the smaller ball and the little bowling shoes. Aren't they so cute?!

Waiting for the ball to come back. He loved watching that!

Cheering as his ball knocked the pins down.

Little Caders sat adorably on the sidelines and cheered everyone on.

The cute little bowling buddies. They had so much fun together!

Thanks for taking us Auntie Beth! We had so much fun and can't wait to go again!