wintertime

+Today is the first of December and I have already made three different kinds of cookies. I even went to a workout class at the ymca, and came home and mixed up my all-time favorite sugar and spice cookies. Might have to slow down on the baking a bit...

+I recently was telling my friend Rachel about The Christmas City Express in Duluth and felt compelled to tell the world about it once again. If you have a train enthusiast in your family, it really is worth the drive.

+It was 37 degrees on Saturday and our whole family acted like it was springtime. Rory got his chainsaw out, Ivar started making snow castles from his sand toys and Elsie asked to play with her little sand box on a chair in the driveway. I sat in a camping chair and marveled at how 37 feels balmy.

+We had our first suppertime candle lit Advent lesson. The kids weren't really into it. I ended up reading a kids book about baby Jesus and we sang Joy to the World. Mostly I bribed them with a cookie if they sat still for the story. We'll keep working on this all month long. Might have to keep baking those cookies after all.

+We went sledding the day after Thanksgiving at my mom's house. It was so awesome. Ivar laughed so hard and Elsie was fearless.



+And finally, on Sunday night on our way for hamburgers and grocery shopping we got a flat tire. We're not sure if we ran over something or what, but we had to call a tow truck and it was quite exciting for the kids. But we realized a few things while waiting in our warm car on the side of the road so close to home: we didn't have winter gear in the car. We didn't have extra hats or mittens or boots. We haven't even thrown in an extra blanket in the back. We usually will create a winter survival kit, but for some reason this winter felt so early that we haven't pulled it together. We were grateful to be close to home, able to wait in our warm car for the tow truck and to have a nice neighbor to come and pick us up. But we took it as sort of a nice reminder. I found this list and now will spend this week getting our cars winter-ready. Hope this is a helpful reminder for you too!