Winter is not done with us...yet

I woke during the night and noticed that the alarm clocks were off and everything was eerily quiet. I heard the wind pounding the house and deduced that the power was off. I got up and stumbled out to the pantry closet to find our flashlight. 4:30 am. Yuck. I peeked out the windows and saw faint outlines of the trees covered in white. 'Snow? AGAIN!?' I crawled back to bed and tried to fall asleep again. Not much success on that front. at 5:30 am, Ethan woke to feed, then at 6:45 am Evelyn woke for the day. We still had no power. No power means very limited water, and no heat. I am so glad the temperature was mild today. If this was during a -35 cold snap, I don't know what we would have done.


So, the power came back around 7 am, then off, then on, then off several times until 1 pm. It seems to be on for good now. We got about 6 inches of wet snow that is starting to melt now. It was very windy last night, but all is still now.

Ryan still had to report to school as this is a 'snow day'. If we lived in Lac la Biche, he would have had to report to a school there and hang out there for the day.

The kids and I spent the morning playing and colouring. Evelyn and Ethan had a little tug of war. I took a video clip of it. When Ryan gets home, I'll ask him to YouTube it for me. Ethan has recently gotten very adept at grabbing things and can now judge distances more accurately. This has upset Evelyn a bit because he grabs for her, touches her, and can take toys in his reach.


At lunch, I offered Ethan some rice cereal. He did very well with it, until he developed red patches and small welts all over his cheeks and chin. I looked at the ingredients and saw that the 'rice cereal' touted as being an ideal first food was full of oils and chemicals I could not name. I need to pay closer attention to labels. I doubt that Ethan reacted to the rice, but any of those other ingredients could be to blame. Next time, I am just going to try a veggie, or egg yolk, or avocado. Rice and cereal can wait. I was impressed by how well he managed the food in his mouth. I made the cereal thicker than I intended, but he still managed to swallow it! I have been debating introducing solids. I think I will just offer them at lunch for a while. If we skip, we skip. No big deal.

I also took some pictures of Ethan in an old sweater and hat of Ryan's. I like having the kids wear stuff that has heritage and a story. I hope that our grandkids will be able to wear some of the clothes that Ryan wore too!

So, my planned trip to Edmonton to pick up our 'new' vehicle and go to WalMart had to be postponed. I hope the roads will improve so I can go tomorrow. I will post a picture when we have it.

Oh, this picture is from yesterday. Ethan managed to contort himself into a mess. Then discovering he was stuck, he became very frustrated. I had to laugh when I found him. It reminded me how helpless my little boy still is.