“You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
(Isaiah 41:9-10 ESV)

Ugh!

Horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day! And tomorrow? Not looking better...

God is Good

Sometimes it is difficult to see the good in all things, although we know and trust that it is there. My heart is hurting for one of my best friends whose mom passed away yesterday at a young age. They don't know if her death was accidental or of her own choice, but they think it was an accident. Please pray for my friend and her family including her two young boys who are always asking questions and will probably never understand why Grandma left them. Please pray for my friend as she is struggling to cope with the wash of emotions involved in this whole situation which began long before yesterday and may never fully resolve here on earth.

I can't believe that with no plans whatsoever for next year, I am feeling absolutely no stress about it! I can feel God's hand working in my life and I am totally at peace in the midst of the storm raging all around me. Thank you, Lord for this gift of peace!

Train

Killing time on a snow day, building the king of all train tracks...

Playing in the Snow

So much for a plan...

Ha! No one was interested in snow pancakes and we are apparently out of kool-aid? (gasp!) so we made snow jello (not too bad!) and strawberry snow ice cream instead. (The strawberry snow ice cream was pretty well awesome...). Check and check! I think I will enjoy the peacefulness around here and get in a quick shower and a little cleaning. No laundry again today as the dryer vent is closed off...

Well, we are staving off cabin fever around here. I plan to do some lessons with the kids later this morning, but in the meantime I think we plan to take advantage of the massive amounts of pure snow to make some fun recipes. I think we will start with snow pancakes with snow kool-aid to drink. (I wonder if you could substitute apple juice for kool-aid?) After we do our lessons I plan to mix up another batch of snow ice cream (with the recipe I used yesterday, not Paula Deen's recipe!) I think I will throw some frozen strawberries in the blender and mix them in with the ice cream this time.

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/gutcheck/2011/02/eat_your_way_out_of_the_snow_s.php

A Snow Day in pictures

Otherwise known as the blizzard of 2011...

Woke up to my buddy with his buddies.

School closings!!! :-)

After a couple hours of light snow - just the beginning...

I made cinnamon rolls... Let them cool and came back to dole them out only to find them all gone...

After a while, I took a nice relaxing bath... My husband drew me a nice bath with chocolates, wine, and a good book. :-) He even kept the kiddos occupied so I could enjoy it! What a great guy!!!

The fort that the boys and I made a little over a week ago is now completely filled in with snow.

Andy and I cut up hot dogs and wrapped them in crescent rolls for a fun snack this afternoon!

We needed a dessert after our snack, so we made some snow ice cream. 1c milk, 1/2 t vanilla, 1/2 c sugar and snow. Yummy!

After several more hours of snowfall. Still not the end...