Wednesday I had a bunch of friends over for pies and visiting.  Then I spent the afternoon biking with a friend.  Sun was shining, I was out in short sleeves and shorts and feeling like I was sluffing all my adult responsibilities for the day.  Friday the weather turned and we had five inches of snow that stuck.  Kids were in full snow gear, sledding, scrapping drive ways and building snow men.  It has been bitter cold and snow ever since.  Piles of wet snow clothes and boots line up outside the garage door causing me to trip, fall and step into puddles of melted snow in my socks.  I keep feeling like I am out of synch with the calendar lately.  I keep having big plans for each season but it seems to fly by while I am still enjoying it and ends before I am ready.  So weeds and piles of leaves will just stay buried in the snow and I will make my fruitcake and start working on Christmas presents instead.

Spencer had a court of honor this week and received his life rank.  So now its on to an eagle project.  Half excitement and half dread sums up my feelings for that challenge in his life.  He went to BYU for a pow-wow Saturday and got his chess and nuclear science merit badges.  So he is moving along in the scout ranks.  One night I was reading our current book to all the kids in the hall as Robyn lay in bed.  Spencer was splayed out over the stairs, yawning.  I guess the story was that good or that bad as when I went to bed an hour later, this is how I found him:

I have been going in every Friday to do art in Allison's classroom.  My two week current art project turned into a four week project and by this week I just told them we were going to get as much done as we could and then we would call it quits.  I think only a few actually finished but I still thought they turned out cool.  This was Allison's self portrait:
Its a little humbling to realize that most of the 5th graders can draw better than I can.  Allison has been working at school on a short excerpt from the play Taming of the Shrew for the 5th grade Renaissance Feast.  She is going to be Bianca.

Jeremy is in the thick of photo shoots lately as families get their Christmas cards together.  He also had his back go out right at the bottom of his neck which has necessitated a couple of chiropractor visits and lots of ibuprofen.  He gamely just smiles and toughs it out and drives me to Cheesecake Factory with his neck crinked over.  He was excited to get his Bug O Salt gun yesterday and start shooting flies in our house with bursts of salt.  Unfortunately now the few remaining flies in our house have been exterminated I think he is out of luck until the spring.  Last night he spent some time in the Apple store getting his lap top and phone fixed which he was glad about.  Then I took him to a restaurant in a snow storm that I had heard good things about.  Second time in our marriage where Jeremy has stopped eating after one bite and sent it back saying it was that bad.  So...we won't be going there again I think.  Luckily we had a big piece of cheesecake in the truck to console us.  By happenstance the apple store is in the same mall as the cheesecake factory!

Taylor hasn't had a great week but seems to be on the upswing again.  He either has diarrhea or nothing - we can't seem to get to a good middle ground.  So we will keep playing with medications.  This week I met with his case worker and supervisor to re certify that Taylor is truly that disabled.  Questions like, "can he pick out groceries at a grocery store" just has me shaking my head.  The only question that Taylor could partly do is signal whether he likes a certain food or not.  So I think he qualified!

Robyn is still in full whine stage or in "let me help you and hug you constantly" stage.  Not sure if its growing/school pains or my parental incompentence but hopefully we will get on an even keel soon.  Having her asleep by 7:30 though makes a huge difference in all of our lives.

Snowy kids coming in means time for hot chocolate.  We have depleted our stores lately as I have had to make the rule that there is only one mug of hot chocolate a day.