Snowed in.

There's nothing like a fresh blanket of snow to cover up the fact that you've done absolutely no landscaping to your house.

We were snowed in today. It started snowing yesterday around dinnertime and stopped mid-afternoon today. traipsed around outside for a while trying to get some pictures, but the wind was vicious. I originally walked out onto the deck in pajama pants and a t-shirt and it wasn't long before I figured out that that wasn't going to cut it. I started the day thinking about all of the laundry, cleaning and work on my paper that I would get done. I ended the day on the couch in front of the TV feeling rather lethargic. Cabin fever is setting in.

My Christmas card orders have died down and I was finally able to finish ours . . . I was beginning to think we wouldn't get to send one out this year. I'm hoping that I'll continue getting orders for birth announcements, save-the-dates, etc. after the holidays. I just have to get more designs up! That's one of my goals for Christmas break. I'm a little insecure still about putting stuff out there for people to buy, but my Christmas orders encouraged me a little. It's weird that I fear rejection more about this stuff than I do about most things.

Jack's two bottom teeth are just about poked through. He's also feeling a lot better. Have I mentioned that I read somewhere that babies get one cold a month for their first year and each cold can last about 2 weeks. That means HALF of their first year can be spent sick. Ugh. I hate it when he's sick. He's been so sweet the past few days that he's been feeling better. He's so funny to watch on the ground. He gets on his hands and knees, army crawls to where he wants to go, and then stops and returns to his hands and knees again. I'm pretty sure that he's given up on crawling altogether and will just stick with the army crawl now that he's become so good at that. I'm alright with that. He's easier to catch that way.

Kyle and I went Christmas shopping in Auburn Hills on Friday . . . Christmas shopping on our anniversary has become a tradition. It was nice to have a day just the two of us to sit down and eat and have some time together. Even in the car on the way there and back, we had fun just talking and laughing. While it was nice to have a day that was just the two of us, we were talking on the way home about how we couldn't wait to get back and see Jack . . . we missed him. We did buy a lot of gifts, but we're not even close to being finished.

We had planned on going to Chicago at the end of this week, but canceled that trip for myriad reasons. My sister won't be out of school yet, so we couldn't spend much time with her. With all of the Christmas shopping we've still got to do, money is tight. And, we'd like to get farther past this round of teething before we do a 5 hour car ride with Jack again. I'm bummed because Christmas is my favorite time of year to be in Chicago . . . maybe next year.