baby, it's cold outside

i don't know what the actual 'low' was today, but at 1pm it was -1 and felt like -26 (according to weather.com anyway). some old neighbors of ours from wisconsin posted a video of throwing boiling water and seeing it turn into snow so we just had to try it today.

there was frost/ice on the insides of most of our windows and our front door.  i guess some air does get in a few spots...

the frost/ice next to the door handle wouldn't even wipe off - it was frozen that solid! but inside it was just another day thanks to central heating!

yesterday manning helped us get out of the house by perforating his eardrum. he had no symptoms and is not in any obvious pain, but his ear canal got very crusty yesterday so we wanted to get it checked since he had just finished antibiotics for an ear infection in the other ear. she couldn't find the perforation but could see the discharge and it was cloudy (but not red at all) so we get to do antibiotics (again) and ear drops. the drops are really fun because he needs four of them twice a day and she (laughingly) said that we needed to get him to lay with that ear up for five minutes after the drops. yeah. right. so far, our record is 1 minute while i stood holding him and rocking him back and forth and he screamed his head off. other than that outing, we spent yesterday cleaning up the kids' toys.

but today we got to have fun! i let the kids watch some t.v. when they woke up while i worked on some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (by request). then we played for a bit - marble ramp construction, rainbow loom with some video tutorials and then some body tracing posters. the kids really liked getting to color in their outline to hang in their rooms. mason even thanked me for letting them do it!

in the audience are labeled: cousins, papa & nana, my family, cousins, grandma & big pop

mason did a really great filling his in with some of his favorite toys. madelyn helped him draw the griffin a little and he colored it and added all of the details. it is an (unfortunate) outline of a bow and arrow toy in his pelvis region. i wish i had seen how he had it positioned before he started tracing... sigh. he is really proud of it though so i didn't saw anything about changing it a little (lot).

manning would not allow me to trace him, but he did lay down for madelyn and held completely still until she was done. i was very impressed.

maddux had a little too much fun today and had a little too little sleep the past two nights that they have had 'slumber party' in madelyn's room. i will have to get him to pose with his outline first.

i was taking a picture of the super cool flower ring we made madelyn on the rainbow loom (thanks to an online video) and the sparkly manicure i gave her this afternoon and manning wanted me to take a picture of his hand too.

we had a pretty great day inside today, if i do say so myself! i was even able to take a work meeting during manning's nap time. now will there be school tomorrow? love.