I raise my white flag mother nature

 

We choose to live in Minnesota, therefore we have to make peace with the winter season. But with it being just the two of us in the house day after day for the time being…enough is enough!

If it has been sunny out, it has been too cold to be outside. If it has been warm enough to be outside, the winds are blowing and/or it’s snowing like crazy and it’s not worth stepping outside for any length of time. Needless to say, we haven’t been able to build a snow fort, dig a tunnel, or head to the park to go sledding and my (almost) two year old is going stir crazy. Dear Mother Nature…we love winter! Seriously we do, we would just like a day or two to be able to actually enjoy it please!!!

The trampoline he received from my mom as a Christmas gift has been a life saver. He is on and off of it all day long, fantastic exercise for those little lungs. But today we headed over to our local bounce house. For the first time, he scurried up some incredibly tall “ladders” all on his own to slide down huge slides. He went up and down for 1 1/2 hours straight (take that CF!). As we were leaving he asked to get some “hot cheese” (cheese quesadilla) and “ci’mon tists” (cinnamon twists) from Taco Bell…I’ve already got him hooked…but he fell asleep as we were waiting in the drive through. As we pulled into the garage he woke up and asked, “Me go nigh nigh Mama? Me sooooo tired.”

Now I am crossing my fingers that he’ll stay asleep for quite some time. Lately his naps have been all of an hour long, that doesn’t give me a whole lot of time to get anything done around the house. He’s going through an extremely clingy stage and doesn’t like me out of sight so while he’s awake my productivity is at a level zero.

Thankfully, when Casey gets home Gavin realizes he has another buddy to bother play with and it gives me a few minutes to move around freely without a toddler holding onto my leg for dear life.

 
Recently I’ve gotten a couple of bargains off of Craigslist. My current “project” is this bench I am going to place in the entry way. Right now we only have a small table, and when it comes time to put on/take off winter boats and shoes we’ve been sitting on the floor. So for $20 we picked up this bench, it needs a new paint job, and you can see that I have filled some of the scratches/nicks with wood filler…and I’m not a big fan of that heart so I’ll probably place a cushion on the seat & a pillow to cover it up :) All of the supplies I need I already have on hand, so it’s definitely a deal for us!

I also like the fact that it has storage in the bench, that and a couple of small baskets underneath will solve a lot of our winter gear storage issues. The only place we can store them right now is on a high shelf in the closet, way out of Gavin’s reach. I am hoping that this will give him the opportunity to put away and grab his own items without our help.

 
Now I just need to remember to post the after pictures when it’s complete! One good thing about winter? Lots of time inside to get fun projects like this completed!