Catching Up

How in the world did it happen that I'm *ALREADY* so far behind in the monthly letters to Becca? I don't know...but here's the problem--I really want to write her another letter because there are just so many new things that she's doing, but inexplicably, I feel like I can't write her a new letter until I get caught up on all the old letters, but then that never happens and I just get further and further behind.

I'm calling it: slate clean. New letters can commence any time. And just for good measure, here's a little catch up into what's been going on around here for the past month or so:

Um, Becca turned ONE YEAR OLD. We had family over after church for cupcakes and taco soup. Nothing Pinterest-inspired, nothing stressful, and I'm really glad we went that route!





You know how kids never want their pictures taken unless someone else is trying to take a family picture, and then suddenly your kids MUST join?! That happened, and we could not have been more thrilled. Justin and I were cracking up. I know Justin was probably also thinking 'See, we could have four kids!'. Sorry babe, not sold.  
 Also, don't mind my dirty feet above...yuck.

Then, we had some serious SNOW! The mountains here in Oregon get snow every year, but the valley floor hasn't really had much significant snow since 2007 or 2008. But this year, a HUGE storm was projected...so much so that they cancelled school without even a flurry on the ground. I have to admit that I was a little suspect, but the snow did eventually come, and we were basically house-bound, even with a four wheel drive vehicle. And I know that some of you mid-westerners are probably thinking that we're pretty lame when it comes to snow, and I get it that you all deal with much, much more on the daily. But the thing that makes it such a pain here is that (a) there are no plows, and nobody sands or salts the roads (b) the snow melts half-way through the day, but doesn't melt all the way by night, which just means it freezes and we have black ice everywhere. For real, our street was a *sheet* of ice, up until even last week, long after the snow was gone. This was apparently record-setting snow levels for our area, and it was kind of fun to get to play in it a bit with the girls.





Unfortunately, with the snow came a TON of frozen pipes, which means that Justin has been home even *less* than before, which I wasn't sure was possible. I will say that miraculously, we have *nothing* on the agenda for this Saturday, and I cannot wait for a day at home with all of us. We have equal parts snuggling and house cleaning to catch up on!

Then, I just had to include this last set of photos from cookie decorating because they are just *so* Lizzy right now. Her expressions kill me, for real.