A day in the life......

Life with the Lottermans has been wonderfully normal the past few weeks. Just hangin' out as a family, going to school, going to church, catechism runs, various doctor's appointments, going sliding, the occasional family gathering, the beginning of tax season, and the biggest story of the past week or so, is the snow....particularly the amount that has fallen.

Last week school was cancelled two times (Monday and Friday) because of winter weather. I don't really mind this, as it gives the kiddos a little break from the school routine. The week of the 21st was when we received our first REAL snowfall of the winter season. The temperatures were what they call arctic temperatures, with windchills in the single digits above and below zero. We had about 7-8 inches of snowfall during that week. On Sunday the 27th a warm front started to come through the area, bringing with it freezing rain into Monday morning, (which was the cause for school cancellation that day) and eventually rain into Tuesday and Wednesday, which completely melted all the snow we had. We had a record temperature in the upper 50's on Tuesday!! Twenty four hours later, the temperatures had crashed back into the lower thirties, and by Thursday and Friday we had lots more snow falling and a snowday on Friday. The snow has continued to fall over the weekend, and finally stopped by our house about an hour ago. I must admit, I don't really mind the snow, that is if I don't have to go out in it. :) It looks so beautiful when it coats all the ugly, brown, dead stuff around our house and yard. I took some pictures of different areas of our yard covered in snow. I just love the way it looks.

The back corner of our yard where all the wood used to be.

Looking out our picture window at the row of pine trees in the side yard.

Out our back door towards the swingset.

The swing by the firepit.

Out our front door at the front corner of our yard.

The big tree, by the road, off to the side of our driveway.

Last Saturday, we decided to take the boys on a quick sliding trip. They had been asking to go for a while, so we went to the hill by the water tower in Hudsonville. I only got a few good pictures because it was too dark for anymore to turn out.

Bradyn and Calvin ready to go sliding.

Bradyn at the bottom of the hill.

I promise Austin was there too, however that child moves entirely too fast to be caught by the lens of my camera. :)

Calvin only liked to be pulled up the hill in the sled, but wanted nothing to do with sliding down the hill, so after a few tries, he came and hung out in the van with me.

As I mentioned before, tax season has started in full swing this week. Russ hopes to concentrate solely on taxes all of this week for sure, and possibly all of next week as well, depending on the number of appointments he gets next week. After that he will be working for Herman during the day and doing taxes in the evenings and Saturdays. Friday he set up his computer on the table and did a few returns that customers had dropped off. Calvin loves anything to do with the computer, so he pulled his chair over to "help" dad.

Figuring out how the stapler works.

Gotta love this one, daddy and his little helper.

Finally, here's a picture of my date for lunch today...I love hanging out with this little man, he's so sweet!!