Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Typical of North Texas, it got COLD completely out of the blue today...and SNOWED! I honestly don't remember the last time we saw anything white in the month of December, so we were VERY shocked! This is only the second time that Colin has seen snow and he certainly has no recollection of the first time, so this was big news! Colin woke up at 6:00am this morning, so I raced into his room and got in bed with him in hopes of getting him back to sleep. It worked, so at about 7:30 he pushed me awake to go "get juice". I stumbled after him into the kitchen to find Jer with a grin on his face and pointing to the big window. Sure enough, it was really snowing. I thought I was dreaming for several minutes...I had not heard a peep about the possibility of snow on the news. I raced to grab Colin's shoes and coat since I knew it would not last long and I wanted him to see it. I only managed to get his shoes on before he demanded to run outside...sans any outerwear. We caught the moment on video and I snapped a couple of pictures. It was so beautiful and just so Christmas! It has already melted, but it is barely 40 degrees outside with a wind chill in the 30's, so it certainly feels like winter. I think random snow in early December is a sign that we will have a very blessed Christmas. :-)

After our crazy early morning, I bundled Colin up for some errands. We went to the library to trade his books out, which has become one of our favorite things to do. Our town library is currently located at our city hall building while the new one is under construction. I frankly would be happy if they just stayed where they are now! The building is new and beautiful and they have temporarily housed the library on the second floor in a couple of rooms. It is tiny, which makes it very easy to pick out books with a two year old. Colin also gets so excited over the choice of taking the huge marble staircase or the elevator and picks a different one every time. It is so adorable. When we went a couple of weeks ago, they had the big Christmas tree up on the square, which Colin thinks is amazing. Today, however, was even better. Inside the foyer they have set up one of those huge model Christmas cities and Colin absolutely went crazy over it. He must have spent 30 minutes walking all around it slowly, pointing out each building and tree and truck. He showed me the Christmas trees, the lights, the ice skaters, and the fire trucks. He did a pretty good job of understanding that he could only look and not touch, although on our way back out of the library, he made a real effort to take one of the firetrucks. I only convinced him to leave it without a battle because I reminded him that there were puddles outside. ;-)

Here he is watching the skaters. He LOVED it!

Once upstairs in the library, we picked out three new Christmas books and we were checking out when Colin spotted their little "Letters For Santa" display. They had pencils and special paper to make a list, and a little mailbox that goes directly to the North Pole! Colin thought this was VERY cool and insisted upon sitting in one of the chairs and "make Santa list". Even the librarians were blown away by his cuteness. :-) The view turned out pretty special...you can see the city tree out the window! What a special day my little man is having!

I think Santa will be pretty impressed with his letter. ;-)

Finally, I leave you with a picture of our very merry Christmas hound. He was feeling rather left out. :-)

Hugs

My little family was laying on the couch last night watching television. Colin and Jer were sitting on one couch and I was sitting across from them on the other. Colin climbed on Jer to hug him and demanded that I come over, too. "Mommy, come hug!" was his exact comment. So I head over and lay on top of Jer and Colin, making a Colin sandwich. Colin requests this move frequently, so this was nothing new. As I laid on top of them and we all mushed together in a hug, Colin said "I'm hugging my family!". I had tears well up in my eyes immediately and we hugged him even tighter. Just when I think he can't get any more adorable, he does. I am so blessed.