it's still winter out there!

Ben dug himself a tunnel.

winter means birthday for Spence-- here he is the morning after with his new John Deere

Adventures on the lake

karate tournament

Ben was in another tournament this past weekend and won first place for Sumo!  He had a good time and is really branching out with his karate skills.  He's joined an extra team, that meets once/month for more training and does 4 extra tournaments per year.  He absolutely loves it!  :)

this is how we tire the kiddos out around here...

more playing and outside fun

I am so thankful that my boys love to play outdoors-- no matter how cold it is.  I get nervous that they will get frostbite or something worse, but they've always come inside before any real damage is done.  They could play together outside for hours, and for this I am very grateful...

winter fun

snow on the lake

snowshoe yoga

after the ice storm

ice on the branches

As I mentioned, this winter has been strange, weather-wise.  I have never minded the Maine winters (that I can remember), and I have to say-- as I look out across the lake on this sunny (and cold) winter morning, I truly feel blessed to have the opportunity to see the lake frozen.  Grammy Simpson took the boys for a walk all the way across the lake and around an island yesterday.  We ride the 4-wheeler and snowshoe on the lake.  It becomes an all-together different playground in the winter, and it is truly beautiful.

skiing

Spence went skiing for the first time at Christmas.  Apparently he loved it, and was fearless.  Why am I not surprised?

Sugarloaf Christmas

Our Christmas plans got delayed slightly, with the ice storm and power outage, but we made it to Sugarloaf to have our Christmas with Jay's family...

A Jewett Christmas

Jay wearing the cowboy hat Ben picked out for him at the Grade School Holiday store

Yeah, this is the best I got for a group photo

No power on Christmas morning, and a sudden malfunctioning pellet stove, made for a cold start to the day, but we bundled up, ate lots of sugar, and made the best of it...

New Year... How does time go by so quickly?

The boys in front of our Christmas tree...

The coolest snowman.  And the goofiest boys.

Using the tractor to put up a wreath

Lots of ice this winter

The last pictures I posted were around Thanksgiving.  It's been busy, to say the least.  And unfortunately for me I've been sick in bed with what I'm self-diagnosing as the flu.  This is Day #3 and I thought that as long as I'm able to sit upright at this point, I'll do some updating on the blog.  

We've had a strange, very cold winter so far.  The two ice pictures above are from Christmas-- when we lost power due to the ice storm for a couple of days.  Luckily we had the generator and were able to keep things warm enough, but it was a very crazy time for Maine!