Storm and a birthday

 I am not going to blog about Christmas right now, though it was great.  But the days before Christmas were exciting too!

On Naomi's birthday, we got a couple of large boxes filled with fun foods from Kevin's sister. We had a very enjoyable lunch with little plates full of exciting tidbits. The boxes also came with fruit, which was awesome!

Naomi came over in the evening and we celebrated her birthday.  She is my firstborn, of course, and in some ways I find it impossible to believe she is in her twenties. Seems like yesterday that I held her in my arms the first time.  I am very proud of her.  I am proud of all the kids, but she and Lydia have managed to strike out as independent adults and that is a glorious thing.

Joseph allowed himself to be wrapped like a present.  Please note the incredible difference in height between Rose and Joseph.

And then the storm hit. It was a truly terrible storm.  We got a few inches of snow but the cold was intense, as was the wind.  We never lost power.  The lowest I saw the thermometer dip was -6. On Friday, it never got to zero.  But we didn't lose power and I am so thankful for that!

Snow!  Our driveway was mostly impassable for a couple of days.  Kevin did get out and got stuck coming back in. He managed to dig himself out enough to get back in the garage. Then Christmas morning, Lydia showed up bright and early and got stuck again.  Kevin and Isaac dug her out.  I think we need a snowblower :-). Seriously, we rarely get much serious snow.  It was the drifting that made it especially crazy, of course.

Random picture of one of my meals.  I avoided the grocery store like the plague at the end of last week.  Combo of Christmas and an incoming storm made things crazy.  So I was out of cucumbers.  Usually I have cucumbers in my salad. What kind of crazy, wonderful world are we in where I can get cucumbers in the dead of winter?

We have five outside cats.  The general suggestion was that people bring their outside animals inside but that didn't really work for us.  I was worried but we did prepare carefully; we have two heated cat houses and I provided a windbreak and covered one side with a blanket.  The cats very sensibly huddled inside the heated cat houses; three in one house, two in the other.  They are fine, praise God.  We also had a heated water bowl and I kept bringing out and distributing cans of wet food for the kitties.  So they made it through no problem, which was a relief.  

We still have Cocoa in our sun room. She is now eager to leave but we are going to wait until the temps are better.  It is going to be in the 40's in a few days, which is kind of crazy, but that's Ohio weather for ya!