MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009!

Oh - You better watch out!

You better not cry!!

You better not pout...

I'm telling you why!

Santa Claus is coming to town!

We hope you have had a wonderful Christmas! Merry Christmas from the O'Steen family!

A SNOWY RIDE

One of my Punkin's dream has always been to be able to ride in the snow. Her dream was finally able to come true yesterday. Her Christmas gift to her sister Banana was a "sister trail ride" in the snow. I think they made some wonderful memories..

I love the look on Smokey's face - "Like, you seriously are going to get on me, and make me walk through this stuff? Seriously?"

Such love...

Poor kitty

DIGGING OUT

Looks like we survived the Great Blizzard of 2009!! I can now officially say that I had to walk "through the snow, in a blizzard, uphill, both ways", except I wasn't going to school. I was just going to pick up one of my kids from down the street. I felt like I was in a Little House on the Prairie book. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, I could hardly walk! Fortunately, a snow mobile had just gone down our street, so walking in the path of that made it a little easier. We thought walking might be easier than trying to dig a path to get the car out, now I'm not so sure!

This picture is when I opened my front door, maybe an hour after Richard had just shoveled the walk. It was snowing several inches per hour. We have a total of about 20-22 is my best guess. It's hard to tell with all the drifting.

Definitely about two feet of snow on the deck out the back door.

No cook-outs for a while!! :)

Boo decided she should measure the snow with a measuring tape.

Check out the snow geyser!! Our neighbor was so kind to snow-blow our sidewalks for us!

This is blurry - oops - but I love how Boo is so determined to help her Daddy and Punkin shovel the driveway.

"Never eat yellow snow", Punkin!

Check out what the wind whipping around our house did to the snow on the roof of the garage! Richard knocked it all off once yesterday.

BLIZZARD WARNING!!!

This is a first for this Florida girl!! We have been here in Maryland 10 years now, and this is our first blizzard warning! It is just "snow" much fun! Last night we had an incredible evening down in DC having dinner with a great group of friends at THIS restaurant - possibly the best food I have ever eaten. Then the 12 of us walked over to the Shakespeare Theater to see the show "The Screwtape Letters". Our older homeschool kids read the book this year (but we left the kids at home -because that's educational, isn't it???). When we came out of the show, the snow had just started falling - it was so beautiful walking the streets of downtown DC with the snow falling with fun friends!! Then we drove around downtown to see the National Christmas Tree - it was simply dreamy to see it all lit up in the snow. There are smaller trees surrounding it representing every state. I didn't take my camera last night - so I have no pictures....

We woke up this morning to about six inches of snow, and a weather update saying we are now under a blizzard warning.... two feet of snow are expected with 30-40 mph winds! It's snowing sideways outside right now....

What a perfect day for wrapping Christmas presents, listening to Christmas music, with a big crock pot of chili for dinner!!

The blowing wind is making some huge drifts!

This is hanging off the roof over our garage.

My shoveling man!! This is round one - lots more snow on the way!! I'll post more pictures when the snow gets deeper!!

The snow is drifting higher and higher against our sliding door!!

This picture was taken yesterday... Nana gave Banana this bird feeder for Christmas, it attaches right to the window! She loves how she can watch the birds so closely. The birds were SOOO active yesterday - its so neat to watch them before a big storm comes..... they scurry all around gathering food.

Happy Blizzard Day!!