My Faith and Joy… and Boys!

Don’t the girls look like old men in their easy chairs, lounging with their snacks and the morning paper?

Ever since our guests abandoned chilly Connecticut for the warmer climes of Arizona, my girls have been a bit of a handful.  I’m starting to wonder whether the two of them are attempting to remedy the emptiness of our home by duplicating the chaos that was involved in having double the twin toddlers around.  Not that all the cousins weren’t really, really good together; it’s just that I expected the noise level to decrease somewhat after our guests left, and the girls are doing their fair share to see that it remains at a migraine-inducing pitch.

Yesterday, in an effort to run off some of their abundant energy, I shooed the girls outside to play.  I was expecting to huddle in the relative warmth and shelter of the open garage while observing their antics, but I had neglected to take into account the icy conditions that necessitated my presence outdoors.  Susie actually did quite well navigating the icy patches of our yard, which impressed me greatly.  She’s the less physically coordinated of the girls, so I was surprised to see her successfully skate and bobble her way across the slickened snow, while the normally-agile Becky merely managed a series of pratfalls. 

We nonetheless managed to have an enjoyable time outdoors, complete with a miniature snowy slide, courtesy of Susie.  She found a (very, very) slight incline in an iced-over snow pile and proceeded to crawl up it and scoot down it with the enthusiasm and endurance of a mountain climber.

Here she is, showing off her sliding skills (I’ll warn you that it’s not a very exciting video, and I was too lazy to edit it, so it’s on the long side):

The girls eventually tired of climbing snow piles and felt brave enough to graduate to actual sledding.  Becky grabbed a sled out of the garage and happily pulled her sister around on it.  However, they limited their sled-pulling to the flat driveway, which also happened to be completely free of snow and ice.  Silly me thought it was the cutest thing ever:

It wasn’t until I showed the pictures to Jim later that night that he groaned and asked if it ever occurred to me that it wasn’t the best thing for a sled to be pulled around on dry pavement.  Honestly, it hadn’t.  It never crossed my California-born-and-bred mind that pavement wasn’t a perfectly acceptable surface for sledding.  Oops!  Good thing the girls’ sledding needs are rather low-key at this point, and a scratched-up sled performs as capably as a more aerodynamic sled when all it has to do is scoot two feet per hour across our level yard!       

What a busy, wonderful year we just ended!  It’s hard to believe that we crammed so much into one year.  We visited Pennsylvania several times, Florida, North Carolina, California, New Jersey, and Maryland; we welcomed a new friend into our lives; we moved into a new house, we celebrated the girls’ 2nd birthday, we found out that we are expecting a baby; and we had amazing visits from beloved friends and family (there are too many links to post for that one – we are so blessed!).  We are so thankful for the Lord’s faithfulness and we give Him all the glory for such a good year.  We look forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for 2011!