Hmm... where to begin playing catch-up with this blog?  A lot has happened since my little man turned three.  I think it's best to start with today and then slowly work backwards.

What's been happening here lately is snow.  Lots of snow.  The National Weather Service estimates that between 17 to 24 inches fell in Hancock between Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon.  It is finally true winter here.

Clare playing on Saturday.

View from our front window.

The kids have been battling sickness lately.  Clare missed four days of school last week.  I didn't bring her in but she had all the symptoms of bronchitis.  She ran a low fever, was lethargic, coughing like crazy, etc, and eating so little that even when she was feeling better I worried she wouldn't make it through the school day because she'd had so little to eat.  But we all enjoyed having her home and she really liked being home.  On Thursday she felt quite a bit better but still had a fever so I told her she could sit at the kid table Matt made them for Christmas (to be in a future post) and work on her new Lego Friends set.

Clare had received two camping Lego sets for Christmas so after some debate (at first she wanted to keep both of them) she decided to trade one in for a Lego Friends lighthouse set.  It arrived in the mail on Tuesday and she couldn't wait to build it.

It took her almost all day (with some breaks for resting on the couch) but she did it almost all by herself.  Usually by the time I got there to answer her question she had figured out what she was supposed to do.  (It has light spots because Karl was holding his stars lantern near it.)

Then after Clare got better, the other two got sick.  Of course.  So this brings me into week 2 of canceling plans and being very grateful I'm a stay-at-home mom.

This kind of sickness isn't too bad for a mom though.  They have fevers and feel really tired but that makes them very snuggly.  They love to be cuddled and read to when they feel like this.  

Now we're on the mend - no fevers today.  A few pictures that have been taken lately:

Karl loves his Christmas train set.  We've made circle tracks and oval tracks and when Clare was home sick she built a tunnel for it out of blocks during one of her energetic moments. 

Molly puts up with Clare doing this much better than if it were Nora.  Clare is much more gentle.

Monkey see, Monkey do.  Karl wanted to beat on a drum so of course Nora was begging for one too.  Yes, those are sophisticated drums we have around here. 

The weather was still a little chilly today so Karl asked to bring snow inside.  He made a monster truck ramp and lined up cars and jumped all his monster trucks over them.  Then he started throwing the monster trucks, hard, into the snow which sent the snow flying everywhere.  After that he was done and the snow went back outside.