January Junction

That's the name of the town in one of those oldie Christmas specials, and I always thought they just named it that to give the month of January a little ego boost. The festiveness and excitement of December is a hard act to follow, and the freezing rain, grey skies and new year's resolutions you try to keep just make you wish winter would pack up and move out already (words from my sister in her 70-degree California temps today).

Here in Chattanooga, we've finally thawed out...the snow is gone, my car is parked back in the garage instead of across the street where I'd have to hike down our glazed-over, crazy-steep driveway to get to it, Ben's gone to Mothers' Day Out both days this week, and the grocery stores have milk again!

But despite being housebound last week, we made the most of it. Ben went back out to play, wearing a coat this time, and had to be bribed inside with hot cocoa after almost 20 minutes.

King of his castle

I realize 20 minutes in the snow isn't really that long, but when your snowboots are rainboots, your mittens are soaking and your second layer out of three is your Buzz Lightyear costume, it is!

Snowball ambush on Zoe!

We thought Zoe was a good sport about it, but back inside later, I caught her telling Katie Beth all about it.

KB: "No way, girlfriend. He did wha-at?!"

Zoe: "Yeah, brother just straight up pegged me. And that snowball stung, yo."

(Cabin fever drives a person to do weird things, like make up a slang conversation between your dog and baby.)

We did have a visitor one morning - Austin came to play!

Ben included him in what had become our daily ritual, watching the snow fall while drinking hot cocoa.

Other than those two diversions, the three of us pretty much had a week-long sit in at the house. (As mentioned before, the snow didn't slow Tyler down, and he was able to get lots of office work done when patients cancelled.)

We had to mix things up a bit, so I brought in the wheeled toys.

I think this will have to be on the front of her Sweet 16 party invitation.

I took a picture of Ben taking a picture of Katie Beth on his $3 Cars flip phone that I grabbed in the check-out line as a last-minute stocking stuffer.

And it's one of his favorite of all the presents.

The week definitely allowed for more brother/sister bonding, and it was nice to see them taking an interest in the other's hobbies.

playing trains

(And yes, KB is pulling up! And falling down. Stressful times.)

having tea parties

Our in-house barista serves hot cocoa and tea, but not coffee.

"my no yike foffee"

But he does like playing pretend. 2011 will be the year of the pretend kitchen, mark my words!

And we all played a lot of hockey.

Katie Beth setting up to block the shot - but you should see her on offense!

Listening to a naptime story...

Honestly, the affection they have for each other is something I never imagined but treasure so much. I know I will have to remind them how much they love each other one day, but right now, it's written all over their faces.

Ours too.

Snow, hot cocoa, movies, baking, playing...now that I really think about it, all in all, we enjoyed our week of uber-togetherness. And January was a happy place once again.