Let It Snow!

"Oh, the weather outside is frightful,

but the snow is so delightful..."

We were in Houston when it began to snow and Houston is just not the place you want to be if you have to be on the freeways with the possibility of "black ice" (icy roads). With careful consideration we decide to head home much sooner than planned. We drove through the snow, then out of the snow, and then the snow came to us about ten minutes before we got home.

In the spirit of posting about holiday traditions and to go along with my Frugal Series I thought I would post a recent picture of our home. And this is an extremely rare site to see our home with snow falling! Yippee!! Being that our home was built in approximately 1905 I have always wanted to hang simple green wreaths from the windows with red ribbons, so last year I added these to our holiday decor. The top window is missing it's wreath, but it is waiting patiently inside the window [sigh]. Don't you love those little details that get forgotten?! :) If you look close you can see our tree glowing in the back window. We have a traditional GREEN tree with white lights and it is decorated with an assortment of holiday ornaments. Every year my mother buys the kids a special ornament and we hang the breakables on the upper limbs and the nonbreakables on the lower limbs. I also usually buy the kids an ornament or get a family ornament when we have a new addition, but I have done neither this year... and I may not. That is okay because my mother is doing that tradition, too. I don't think the kids will mind if I take the easy road this year. ;) Each year my husband and I (or just me) get the tree up and check the lights (when I feel like venting I will give that topic it's own post... ahem), then the kids help put the ornaments on. If it is cold we have a fire going, possibly have some hot chocolate and/or roast marshmallows in the fireplace... this can vary year to year... we just take it as it comes and do what we feel we can manage. Another fabulously tacky thing I started last year was add SILVER TINSEL all over our tree. My husband was less than excited until he saw the lights come on and the whole tree looked as if it had twinkle lights on it. Now if I can get my hands on that tacky angel hair... hmmm... do you remember that stuff? It makes the lights "glow" and is beautiful with multi-colored lights. Ahhhh... the memories. We did some weird things with our tree as a kid. Back to the topic at hand and maybe I will post about our tree as a child later. I have quite a bit of Christmas decor now, but I put less of it out as time goes by. I tend to favor the more simple things now like green garlands over the interior windows and wreaths throughout the house... faux holly on the lights (another frugal thing we did was replace our candleabra lights with flourescent a few years back... so tacky, but frugal... we say they look like "running lights" on a boat.. it took awhile, but you get used to the strange look... I think..) Hmmmm... funny how doing this post and reflecting on our traditions in our home has made me want to get the rest up.... THANKS TARA & ROSSIE (and others). I needed that! I need to go get all my garlands put up... I have lots! Our icicle lights are not up either... the lights are my favorite thing!!

This funky action shot is Savannah and Sierra building a snowman by the side of the freeway.... sad little snowman, but the kids were thrilled. I convinced my husband to stop and let the kids play awhile just in case we did not get any snow at home. I sat in the van mostly with Sahara while Cody froze outside with the other three kiddos... LOL!

At home we got out our snow wear and this is Caden making a snow angel. I love how they look so cute stuffed in their snowbibs and coats. We are Texans at heart, but hit the road to Colorado every chance we get (hence the snow wear). I would love to live in the valley in Colorado... maybe one day we might.