beautiful dress giveaway

Do you know the site Shabby Apple? They have fabulous modest dresses. And for kids, and swimsuits. Great, vintage-inspired stuff. The Train to Crazy is giving away one of their dresses! Head on over and sign up :)

new business!

It closed! Only the fourth time a closing was scheduled, and it finally closed -- we have a new company! It's called Alcor PetroLab, located in Fort Worth and San Antonio. It's a testing lab for fuel and lubricants.

My feelings on all this are perhaps too personal to blast on a blog, but suffice it to say that I'm very proud of my fabulous husband. He's been planning for this day as long as I've known him. Congratulations! Parabens! Blahoprani!

V's birthday

And my brother Zach's birthday, which we planned to celebrate today along with V's, but couldn't because of the weather :-( Ironically, V preferred Zach's chosen birthday meal (baked ziti) to her own yesterday (fish, mashed potatoes and peas). We'll freeze some for you, Zach, because we have TONS. And I'm planning to make beef stew tomorrow, so we won't eat up all the leftovers. Being stuck inside has encouraged me to do a lot more cooking than usual. Of course the best cooking I did today was ...

Snow ice cream! We ate it with V's birthday cupcakes. Isn't she a lucky girl? And then we had this conversation:

V: Does anyone else know how to make snow ice cream?

Nathan: Sure, lots of people do.

V: Mommy, how did you learn how to make snow ice cream?

Me: From Grammie (my mom).

V: How did Grammie learn?

Me: From Gramma (her mom).

V: How did Gramma learn?

Me: From Gammy (her mom).

She would have kept going. Then Nathan exaggerated a little bit and said something about Adam asking Eve to make snow ice cream. And V said Eve must not have known how to make it, so she asked God. Yeah. We like to track things to the source.

Nathan took some time off work today to go out with the kids -- twice! They went sledding this morning, at a local park. And this afternoon I sent them out with tupperware (IKEA style) to build forts. No, I did not go out, because I have a fabulous husband who does it for me. I don't like the cold, and Texas gives me an opportunity to indulge that. I didn't complain (much) in Prague, but when I don't have to go out in it, I don't :) I kept the hot chocolate coming. For those who aren't local, we've been having extreme winter weather all week. M hasn't had school since Monday, because ice fell Monday night and temperatures have been very low since then (temperatures like 9, stuff like that). And of course, Dallas doesn't have the infrastructure to clear the roads, other than the main highways. But it was all worthwhile because last night we got about 5 inches of snow, which is an infrequent event here, to say the least!
See the candle smoking? That's V's satisfied face that she finally blew out her one candle :)
Our kids have the best winter gear in town! I lucked out that we got the snow this year. M will outgrow his stuff at some point, and I can't see replacing it for the rare cold events. But the sleds will be with us forever. Apparently E didn't last long on the sledding trip, complaining that her hands were cold (true, I'm sure), but very happily sat in the warm van watching a movie while the other kids played. M's favorite part was hitting his dad with snow balls. I tried to talk him into a Calvin and Hobbes snowman, but he didn't feel up to it. Maybe tomorrow, before it melts.

And last, but not least, here's a pic of E's cupcake-eating method -- hands-free: