Big Snow

Looking like his daddy in this picture

Showing off the headbands our sweet friend Jessica sent us

Pulling the cat's tail...cat didn't seem to mind!

Snow baby in a basket

The littlest snowman!

Our house stays pretty snug in the snow

Looking down our driveway in the fresh snow

You can see a bit of the mountains over the ridge

We've gotten around 5 or 6 inches of new snow in the last few days and more is forecasted! This has meant plenty of snow removal for all the staff around camp. Everyone has their assigned areas to keep clear of snow. If there is a guest group on the grounds the staff are required to check around 6am for snow and if there has been any, to clear it away before the guests need to be out and about.
SnowMania is coming up next weekend-- this is a Jr. High retreat run by Victory. Hopefully the temperatures stay reasonable so the kids can enjoy all this fresh snow!
We had a great Christmas break visiting family in Kenai. As soon as we got home, Norah came up sick with something. It was just a fever but it lasted a long time and made getting back into the regular school day routine difficult. Norah has been exceptionally grouchy and irritable lately (even after recovering from being sick) and I am beginning to suspect a food allergy, so I'm starting to remove a couple of different things from her diet.
Grady surprised everyone by popping out 2 teeth around New Years'! Evie and Norah were much later with their first teeth (Grady is only 4 months) so I was not ready for that. I'm not giving him solids yet because I'd like to prolong the sweet baby stage...and judging by his abundant pudge he is doing just fine on breastmilk for now. :)
This is the time of winter that I tend to get the blues so badly. It's definitely worsened by our extra loss of daylight from being behind the ridge. But it helps to stay active and staying active is easy when you have 3 little ones!
Justin's schedule is definitely starting to pick up with the new year. Applications for summer staff are starting to come in, so he is kept busy with interviews and other things. Soon he'll begin traveling to different churches to recruit summer staff and to get the word out to families about summer camp.

Some ways you can be praying right now:-Praise God that we haven't had the issue of frozen pipes all over camp that we had last winter. The snow is good for more than making things look nice!
-Pray for the retreats happening throughout the rest of the winter- that people would stay safe, enjoy their stay, and that God would be made much of by their time here.
-Pray for patience and wisdom in parenting our three, and especially for Norah who is going through a difficult time in her little life.