life lately has consisted of many indoor activities.  almost everyone i know is so over this cold weather that doesn't seem to have an end in sight.  how do we entertain ourselves?

indoor activity #1: doggie photo shoot

 ^^bella doesn't allow me to put her in costume^^

indoor activity #2: music!  we got a piano and can't stop playing it.  all day and all night.

 ^^wtf, mom^^

indoor activity #3: get out of the house and do something!  we saw violet at ford's theatre over the weekend.  the play was a lot of fun, it's a cool space, and we both recommend checking the theatre out.

come on spring, get here soon.  you can do it.

my facebook newsfeed has been full of midwesterners trying this experiment, so i thought it would be fun to see if it was cold enough here to try it out.

when we woke up at 6am yesterday morning it was 0° farenheit.

the experiment is easy.  you boil some water, go outside, throw the water into the air, and see if it turns to snow before hitting the ground.

it seemed to work.  kind of.  the water that went really high definitely turned into snow/steam.  and the ground wasn't wet where it was thrown.  who knows.  it was fun and looked cool.
belle liked it, too.

^^so pretty^^

we spent this christmas in colorado with eric's family.  it was cold and snowy just like everywhere we have been in the last month, so i guess we're meant to be cold this winter :)

while there, we went up to eric's family condo for a few days. my brother came out and the conditions were perfect for some boarding.

holy snow, the mountains were snowy and cold.  great for boarding, but we were happy to get down from the mountains and spend some quality time with eric's family.

 ^^magnet letters x-mas gift i made for a friend^^

 ^^templates for these here^^

 as much as we love seeing family, we also love being home.  for the first day of 2014 we had our favorite breakfast with black-eyed-peas as a side and snuggled up our girls.  it's the only way to start a great day which makes it the perfect way to start a great year.

^^sister love^^

merry christmas everyone!

there's no doubt that winter is here.  the whole country is freezing cold!  

i don't know how it is already december, the year has disappeared before my eyes.  and it wouldn't be december in dc without some interesting winter weather.  we had some lovely snow sunday morning that turned into lots of ice overnight, and by monday morning our yard had transformed into a surreal ice-scape.

i went outside to check out the all of the ice, and it was actually very beautiful.  the ice had evenly applied a shiny glistening layer of itself all over every branch and berry.  so i took some pics of course, and they are below.  the girls are loving crunching their paws through to the grass and then smelling whatever scents they release under their feet.

it's so humid here, i know the ice and snow won't last long and will soon turn into the dirty mush we always complain about.  but i'm glad this storm is providing some short lived beauty.

 when it started snowing on sunday, i tried out a macro technique i saw online to take snowflake pictures.  it didn't work, but i did get this picture of a frozen bee that i thought was interesting.   poor bee.

 ^^this is part of a huge tree that fell into our backyard and broke the fence.  that should be fun to clean up.^^

after the ice came the snow, and it just keeps coming.  it got me a snow day off of work and we've been playing outside lots today.  i even built a snow woman.

eric's in new zealand, so she's my new friend.  sad i know.  but he'll be back just in time for her to melt.  and just in time to help me clean up these huge pieces of tree that crashed into the yard yesterday.

our ice-scape has turned into a winter wonderland and we are loving it.

and in other wintery news, our tree is up!  we don't really do too much decorating, but the tree and the snow sure make it feel like christmas.

between it being our first thanksgiving as a married couple, and norah's first thanksgiving of her life, our meal was a little extra special this year.  with so much to be thankful for, we celebrated turkey day with our good friends aaron, rebecca, and baby norah.  

 eric prepared some delicious cornish game hens to go with the rest of the beautiful meal.  and like always (this is our 4th annual), we finished the day with a thanksgiving puzzle, coffee, and pies.

^^if there was any doubt as to why i bought this puzzle :)^^  it's one of my favorites with all of the little oddities that go unnoticed until you look closely.

we also had these two special guests for the weekend - cara's boys, cooper and brinkley.

i hope everyone out there had a nice weekend.  it wasn't long enough!