A month of contrasts

As you can tell by my lack of blogging, life has been incredibly busy around the Morgan house!
Over the last two weeks we have seen such varied weather, it has kept us on our toes!

 On MLK day we had the rare occasion of both Mommy and Daddy being off work for the entire day! Thankfully that day was warmer than normal, sunny and beautiful. We took the opportunity to finally get some real use out of the kids new bikes from Christmas.

Then, less than two weeks later we woke up to find this:

four inches of snow in our backyard!!

Aren't these five little snow babies so cute? (I won't mention how long it takes to get all five dressed in snow gear!)

I am not sure which the kids enjoy more, the sun or snow. I think they just love being outside no matter the weather.

Welcome Logan!

We are so excited to announce the safe arrival of our sweet nephew/cousin, Logan! He was born in the wee hours of the morning in a blizzard in ND 6 weeks early!! I am so proud of my little sister and first time mommy, Raleigh! Logan is doing great, but will be in the NICU for a little while due to being so early. Please pray for him to stay healthy and strong.

A few birds......but mostly another creature!

This fall we have studied birds in science as mentioned in previous posts. We have had such fun setting up bird feeders and bird baths all over our yard. We have had several birds visit our yard, but lately it has been an invasion of squirrels!!

The birds were never bold enough to visit the feeders attached to our windows.....our other friends have become quite bold, even with little people watching them and banging on the window!

Although it does not match our study, our experiments have turned into which bird feed squirrels prefer! :) (Answer: Both, they are not picky! They have chewed right through our suet net feeders and destroyed another feeder as well!) Oh well, at least the kids love watching them! Even Caleb runs to the window saying his version of squirrel when they show up!

Christmas in Pennsylvania

The last time we celebrated the holidays with Jeff's extended family in PA was when Gracie was a newborn! We were way overdue! So, the day after Christmas we packed up the car and headed out for a fun extended weekend with family.

 The kids had been praying for snow to play in leading up to our trip. Thankfully the day we drove up they got 4" of snow, which we were able to play in the next day. The kids had a blast!!!

Of course it takes a ton of time getting five little ones all bundled up to play!

All that extra weight is hard to hold up!

I think Luke, Ben and Gracie would have stayed outside all day if possible. Jacob and Caleb did not last very long in the cold.

Friday evening we got to spend time with some of the Morgan side of the family. Here are most of the Morgan side cousins, although I think we are missing four!

Gracie loved the older girl cousins Kaylin and Anna. Anna taught Gracie how to take pictures with her i-phone and Gracie became a pro!

Poor Ian broke a bone in his knee sledding that AM!

This visit we were able to stay in a really nice efficiency type apartment that was just renovated. It was perfect for our family so we did not have to stay in two hotel rooms.

Since it was a one bedroom apartment the oldest four slept on sleeping bags in the living room.

On Saturday we celebrated with all the Shirey side of Jeff's family.

Here is Great-Grandpa Shirey with all of his Great-Grandkids!

We had a great visit in Pennsylvania! Hopefully it will not be four years before we can do it again!