More fun on the longest day of the year

It turns out the free swimming available at all of the Syracuse city pools for the summer continues all winter too, at the indoor pools. Today we went the Valley pool but the lifeguards there told us that Southwest is warmer, so we'll try that next time!

Longest shortest day of the year

The day with the least sunshine all year calls for pretending to shoot at the groundhog who lives under the garage with a roll of wrapping paper and a plastic flute and then cuddling up in front of the Christmas tree to read stories.

 If you're at our house and the boys assemble both of our laundry hampers at the bottom of the stairs, collect a huge stack of books as well as their blankets and stuffed animals, and then disappear for a while, check the inside of the hampers. In the above photo, that's Beckett handing Theo another book (they trade).

Holding hands at breakfast

More trimming the tree

Sledding

This weekend we spent some nice time alone with each of the boys. Mama went sledding with Beckett Saturday and Theo Sunday, at our neighbors' down the street. Saturday took Theo to Sears and Home Depot to look at snowblowers, plus the local library, then had some reading and movie time with Beckett Sunday.

Theo decided he wanted to build a snowman at the bottom of the little hill in our friends' backyard. He liked to mold little pieces of snow into eyes, noses, chins and other body parts, and then jam them onto the snowman's body.

After one sledding run, Theo decided to kick off the head of the snowman and lay across his bottom half.

Climbing the plow snow next to our sidewalk.

Theo-Mama selfie.

 The boys did some solid shoveling work yesterday with Mama.

Then after a snowy cold day outside, it's nice to cuddle up with your blanket in front of the fire and read your books. A minute before this picture was taken, I found Beckett wrapped in his blanket, head on his flannel pillow, feet under the ottoman, with books held above his head, reading.