Let's play catch up via Instagram, shall we?

This is what it looks like here:

Lots of snow.  Lots of cold.  Very, very cold.  Lots of grey.

Lots of clouds.  Lots of wind. Lots of shoveling. Lots of cold.

I love Minnesota.

Because of the lots of cold and lots of snow, 

we've been able to do this a few times:

Uriah got me a hiking back pack for Christmas to lug Finn around in.

I love it.  We only slipped once.  No one was injured.

As soon as it get's a little warmer - you know, 15 degrees sounds reasonable these days,

I told him we'd hike at Gooseberry and look at the frozen waterfalls.

We had our first successful outing yesterday in big boy undies,

and a semi-successful outing this morning.

We're getting there.  My confidence is growing.

My purse is growing, too.

It feels like a small suitcase with the change of pants, undies, and socks added to it.

I made a mini-cake over the weekend - two little 6-inch rounds.

Chocolate Chip Cake with Butterscotch Filling.

It satisfied my need to be creative and the small human's my sweet tooth.

Plus, such a tiny cake means very little in the way of leftovers.

To balance the cake, we eat lots of fruit.

It's keeping us all regular.

Finn has been requesting the yellow cup for his milk.

He looks like a little British tea drinker.

If only I could teach him to hold out his little finger.

I used to have this pink blanket on my couch so that I could snuggle up at night 

when it really gets cold in this old, radiator-heated house.  

Now it's in the back seat of my car so that Finn can snuggle up 

whenever we are forced to leave our old, radiator-heated house.

I don't mess around with frostbite and hypothermia warnings.

Evidently, when the temperature hits -24 degrees without the wind chill, pipes freeze.

Found that out this week.  Good times.  Good lessons.

A brief interlude of wishing we were back in Kansas City 

while I was sloshing around in cold, water-soggy socks

and trouble shooting with Uriah on the phone.

Finn took that moment to relieve himself.  In his pants.  In the worst way.

It was nothing a nap (for Finn) and a bath (for me) couldn't fix.

Except that we have a porcelain bath tub that never really stays warm. 

And an unheated bathroom.

Imagine that.