Really, really cold

It's official.  I'm a wimpy Texan.  After 8 years in this blazing hot land I have officially become completely incapable of handling cold.  Not that I love the heat, but I deal with it enough I can cope.  

My mom had a fun idea that we should have a girls weekend at the end of February in San Antonio.  Normally it's fairly nice in San Antonio in February, so we all figured it would be a fun.  It was not nice in San Antonio.  It was freezing and wet.  To make matters worse there was heavy snow in Dallas and  ice in San Angelo, where my sister lives, so just getting to San Antonio was a nightmare.  It took us 9 hours to drive the 5.5 hour drive to San Antonio from Dallas.  We had a ton of fun, but it was very chilly, wet fun.  

One of the things we did was to visit all 5 missions in San Antonio.  We started with the Alamo, which is actually a really small mission, but definitely the most famous. 

Then we went to Mission Concepcion.   This door was cracking us up.  Heidi is 6 feet tall and Danielle is 5'1" on a good day.

The third mission was Mission San Jose.  This mission is still surrounded by the courtyard and other buildings that were part of the mission.  It's pretty cool and the most well preserved.

Mission San Juan.   Interestingly, all the missions are still used as churches.  The outside buildings aren't in working order, but the actual chapels are completely preserved.

Mission Espada.  Let's just say that these missions were all awesome, but by the end of the day we were freezing and wet.  Also I know a lot about missions now.  They are all very similar.   All the missions were built in the early 1700's.  They are only about 30 minutes apart from The Alamo to Mission Espada.  It's pretty interesting to see such old buildings in the United States.  

The next day was slightly less cold.  We went on a cruise on the riverwalk, which is always really fun.  It didn't rain on us until the very end, so I was grateful for that.

We also got manicures.   It was a fun girls weekend.  We got to relax and chat and eat good food.  Poor Danielle was pregnant and super sick.  My morning sickness was starting to kick in, but not full swing yet.  With these babies coming, though, it'll be a long time before we get to do another girls weekend again!

Back home, Hudson figured out how to turn the water on in my bathtub and splash and make a huge mess and it was driving me nuts.  So my dad suggested taking off the knobs.  Duh.  Problem solved.  

Madi was home sick with a sore throat one day.  She's old enough that she can stay home and watch movies for a while if I need to run carpool or go to the store.  I leave her with the iPad so she can call or text.  She and Chris were having fun sending weird pics to each other.  They were cracking me up.

March came and it was still really, really cold in Texas.  We seriously had such a mild January and February and then end of February and the first week of March were nuts.  We ended up with 3-4 inches of nice, wet snow.  Which is a lot for TX.  The kids were thrilled to have another snow day.  

I vowed that, morning sickness or not, I would help the kids enjoy this rare, perfect snow.  We just don't ever get the right kind for snowmen and igloos.  We built a full igloo, it took us two separate sessions.  Notice the plastic bags on Madison's hands, we had all the gear except the gloves.  

During our break we made snow ice cream.  The kids loved it.  

Then we were back at it.  I made Madison help me haul the bricks.  I packed them in lego buckets and carried them over to the igloo.  She was a decent helper. 

Success.  A real igloo.  

And here is a random pic Colton took.  This is what a normal night at our house looks like.  Homework.  And me telling Jaxon to focus every 5 minutes. 

Jaxon's teeth have been dropping like crazy.  He finally lost one of his two front teeth.  Then he had a snuggle tooth for a couple of weeks.  It was disgusting.  I kept threatening to sit on him and yank it out.  

One day Jaxon played us a little song on the soda cans.  I don't know where he learned about playing music with cups/cans full of different amounts of liquid, but he played us a nice concert of "Hot Cross Buns."

Finally, we celebrated uncle Jon's birthday with the cousins (and the cousins from Aunt Cristina's side).  That's a lot of cousins.