Ingram the Conqueror: Tuesday and Wednesday January 15th and 16th, Real Downtime!

We are really enjoying doing pretty much nothing and having a great time at home as a family. We even had extra "family time" when the schools dismissed early for the weather; we did do a little school work too, especially Madison since she had tests the next day, but after that we watched movies the rest of the day. Even with the homework looming, the kids followed through with some of their "bring on the snow" traditions! The first Dogwood Elementary School tradition was to fill up the toilet with ice cubes because somehow this makes it snow. Lindsey and Ingram both filled up several cups with ice, then Lindsey decided to make a bigger snow and dumped the entire ice box into the toilet! The other main school tradition was to wear clothes either backwards or inside out or both; they even got Ingram to turn his dinosaur pajamas inside out before he took a nap. Oh and those pajamas, he ended up wearing until Thursday morning when he went back to school!

Since we haven't had soccer on school nights yet, Craig and I decided to start doing something to get in better shape since it's too cold to really run outside. We borrowed a friends "Insanity" videos to try out and have been doing them every night. It has actually made for some fun family nights because all three of the kids have decided that they want to do it too. Our den isn't big, but we move the furniture to the walls and then the insanity starts...the kids jump from piece of furniture to the next trying to see how many times they can make it around before we catch them and make them stop. After they jump on the furniture (every time it happens!), the kids also start doing the workout with us; we recommend everyone trying to do an intense workout in a small space with three crazy kids running around and see how it goes!

It was super cold overnight but there ended up being no snow or ice, so the girls ended up going to school Wednesday. Ingram just wanted to snuggle all day long under the blankets so that's just what we did! We watched all his favorite cartoons, played with Beau,took silly pictures to send to Daddy, then snuck away to his room to take a much needed nap. I slept for two hours and Ingram slept for over three hours; he was still asleep when the girls got home from school so we stayed extra quite so he would keep sleeping. Once they had their snacks, we did homework and then once again the insanity began when Daddy got home from work!

Okay, so here's a confession...I'm not a great cook, maybe not even a good cook, but with our extra time at home, we've actually been having decent homemade meals! We had homemade chicken tortilla soup and grilled cheese sandwiches Tuesday night and Wednesday night we had steaks, sauteed spinach, and mashed potatoes. The girls, especially Lindsey, have been excited about helping with dinner and have even come up with our menu for the week and even posted it on the refrigerator. Craig even took the chicken tortilla soup to work the next day and had his office smelling like spicy yumminess!