A few things from this week.

2 pictures of things my 16-year-old eats, to demonstrate the amount of food this kid takes in, during this growth spurt that he is currently in.  The first picture, above, is a hunk of pork roast with barbecue sauce on it.  I took the picture because I thought he was just going to eat it with a fork and I found that kind of interesting, but he didn't.  He went back to the kitchen, got a package of hamburger buns and made himself 5 sandwiches.  Just a bit of light eating.  Below is his playing cards snack from a couple of weeks ago, during the worst part of the snowstorm, 2 hot dogs with ranch, 2 ham sandwiches on whole wheat (he's not gluten free, obviously) and 3 starburst (clearance valentine's candy) with a sweet tea chaser.  He does also eat healthier things ... he eats both fruit and veggies very well.  The other day I made peas for dinner and took a helping for myself.  He ate the rest, since the other 2 people currently living here do not care for peas at all.  I told him when his big brother moved out that he had been promoting to eating "cleanup" (it's a sports metaphor ... baseball) and he takes it very seriously, helping me prevent waste by eating the leftovers.  He's a growing boy.

Piles of snow in our hometown, 10 days after the snowfall.  It's still here.  

A couple of balloons.  We were gifted with these after the baby shower we went to last week.  They have been slowly losing their helium floatiness all week, but still get involved in daily games of keeping the balloon from touching the floor, which is fun for all ages. 

I've done quite a bit of art journaling and crocheting this week as I have not felt like doing too much else.  :-( 

This week has been okay.  We are easing back into our pre-snow routine, getting out quite often, going to visit mom, seeing friends.  I even did a tiny bit of shopping yesterday, stopping by Family Christian to pick up something I had ordered online.  I think that counts.  Otherwise, the grocery store and the library have been the only places I have been.  We got a really good book from the library the other day, The Slaves of Socorro, another installment in The Brotherband Chronicles and we have been doing that each evening for a read aloud.  It's very funny so far and we have had a lot of LOL moments.  John Flanagan has some good insights into human nature that make us chuckle and a humongous vocabulary, which stretches us and has us looking words up nightly.  (So this counts as school,of course.)  Some of my fondest memories of elementary school were when my teacher in fifth grade would sit and read to us for 15-20 minutes in the afternoon.