and finally...the snow.

this morning, we woke up to the first day of cloud cover in ages on the farm. or maybe it's been that way for a few days, but since i'm on the road by 5:30 every morning, the only time i get sunrises now is from the 18th floor at the office, or on weekend.

mike and kristine came down for her maternity shoot (the wee one is set to arrive in just a few short weeks!) and it was sunshiney like no other. hard to believe that four hours later, snow would be falling, and falling hard.

the brownrices also came down today for an awesome 'let's help you with a jump start on cleaning out/moving in" so that my boxes could be moved in and put away. it is unbelievable the progress that we made as a 7-person team - completely reorganized the kitchen, cleaned out the china hutches, packed away a number of treasures to go through later, cleaned, shopvac-ed, dusted, broke down wedding shipping boxes, organized a good part of the garage, shopvac-ed, tossed and/or donated all kinds of things, shopvac-ed, played wii (more from austin and paige than anyone else), and started to bring back order to the house...more order than it's seen in a very long time. and rich rocked the shop-vac.

it was like a little present from heaven when the snow started falling - we were all going crazy from being inside so much. huge white flakes...and after just 20 minutes of falling, this is what our home on the farm looked like...

austin on top of the wellhouse...


maggie, thrilled to be in the cold, dry snow weather...


tweedledee and tweedledum, after throwing snowballs at each other and maggie...


and the house...lit up and cozy.


i made dinner this morning at 9 am - crockpot chili, and fresh rosemary bread. since it's all gone now, i think it's a good sign that it went over well for my first attempt. :)

to our second family...you gave us an immeasurable gift today. we can't thank you enough...just know that the door is always open here. we love you so much! ♥

8:32 pm - edited to add...yea! it's snowing again!