We're in the middle of a blizzard. The wind and the snow can be frightful at intervals.

We're burning through quite a few fire logs. I often sit in that glider right in front of the fire place. Norah and I have been working on a few Lego houses on the top of that ottoman.

No one was out driving on the streets and the wind was calm for a long stretch, so I let Norah bundle up in all her snow gear and take a batch of homemade candies over to our neighbors after dinner. What else did she have to do with all her energy? She really enjoys these little missions of responsibility, too. They give her quite a thrill. It was a sight for us to stand at the door and see her trudging through the snow holding her little lantern up so high. When she had delivered the goods, the neighbors waved and sent her right back home to thaw out again. After she had taken off her cold, wet outer-clothes, she sat in my chair and put her feet up by the fire for a few moments, thoroughly satisfied with herself.

Daddy played a movie on the corner of his laptop screen for Avril while he took all this free time to organize our computer files, defrag our hard drives, etc.

Avril can be really affectionate throughout the day. She is such a blessing to us in this way. Here, I caught her with her arm around Daddy during her movie.

Norah played with her new Amazin' Hamster on Webkins for hours yesterday. This is one gift she didn't know she was getting and she must have asked for over one hundred times without really expecting it. It was very inexpensive, actually, (but she doesn't know that). It's probably the thing she is enjoying the most right now.

We're really grateful for all this down time. My heart is so full of peace and joy it's hard to contain it all and impossible to express with words.