WINTER HAS ARRIVED!!!! Maybe I will finally get my head out of the sand.

I wish I could tell you why I have been so silent. Everyday I read all my favorite blogs. I get so excited by the things all these wonderful women are writing about. I make mental notes of projects I am dying to knit or crochet and in some cases, recipes I would love to try. 
I wish I could remember WHY I became so silent. Maybe it is the fact that I am now "Nanny" to 4 month old David. I started watching this precious little guy the last week of 2011. His parents moved to the United States from Russia a few years ago. As many of you know, my granddaughter was adopted from Russia. I went on two trips with my daughter to Russia, the first to meet little Luiza and the second to bring her home. I am obsessed with Russia. I hope that I will learn some Russian from David's mom. Funny, I am dying to know everything about Russia and she moved here to get away from it. ANYWAY,  adding an infant to the group has changed my day to day routine. Having a 4 month old, along with the 2, 3, 5, 7, & 8 year olds, has made for some long days. All of the children are so good, but, only the 2 older ones are on the same wave length. The 4 younger ones are all developmentally at different stages. By the time 6:00 p.m. arrives, I have lost all my "oomph". It takes everything to look at the computer, let alone tell you what I have done throughout the day. You know, that really isn't a good explanation for my silence. After all, the Duggar family has 19 kids and she has time to HOME SCHOOL! 
Maybe I have been silent because my 4 elderly dogs are all losing their minds. Let me just say, Dillon (14 yr old Yorkie) has lost his hearing. Completely deaf. Quinn (9 yr old Great Dane) has spinalstinosis. Every time he wakes up, he has no feeling in his rear end and his hind legs always look like he is seasick. Trying to keep 8 lb deaf Dillon safe from the 180 lb tipsy Quinn, that is a constant job. 
No, thats not it. That isn't why I have been silent. It could be that not having a battery in my camera has been tough. It isn't much fun to blog without pictures. I know I love seeing what people are talking about. It has taken me months to get this crazy battery. I only have one specialty camera shop in my area and they have odd hours. I finally got there today. FORTY dollars for this battery. Well worth every cent to get the camera back in working order. I came home, put the battery in the camera, took a picture of Luiza, went to take another and the camera said "CHA", which means "charge". Or so I thought. Come to find out, my old battery works just fine. All this time I thought the problem was the 7 year old rechargeable battery. Thought it finally wore out. Nope. Seems the problem was the memory card. Somehow the card was damaged. Apparently, "CHA" means "change" the memory card. To think, we haven't been able to take photos since before Christmas and it was just a matter of switching the memory cards that we already had. *WARNING - Don't let children read the next sentence*  I AM SUCH AN IDIOT!!!!!! 
Well, all these things combined could explain my silence, but, I am not convinced. After 3 months with no real snow, today, February 11, 2012, we woke up to about 2" of beautiful white snow. It FINALLY feels like winter. I woke up, looked out the window, saw the snow, and it felt like my brain reset. With temperatures in the teens, I headed out to shovel the sidewalks, go to Eastern Market and Srodek's, run some errands, make some Budapest Mushroom Soup and brownies, play Alphabet Soup Scrabble with Luiza, and now blog. I think my entire reason for being silent, I was missing winter. When you live in a state that is suppose to have 4 seasons, and up to now you have only had 3, something has to suffer.
So............I am back.  Since I have just written a novel telling you why I haven't been blogging, I am going to give you a rest from reading and post some pictures of a few things I have been doing.

Sleeping like a baby. 

I love this pillow, the Blooming Flower from Attic 24 . This was so much fun to crochet. It went together SO fast. I still have to buy a pillow form to stuff it.

Alphabet Soup Scrabble, great game to play with the little ones. Fun way to learn to read.

I always shovel the lawn for the mail carrier. 

Budapest Mushroom Soup.

Luiza and I made brownies. She hid little pieces of Snickers candy bars in the batter.