Today was scary. A ton of snow had dumped on us last night and even at 10:20, most of the streets hadn't been plowed and some of them still hadn't even been touch by a car at all. I decided to take the boys with me to Church. Carey holed up with a good movie and two girls snuggled on his chest while he nursed his bad knee.

I had a hell of a time getting up the hill to the Church and I dreaded every stop sign. Each time I stopped, I had to fight to get it going across the intersection and through the next block. There was only one service today because of a congregational meeting so there were few people there when I arrived. I can't say that the service was enjoyable because I missed it. I decided to stay and help out with James' RE class when I discovered how many children were there. Normally, with the two different services, most of the children come to first one and so there are usually no more than four or five children in RE for the second service. However, today there were close to twenty!

The teacher read two different perspectives of the story of the wise men (today, after all, is Three Kings Day): The Stone and the original bible version. The kids then got to make little spice boxes out of egg cartons decorated with sparkles, sequins, markers, etc. James' did a great job of his. I wandered around helping the kids when needed. One child went all out with his and wasn't doing just one egg cup like all the others, he was doing a complete carton! It was really fancy. The top was covered in glitter and then he put glue lines down it with the plan of putting sequins on them but he kept getting glue on his fingers right along with the sequins he was trying to set down so I showed him how to use a pair of small scissors to drop the sequins on with. Then it was snack time. And let me tell you: powdered sugar, glue and sequins makes for a very big mess. An Epiphany Cake was made and had been dusted with powdered sugar. It was really good though.

Afterwards, I helped clean up. Most of the children had left when it was discovered that one had locked himself in the bathroom. When asked who it was, the child replied "Me". Any guesses as to whom that child was? Yep, it was James. Bleh.... It took us twenty minutes to get the knob off and the damn door open. Although there was a little trip switch for the lock, we couldn't get it to go so it's thought that it's worn out. While he and Charles played outside with a couple of other boys, I helped finish the cleaning inside while I talked to one of the other women from my homeschool group who also happens to be a Unitarian. We talked quite abit about the different philosophies and she's gotten me interested in Thomas Jefferson Education. Depending on how you look at it, it's a very unschooling approach but it's also very classical. It was time to go and we wandered outside to collect our boys which is when I discovered that James' coat was still inside the Church as well as my stuff. I hadn't brought any of it with us when we went over for RE class. I was glad that I barely caught the Reverand Kayle, who was just leaving.

So, everyone said goodbye, we loaded up and we were off. Not. We were stuck! One gentleman tried to help me push it out, but she was just in too deep. I finally went int to call Carey and let him now. He recommended just walking home but I really didn't want to leave the van there. So started a twenty minute struggle with Nature. I dug out as much snow as I could from around the tires, and then I rocked it. The van finally got loose, but there wasn't enough traction to actually get me out of the ruts. So I got to back partially down the hill to the end of the block where I backed into a parking lot and was finally able to turn around and finish going down the hill. Where I got the shit scared out of me. At the bottom of the hill is a stop sign where the street intersects with one of two main one way streets. I slid right through the stop and halfway into the first lane of the one way with oncoming traffic. I would have slammed into a vehicle if it had been unable to get over into another lane. That was really scary and I just sat there while the rest of the traffic finished passing from that wave of lights. I then continued on my way and stopped at Carey's parents. I had to drop off some stuff that had been borrowed and I also wanted to call Carey that I had gotten out and was on the way home.

Carey had made soup for lunch, but due to a miscalculation (and the fact that I don't like chicken noodle) I dug out something else. It was just a light lunch: garlic cheese, some herbed crackers and sardines in a garlic sauce. Of course I had neglected to read the ingredients of the sardines and discovered that they had been packed in oil, which I didn't care for. However, the kids loved them and they kept asking for more. I had bought the small tin as an experiment and it had such good results I think I'll buy more. In the end, the kids ate most of the tin between themselves. At first they kept asking for more "tuna" and I finally got it through their heads that it wasn't tune and then they called it "deens". LOL

After lunch, since it had warmed up considerably, and most of the streets had been plowed, we decided on a trip to the mall. We were wanting some storage chests for Deedee's room and I'd seen a couple of cute ones at Ross yesterday. Alas, those were gone but we did get a couple of cute things that fit under bed perfectly. She has already filled one with her dress up clothes, and the other one she started placing some toys in. She really likes them. One is white whicker with a lid and a blue gingham lining. The other one is open but it has a mod design of circles in green, turqoise and fuschia on a light turqoise background. She loves it.

Carey made some great spaghetti tonight. He had meant to make meatballs but he didn't get the meat out soon e nough so we wound up with just a meat sauce instead but it steall tasted good. We even had real parmesan from some stuffed shells I mad a couple of weeks ago. That always tastes much better than the powdered parmesan usually bought for pasta.

Carey made me sit down and watch The Big Sleep after the kids had gone to bed. It was a lot better than I expected it to be from the description and I enjoyed it.