It is COLD in middle Tennessee! Finally. ;-) LOL! Still no snow but maaaaaaaan it could if we would just get some precipitation. Alex still has his cold but it is still all nasal & postnasal drip stuff so no worries. Thankfully not affecting his asthma. Our forecast is calling for some snow on Thursday &/or Friday so we shall see. I've become quite the skeptic as far as snow is concerned around here.

On Friday, my mom and I drove Morgan up to Nashville so she could spend the night with her friends, Tayler & Autumn. They are sisters and the 3 girls together get along like peas in a pod. Mom and I then had lunch at Puckett's (where my brother used to work) and had some yummo sweet 'tater fries. We then did some errands for her. We had our black bean burgers for dinner but still don't have the consistency right so I'm searching for other recipes to see what we can do to tweak this one. We love the flavor...just need to get them a smidge sturdier. Corey and I had a nice night with Alex. I think he enjoyed his "only child" time with mom and dad.

Saturday we got the dishwasher problem resolved. Yea!! Corey and I had tried working on it again but it was still dripping & we weren't happy with that. My brother got it all fixed up and completed the install. The sweetheart is refusing any form of payment though...ugh. I'll have to think of *something*. He and Corey took measurements for our backyard fence too. While outside they ended up chatting with the neighbor directly behind us. It was good chatting and he said we should tie into the back corner of his fence so we don't have double fencing & wasted money,etc. He gave us tips on digging the post holes (severely rocky ground here). We also discovered that one of the triops had died so I removed it from the container...down to 2 (1 big and 1 small). Morgan came home late in the afternoon, worn out. The girls had all stayed up until 1:30am and then woke up for the day at 6:30am! Egads. All 3 had fallen asleep in the car on the way to bring Morgan home. LOL! We then headed to my mom's to meet up and drive together to my brother's house for dinner. We had some wonderful turkey sloppy joe's for dinner and a kickbutt bonfire afterwards. We brought 'smore makings so we had a good ole camp fire night. The kids had never roasted marshmallows over a fire before! My mom had a great time too. They were calling for snow but all we witnessed was a drop in temp and a wicked wind chill with the wind blasting us...just as the fire was dying down. Good time to head back indoors.

Sunday was an icy cold day here...no ice or snow but it felt like it. We wanted out of the house but not out in the cold so we took the kids to see Arthur and the Invisibles. It was a very cute movie. The kids enjoyed it and Corey & I got a kick out of all the references to other movies. Corey and I watched Walk the Line last night and enjoyed that as well.

This morning Morgan discovered that the smaller triop was missing and said the big one must have eaten him. I was still in bed when she was telling me this...she was getting their breakfast ready. Then I hear "Mom, what did the other big one look like when it was dead?? This one is creamy-gray and is just sitting there." Well...they don't just sit there, they zoom all over the place and they breath through their tiny feet & you can see them constantly fluttering....plus the bigger ones had taken on an orange tint...so creamy-gray isn't good either. Being a good mom I got up to come check it and let her know this one was dead too. She was sad for a second and then said "Sorry you are dead" and flushed him down the toilet. We will try again when the weather is warmer. We think the lower temps just stressed them too much. They were 3 weeks old and they only (normally) live 30-90 days. So we didn't do too horribly considering our water was always cooler than it was supposed to be. Alex was feel well enough to get some school work done so I got him caught up in history and language arts. He did some reading with me, writing and some math as well. Morgan wrote a letter to a friend in Tampa, reviewed history with us, did some reading on her own, her math, and language arts. Then we made some Phoenician bread (pita bread but a little crispier). It was one of the activities from the current history unit they are studying. It turned out really well and was easy. We will have to make some again.