Embracing the winter

I do not like winter. It makes me feel grumpy and shut in. I do however want my children to still enjoy themselves so in an effort to embrace the good that winter has to offer we stayed at our family cabin for the past two nights. It turned out to be a good time. Last night when we all got home from work and babysitters I bundled up the kids while Matt stoked fires and bought fishing supplies and we headed down to the lake to go ice fishing. The kids wanted to ice skate too but the ice had crusty snow on it and was not even a tiny bit slick. I was a little relieved because I didn't know how I was going to handle Marlin (2) and Alivia (4) in ice skates while holding molly (6months) I bundled up molly and then zipped her into my down coat facing outward and she stayed cozy warm.
Matt didn't catch a single fish but we made foot prints, snow angels, circles and castles all over the pond. Of course after being out on the pond for about 10 minutes marlin had to pee. So Matt had to completely un-bundle him. He was a little late but it was a good effort. Everything seems pretty complicated with three tiny kids in the winter. It takes a lot of preparation and I often find myself looking at Matt and wondering if we should have just stayed indoors and turned on a movie. But really it is worth it and most outings even end up being fun. It sure is amazing to watch our little family of 5 grow both physically and as a family.