Well, as of the drafting of this post there is still snow on my lawn, although the calendar claims that it’s spring.  We’re seeing the very beginnings of signs that the season is turning – a few doves and the occasional robin hopping around; rain instead of snow; mud puddles for splashing – but the temperatures are still mostly in the thirties.  I’ve had it!  It’s time for warmer days and spring rains and crocuses.  Well, all in good time, I suppose.  I’ll have a spring list up next week, but in the meantime, I need to close the book on winter.  This has sure been an eventful season!  We found time for plenty of fun during our last weeks as a family of three, and then the family grew with the arrival of our sweet boy on March 11th.  Nugget was nine days early (a far cry from almost nine weeks, like his sister!) so a few of our planned activities got scrapped, but for the very best of reasons.  Here’s the final tally:

• Clean out and decorate Nugget’s nursery!  Some good progress made – hubby and I (but mostly hubby) cleared out the nursery to get it ready for paint and furniture.  We ordered furniture from Pottery Barn Kids (after an epic failure with Land of Nod) and hired the same guy who scraped our popcorn ceilings to paint Nugget’s room and install a new closet door.  The room is pretty close to done – I owe you all an update, and eventually a final nursery tour when I’ve put the finishing touches on it – and we’ve at least managed to get all of the essentials done so that Nugget can live in it while we finish the final decorating.  Stay tuned for updates coming soon.

• Hike at Reinstein Woods – the first of our seasonal hikes for 2015. Done!  We really enjoyed our January visit to Reinstein Woods and I’m looking forward to seeing the place this spring.
• Have friends over for dinner.  Done!  Zan and Paul joined us for a football-watching, Peanut-chasing, nacho-and-chili-eating, and cookie-baking evening back in December.  Zan assures me that the evening totally counts even though she brought the chili.  We had a ball, and we’re so grateful to have found such wonderful friends here in Buffalo.  (So funny that we all moved from DC within a month of each other.)

• Build a snowman with Peanut.  Done – although not by me.  Nana and Peanut built Olaf out there while Nugget and I watched from the kitchen window.  They also built another snowman and a snow bunny in the front yard while I was at work a few days before Nugget was born (all three are gone now).  I wish I’d been able to play too, but at least Peanut got to build several snowmen.
• Eat a lot of citrus.  Oh, I did this all right.  All the citrus.  I ate it all.
• Knit a baby blanket for Nugget and a pair of cozy socks for me.
• Cook up a freezer full of meals for the first few sleep-deprived newborn weeks.  Done – and yet not done.  I have a good stash in my freezer now, but I expect I’ll keep adding to it little by little, especially as I pull meals out over the next several weeks.  (I haven’t had to dip into the stash yet, as my mom has been staying with us and doing all the cooking, which is so wonderful.)  I’d like to stay in the habit of making deposits in the freezer, because I think they’ll be really handy when I go back to work.
• Go cross-country skiing, pulling Peanut along on her red sled.
• Buy, assemble, and organize shelves for Peanut’s playroom.

• Visit the Botanical Gardens so Peanut can hang with her besties in the koi pond.  We made it to the Botanical Gardens in February and it was just as warm and beautiful as I remembered from last winter.  We bought a membership, and I think we’ll be using it a bit more until the weather really warms up.
• Bake an olive oil citrus cake.
• Plan a garden to plant with Peanut this spring.  Garden planned!  I’ve decided to do planters on the pool deck rather than a big in-ground garden this year, and to buy plants when the weather is warmer rather than starting seeds.  In future years we’ll be more ambitious, but I’m trying to set myself up for success and give Peanut a good experience.  I’ve settled on herbs, tomatoes, beans and possibly peas.
• Get my books unpacked, finally.  Done, thanks to my mom!  She finished pulling out all of my books and together we sorted them into categories, then she re-shelved them.  It’s so nice to be able to see all of my books on the shelves again (only six months after we moved!) and I’m feeling more inspired to read as a result.

• Take a winter hike at Knox Farm in East Aurora.  Done!  The weather finally warmed up enough for us to get outside for an hour or so, and we had a lovely morning breathing in the fresh air at Knox Farm.  Hubby rocked his Tubbs snowshoes (a Christmas gift) and loved having them.  I don’t have a pair, and I didn’t rent, so the hike was a bit more strenuous for me!  But I had a great time nonetheless.
• Have a date night with hubby – we’re long overdue for one, and they’re going to be even harder to come by with two kids.  Done!  My parents kindly agreed to babysit over Christmas, and hubby and I had dinner out and caught the third Hobbit movie.  My mother-in-law offered to watch Peanut so we could escape one evening before Nugget arrived, and my mom made the same offer, but we didn’t make it out before his slightly early arrival – oh, well.  At least we got out once; that’s better than we usually do.

Not too shabby!  I didn’t get to the knitting or baking, and I didn’t manage to get new shelving for Peanut’s playroom (I’ve picked out shelves from IKEA but need to measure the space to figure out how many units I need) but I did just about everything else – sweet!  I feel really good about how much fun we were able to pack into Peanut’s final months as an only child.  While I know that we’ll have lots of fun as a family of four, and that she’s going to just love sharing life with her brother, it meant a lot to me that we were able to do so much with her during those last weeks before his birth.  And now, on to spring!

Did you make a winter list?  How’d you do?