Blog | Snow! And ...
Over the course of two weeks (not even that really – more like 10 days), we had FOUR winter storms roll through. Not exactly what we are used to…
Once we were finally home from our trips, it was time to hunker down for the storms. Jason picked the girls up early because the daycare was closing early. By the time I got home, this is what I found…apparently they got an early start on the “snow ball” fights…
Unfortunately for the “snowball fight” dream, Snowstorm #1 brought mostly ice. The kids didn’t let that faze them – it made a perfect sledding surface on our steep driveway!
The hardest part was helping M…the kids had no trouble walking up our steep driveway on that ice, but the adults were a whole other story. We had to get creative with ways to get M up once she slid down!
M started with this adorable hat…
but switched to her Frozen hat because it covered her ears more (it was a bit nippy/windy).
Belly slide!
I don’t have many pics of B sledding because I mostly took video of her and her buddy H, but they had a great time! I convinced them to stand still long enough for this photo…
Snowstorm #2 was the least exciting. It mostly snowed a little before dark, melted on the roads, and created a giant mess when the temperatures subsequently plummeted (causing another two days of missed school). “It’s snowing mommy!!”
M was a little less interested in playing in this snow (I had to coax her outside for this picture), but B and I couldn’t wait to get outside!
Because pretty much all of the rest of our snowstorms happened while she was asleep, B loved getting to play in it while it was coming down.
My cherry tree looked so pretty with the snow…
Then came Snowstorm #3 (and another two days of missed school) – the surprise storm. This storm caught so many by surprise that some kids were already on the school buses when school was cancelled for the day!
This snow was mostly “dry,” and thus impossible to build anything with, but with a little work (just enough handling to melt the snow to make it stick together), the kids had some great snowball fights! The girls had great fun chasing each other, and even more fun when H came over to join in the fray!
Taking a break…
M had to change her hat again…
Worn out!
That afternoon, we made cookies and took some over to H’s house – we found him outside with his dad playing with his remote control truck – lots of fun with that thing in the snow!
And then came Snowstorm #4…the big one. Here is our yard around 5 PM, followed by a picture about 5 hours later (and about 2 hours after the snow started).
A panorama of our yard the next morning.
We got about 6″ of heavy, wet snow – the trees were NOT happy!
Our river birch literally creaked in the wind (pretty high winds during the storm and after). I am very happy it made it through this storm!
The trees many not have been too thrilled, but we were all excited! We had power (which was more than I could say for several hundred thousand in the area), and fun snow to build a snowman!
Of course, we HAD to build Olaf. We did such a great job, B expressed her excitement by promising all kinds of good behavior! I shall forever cherish being the “hero” in her eyes that day.
B felt Olaf would be lonely, so she made him a friend – baby snowman.
After that, we headed to the neighborhood hills to sled. Over and over and over and over – everyone had a blast!
That afternoon while M napped, B decided we needed to try to build Marshmallow. I convinced her that mini-Marshmallow would do – no way we had enough snow or experience or strength even to build him to size!
After two weeks of snow (and missing 8 out of 10 days of school), where Jason was out of town for most of that time (he left right after Snowstorm #2), we were ready to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! It was only a trip to Chikfila, but it was still nice to get out!
We even tried Hibachi that night, and we had a blast! Good thing we did too, because we were once again housebound for the next couple of days – B got the double whammy of school illnesses. Both the stomach bug and a sore throat/cough/high fever were going around, and she caught them both…at the same time…
She was so worried about getting sick with me out of the room, that when I went upstairs to give M a bath, she came along just to be close.
Fortunately, the worst of the stomach bug was gone after the first day. The high fever was no fun either, tho. And dealing with all of this while Jason was out of town…well, that just plain sucked. Fortunately, M did not get sick (other than a little stuffy nose)! So, after missing 10 out of 12 days of school, B finally went back. Yay! She is not a happy camper when she misses school. Despite her ridiculously high fever that Monday, she actually argued with me about missing school on Tuesday – she felt she could go. I overruled her, and was glad I did. She just wasn’t quite well enough.
Now, Jason is back home and things are slowly starting to get back to normal. Bring on spring!!
