SNOW!!!

The last few days of January 2014 brought us snow -- lots of snow.  It was fantastic!  It was the first snow storm that our kids thoroughly enjoyed.  In the past, the snow encouraged us to stay inside, warm and cozy and watch the awesome display.  Previously, we never had the right gear for the kids to enjoy playing outside in the snow.  I decided this year to be prepared.  I bought snow gloves for all four of us when the forecast called for snow.  The combination of snow worthy gloves, and the kids being the right age, encouraged us to stay and play outside in the snow for hours.  Awesome!

Keira was incredibly excited about the snow and had her own little snow celebration when she first got outside.

After Elijah demonstrated how it was done, Keira's favorite activity was making snow angels.  She laid down in the front yard, back yard, and side yard -- in any virgin snow she could find to leave her angelic impression.

Keira's other favorite activity was building and decorating our snowman.  In fact, when the forecast called for snow and I talked to Keira about it, she was most excited to build a snowman.  She told me that she wanted to make sure we had a big carrot (not a baby carrot that I often have in the fridge) for its nose.  When the snow started to fall, I picked Keira up early from preschool, as had been suggested by her teacher.  Before we got off the snowy roads and away from all the inexperienced snow drivers, we stopped at Publix to buy a big carrot for our snowman.  However, making, and especially decorating the snowman, proved to be a little harder than Keira had imagined.  Daddy did most of the grunt work for the snowman and the kids helped us add snow to the body.  Then, Keira chose which supplies to use from the house to decorate our snowman.  Both kids enthusiastically posed with our creation.

In the end, we gave our snowman branches for arms, and added my snow hat, googly eyes, the giant carrot nose, Mrs. Potato Head's mouth and foam counters, from my teaching days, for buttons.

Between working on our snowman, throwing snowballs and generally supervising the kids, Daddy carved the kids' names in the snow.  The kids loved their surprise and were only too happy to pose with their names, with and without their snow ball props.

Daddy also made a giant "M" in the snow, which the kids appreciated and posed with, as well.

Elijah's favorite activity was sledding.  The hill in our backyard is perfect for it.  We started trying to sled on cardboard, which was marginally successful. Then, we used our cookie sheets, which worked surprisingly well. My cookie sheets are a little worse for wear, but it was well worth it for the hours of snow fun they provided.  Keira and I even got in on the sledding fun.

Besides sledding, Elijah also loved throwing snowballs and having little snow ball fights.

Finally, we had more than two snow babies, surprisingly, our generally reticent Disney LOVED the snow, too!

This year's snow adventures were so unique.  The kids enjoyed the snow so much that Scott and I actually had to convince them to come inside even though their fingers, toes and noses were numb.  Fortunately, they did enjoy cozy fun once inside like making pancakes from scratch with me, and loving our cute, crazy kitty LOBOT (Little Orange Ball of Terror) a.k.a. Pumpkin.