Snow Day!

Just south of us had a blizzard warning today, and with 9 inches of snow in less than 24 hours our winter storm warning meant that both parents had a snow day from work today!  I can't tell you how much this unexpected day off was needed for me, even with only a few days to go until winter break from school.

Our day started with sleeping in until 8 am (considering the day before Sam woke at 6:20 am and wouldn't go back to sleep, I was thrilled with that!)  and then potato pancakes with candy cane shaped fruit.

We bundled up and headed outside for lots of snow angel making, and also lots of flopping down in the snow just for fun.  I didn't take any pictures because the wind was blowing snow everywhere so I didn't want to get it on our camera, and because I was having too much fun making snow angels myself.  When we came back in we had hot (warm) cocoa and Christmas cookies for a snack. What a treat!

Then we made some Christmas cookies wearing the cute festive aprons a student's parent made for me as a gift.

 (They totally held hands spontaneously without prompting from me.)
I was able to get caught up in laundry, clean the house some, changed sheets on beds, wrapped all our presents, and even wrote this post, something I've been majorly neglecting lately.  It's always nice to accomplish stuff on a snow day because no matter what, I feel like whatever you do is icing that wouldn't probably gotten done had the freebie day off not exist.

Despite some not-so-good stuff after that, like the absence of napping times two, I had a wonderful, unexpected snow day off with all of my loves.  It doesn't get much better that that.

Making the Most of a Little Snow

Sam and Anna experienced making their first snowman last weekend (the one they made at daycare a few days before didn't count, because firsts at daycare never count, fyi).  The balmy typical-for-this-winter weather meant that the poor guy's life was short lived, but I'm sure there will be lots of snowpeople made in future winters, if not this one!

 Hugging the snowman

One last hug before it melted away 

(It didn't even make it past nap time that day)

Our New (Free!) Slide

I had been looking for a good used slide/swing set on craigslist for a while... and almost got this exact one for what I thought was a good deal. It was obviously not meant to be though, because a few weeks later, we were given this one for free from a co-worker. Sam and Anna love it and so we've been trying to squeeze in as much play time as we can on it before the snowy days start. It needs a good pressure washing, but we'll wait until spring to clean it up.

The typical scene when we round the corner and they see it: taking off running to be first on the slide.

I'm glad we got a few weeks of slide time in our backyard before our first snowfall... yesterday. Now our yard is covered with a few inches of the white stuff, which is making me get the Christmas itch a little bit more!

We had an interesting evening after our snow-filled day. When Sam, Anna and I were on our way home after daycare, I noticed that our entire neighborhood was dark. It turns out that our power had been off for over 6 hours, since noon, because of the heavy wet snow. After realizing that our dinner in the crock pot would be a no-go, I quickly thought of a plan b. I was on my own for dinner because daddy was gone, so I ran into our pitch black house, leaving the car running in the driveway with Sam and Anna in it, and grabbed what I needed to take Sam and Anna out to eat. Before this, I have only gone out to eat in a restaurant once with my duo on my own. It went fine, just not my top choice for how to spend my evening after a long day with kindergartners!  By bedtime, our power was back on and all was well again.

First Snow

It snowed last night- about an inch of white fluff covering everything.

My babies were born March 9th. We had an unusual March with no snow, and April's weather was very mild- with even an 80 degree day and a record high. Go figure that their first snowfall would be in May.

I'm sad to say that it all melted this morning before I could rush outside with them for a photo-op, though.