Cabin Fever

School was cancelled again for today and I think the novelty of the snow is starting to wear off for the kids. They all wanted to go outside shortly after breakfast this morning, but the twins only lasted 10 minutes and Kendle came in shortly after them. Morgan is still holding out strong. He's waving an icicle around like a wand and pretending to be Harry Potter. He shouted "Avada Kedavra" at me, so I'm not sure if I should be worried or not that my 4 year old put a death curse on me.

The roads are just horrible, so I don't really want to take my chances venturing out. I'm such a chicken with bad roads (especially if the kids are with me). The snow plows don't come around to all of our little streets so they are seriously a mess. Riley did his good deed for the day when he went out before work and helped one of our neighbors get their car unstuck when they were trying to back out of their driveway. I tried to convince him to shovel our walkways and driveway again last night, but he was positive from the weather reports that it was going to melt off and start raining later today anyways so he'd rather not waste his time. I had him go to the grocery store last night and at least get us stocked up for a few more days just in case.

Today I'm making some homemade chili and letting it simmer all day long. We'll have chili and cornbread for dinner. I think we need to replenish the cookie supply as well so we will probably be making some after lunch. Lots more movie watching in store too. I'm starting to get cabin fever a bit. Hard to keep all of the kids entertained and happy when we start to feel cooped up. I really need to mop my floors, but what's the point when there is a constant flow of wet footprints and snow being tracked everywhere? Kendle had a sleepover at her neighbor friends house last night and has been hanging out with the neighborhood girls non-stop which is good. If I keep her busy that solves half the problems. Ha!

Well, hard to get motivated to do much besides curl up in front of the fire with a book, but I better get folding some laundry and throw all the wet snow gear in the dryer.

Snow Day

We had ourselves a full fledged snow day here in our little neck of the woods. The anticipation of the much talked about snow fall was what everyone had been buzzing about for the past few days. Would we, or wouldn't we get tons of snow dumped on us like they'd been predicting? The kids came in to wake me up at about 6:30 to tell me we had lots of snow and much more was falling fast. We had finally gotten our beautiful winter wonderland we've been hoping for. Kendle had already checked the school delays and closures and was happy to find her school had a 2 hour delay. Morgan didn't have preschool as well so the kids were pretty stoked. They were in their snow gear and out the door by 7:45.  I decided to just keep Kendle home since Wednesdays are early release days anyways. It was a wise decision. The snow just dumped on us all day long and there was a chill wind blowing snow everywhere. We had big drifts blocking our front door and the back sliding door. The wind finally died down, but it was still pretty bitter cold and the temperatures continued to drop. Later in the afternoon things started to freeze and we now have gigantic icicles hanging from the roof line. I talked Riley into having a snow day with the kids as well, so he took them sledding after lunch for a good two hours or more and they had a blast. Then they came home and Riley shoveled the driveway off and did the sidewalks and the kids played in the snow some more. The twins went out for a little while to hang out with Riley, but as soon as they get cold they're done and want to come in. It doesn't help that they fall down every five seconds and get totally covered in snow. It was a good day and we've already heard that school is cancelled for tomorrow as well. The snow fun (and all the constant putting on of coats, hats, gloves, boots, scarves and then taking them off again and drying them out) will continue!

Here are a few pictures of the children bright and early this morning:

Happy Snow Day!!!!!

We woke up to more snow coming down, and I checked the school district's web site to find that we had a two-hour delay. Hurray for that! Kendle has been so excited for the snow. She had fun playing in it before church yesterday and then she was so cold she sat in front of the fire for two hours. Now if only I didn't have to take Morgan to a doctors appointment, this would be the perfect cozy day. When I was growing up, our house had these wonderful sloping little hills in the backyard that we could actually sled on. We'd do that and build snow forts for hours on end. We'd have snowball fights with all the neighborhood kids. We'd grab our moon boots and our snow bibs and play outside until our fingers and limbs were numb with cold. My favorite time to go out in the snow was right before it got dark outside, it just seemed so magical.

Stay warm everyone!

Snow, Snow and more Snow

What crazy, snowy weather we experienced today. The white stuff has been coming down since before we woke this morning and is still going strong now in the evening. Church was cancelled and our whole day was spent holed up inside our cozy little house in front of the fire. We stayed in our comfy clothes and just enjoyed a relaxing, quiet (for the most part) Sunday. Riley ventured out around noon to shovel the driveway and walkway and Kendle got bundled up to play around in the snow for all of twenty minutes or so.













While they were out in the cold I decided to whip up some home made potato soup and scones. There is nothing better on a snowy day like today. Yum!

The last time we had snow like this was a couple of years ago when we still lived in Burbank. I hope the snow plows come soon, but it's nice to not have to worry about Kendle having school tomorrow, that semester break day sure coincided well with the weather. For most of the day there was not a soul to be seen outside. Then after dinner we saw someone skiing behind a truck down the middle of the street. It looked fun but slightly dangerous.

Days like today don't happen too often around here and it was a treat to be able to enjoy it with my family.

December In Pictures

I took down my Christmas decorations today, which is always a sad day for me, but refreshing to have things cleaned and packed away again. I always think of the song from "The Forgotten Carols" by Michael McLean, "I cry the day that I take the tree down". I feel like there is an empty space in my heart for a few days.

We had a very nice, low key Christmas, and as I was uploading some pictures from that morning I had others from earlier this month as well. So here is a little bit of our (or the kids anyways) December in pictures:

-Snow Day!!!!-

-The Morgster relishing his new found balance-

-Kendle may have a future in architecture-

-Who knew licorice was this good?-

-Really Santa, I've been good this year I swear!"

-Santa's little helper-

-Christmas morning-

I always kick myself that I don't take more pictures of the fun things we do as a family. Watching Morgan on Christmas morning was like revisiting Kendle at that age. It is such a delight to watch the happiness in their eyes and the fun this time of year brings. It has been an amazing year and I'm sad to see this month coming to a close so soon. December always leaves us much too quickly.