Snow Day 11.0

I'm not really sure how many snow days we've had.  I heard on the news this morning that kids have missed 7 days of school and we've missed 4 Sundays of church this winter (3 full days and one day we only had Sacrament Meeting) so I'm going with 11.  I actually don't mind the snow- it's beautiful and usually fun to play in, but I really am sick of everything being canceled and being stuck in our house for days on end.  

Today we got 8 more inches of snow and Bryan worked from home.  It was great to have him home but also kind of tough because he worked down in the basement and Jilly was certain that he was down there playing and begged me all morning to let her join him.  The girls and I had a lazy morning doing puzzles, coloring, and reading books.  When I looked at the clock I was shocked that it was noon.  Since the girls were still wearing pajamas it made sense to eat cereal for lunch.  

After lunch, getting dressed, and a nap for Mattie we stole Bryan from his basement "office" to go sledding.  While we were getting our snow clothes on Mattie decided she wanted a scarf like Jilly.  I remembered that I had some leftover fleece so in the time it took Bryan to shovel our walkway I whipped up a little scarf for Mattie (this really is not impressive since it only involved a few cuts, but I still felt like supermom.)  The sledding hill was perfect today, but it was very cold and Mattie didn't last long.  Both girls made good use of their mermaid blankets and the heater after coming inside.  We ate dinner then made snow ice cream (10ish cups of snow, a can of sweetened condensed milk, 1 tsp vanilla, and sprinkles- not optional!)  It was a fun day but I loved checking our forecast tonight and finding no snow predicted for 10 whole days- hooray!!

a snowy weekend

We had yet another weekend full of winter weather.  But this snow was so, so much better because Bryan was home and we were all healthy!  It started snowing around noon on Saturday and it came down and down- we got about 6 inches that afternoon, which was more than they had predicted.  Later in the afternoon we headed out to the hill at the end of our street armed with a sled and the fun parent.  

It was really hard to walk because the snow was so deep (six new inches on top of the 3ish inches from earlier in the week) so Bryan rigged up this sleigh for Jilly.  It looked kind of painful to me, but she loved it.  The hill was perfect- not too big and not too small and right next to a set of stairs so there was no struggling up the hill.  Mattie went down once with Bryan but she wasn't really into the cold so she and I didn't last too long.  But Jilly and Bryan had a great time sledding down the hill; and I was so happy to see how brave she was becoming.

Through the night it warmed up a bit so the snow turned to freezing rain which turned into ice everywhere.  Our church was canceled for the second week in a row.  They didn't make the decision until later in the morning so I had the girls in their dresses ready to go- of course!  But my girls love getting dressed up for church so they probably would have wanted to wear their dresses all day anyway.  Sunday was the most beautiful day- it was sunny and got up to the 40s!  Bryan and Jilly went outside and stayed for hours- Bryan shoveling our cars out and Jilly having a ball playing in the snow.  I went outside for a bit and it felt so, so, so nice; it made me feel hopeful and excited for spring.  I had to return a redbox movie so I finally became a true Baltimorean and left a sled in my shoveled out parking spot so no one would take it.

^ it doesn't look bad because Bryan did a great job shoveling all the snow out, but there was A LOT of snow in the streets- plows had come through and pushed tons of snow toward the cars so I was not going to risk not getting my spot back!

We had a great weekend in the snow, but would be totally 100% fine if we didn't get any more snow this year.  Pretty please?!?!

Snow Day

On St. Patrick's Day morning my mom offered to make green pancakes and Jilly said "Umm, can I have yellow pancakes?"  But my brother requested green eggs, and by sandwiching them in an English muffin (so I couldn't tell they were green) I was able to enjoy them as well.  Other than the eggs and finding something green to wear our celebration of the holiday was minimal.

But, it also snowed an inch (maaaaybe 1.5") on Monday and that was definitely something worth celebrating.  We woke up to find that there would be no school so Jilly dragged her Uncle Tyler out to build a snowman.

 They got some help from Luna

 and Gigi

Jilly is quite the snow bunny so she was in heaven and could have stayed outside the whole day; the rest of us- not so much.

Snow Day

Every year since moving here we've spent President's Day visiting the snow.  We weren't sure it would happen this year- up until last week there wasn't really any snow.  But the stars aligned and it snowed this week so we could keep our tradition.  

Our method is simple- we drive down the freeway til we see snow, get off at the next exit, and find a place to park by a nice little hill.  This year our hill was behind a little convenience store that provided us with M&Ms and drinks for the ride home.  We didn't stay very long- the girls are recovering from colds and Mattie was not quite sure about the snow (and would have nothing to do with her mittens.)  But we had a great time; I love little family traditions like this.

2011, 2012, 2013

snow

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it doesn't get much better than living in a place where the winter average temps are 50-60 degrees yet you can drive an hour east and find yourself in a winter wonderland.  On Saturday we headed out for our annual family snow day, and it could not have been a more perfect day.  It was bright and sunny so we didn't even have to wear our big coats, we had the place to ourselves most of the time, and after playing for a while we sat on our sleds and ate a picnic lunch before heading home.

munching on snow

 sledding was a huge hit, Jillian would shout "again again!" every time when we reached the bottom 

See us in 2012 and 2011

snow day

Last President's Day we drove to Tahoe to play in the snow, and this year we decided to make it an annual tradition.  Someone had given us a snowsuit circa 1992 for Jilly so we bundled her up and headed out.  At first she wasn't so sure about this cold white stuff.

 But then we found a Jilly-sized hill and started sledding.

 She loved it!

 I wish you could hear the giggles that went along with these smiles.

Jilly's first snowman

Another successful President's Day in the Martinez book.