Freezing February

The pond at my parents' house froze this week and my mom bought skates for the kids so today they learned to skate.  Abigail was really doing very well by the end of an hour and Joseph was mixing gliding with walking (his skates are double bladed).

The (gale) Force was with us

What do you do when a 2-day long wind storm with 70 mph winds knocks out the power to almost the whole town? 

You eat Easy Mac and cold fried chicken (practically the last food left at the only open grocery store, which took us a round trip of 70 minutes to get) and watch Star Wars while taking shelter at school!  We were the only ones there, although teacher friends later wondered why they hadn't thought of doing that while they shivered in the cold and dark.

Snow Day

The kids got to play with their grandparents by making 5 snowmen, riding sleds and an ATV, and general snowy antics, like snow-ball fighting.  Then they had soup and hot chocolate and came home.  It is a joy to have my parents live so close!

The Snow Break

Everyone was watching the weather for Friday.  The blizzard was supposed to start during the day sometime.  At school, we were preparing the kids with a bit of work for them to do, assuming we'd likely be out Friday and maybe some the next week.

But Wednesday night, after dinner, Lar took Abigail to karate and within an hour, a sheet of ice was precipitated and then snow began falling, fat and fast, on top of it.  Karate is 1.5 miles away and Larry was worried about making it home.  These "light flurries" (as they had been called in the forecast that morning), put us out of school starting on Thursday.  We found a lot to do with the kids inside.  We had to; we had 11 straight days with them, which was only 1 day shorter than our Christmas break this year!

My favorite activity that I did with Abigail was to do a "mommy and me" painting.

My little artist at work

Us with our finished paintings

Another thing that the kids chose to do (a LOT!) was playing in some of their costumes.

The First Snow of the Winter

It isn't much, and it isn't sticking to the ground, but the deck is apparently cold enough to have a dusting of accumulation.  The kids think it is a blizzard, so we'll just go with that!

"Hey Mama, how does Grandma's
Snow Stick work."

"We put it in the ground to see how much
snow we have."

"Oh.  How much do we have?"

"Um, hard so say with the grass in the way."

Pictures from a Snow Day

Yesterday afternoon, while it was snowing and we were in our first few inches, I took the kids around the neighborhood.  We sledded on unplowed streets and gathered sticks (part of an elaborate game the kids made up, mostly consisting of dragging sticks and making patterns, but also some sword play).  Thirty-five minutes later they were chilly and we went inside.

This morning, Joseph was saying "snow" (which really sounded like "noo?") for a few hours (you know, in the pre-breakfast hours, before the sun is up) and pointing outside.  He was excited about the snow that fell yesterday and wanted to go out and play more.  He couldn't wait!

However, once he was out in the thigh-deep (on him) snow, he was a bit freaked out by it.  It was like when we first brought him home from China and he was afraid of grass.  Larry pulled him around on a sled for awhile, but we couldn't get him to do any snow angels.  He did however, have a little reunion with Chase, from the Halloween entry, and Chase's owner who said "I know this guy from trick or treating; your wife was trying to tire him out for the time change!"

Abigail had a great time making snow angels, sledding, snow tubing, and general playing.  She is an old pro at snow days!  

*sigh*  Mama, what TAKES so long to get everyone ready?

Jos was a little unsure, even though is #1 role model was ready to go!

Our Little Snow Angel

Trying to tube in the deep snow

A bit tentative....

.... but super cute

Super Cute rosy cheeks when we came inside!

It has been a *little* snowy lately

Last Friday, after a harrowing and terrifying drive in a snowstorm that began abruptly with an unrelenting ferocity that this northern girl has never before seen, we arrived at my parents' farm for a long weekend.  (Little did we know, we could have stayed at least 3 more days, as the snow has arrived in northern Virginia and we have not had school all week!) 

Although the temps were in the low teens with wind chills even lower, we had several 30-60 minute sled riding sessions on The Hill at the farm.  The Hill was fast, like skeleton-sled fast, with the added fun of frozen horse droppings that we would hit and make us fly off of our sled, into the air.  It was like hitting rocks. Larry broke a sled.  We all have bruises.  But it was fun.  

We have allowed Abigail to retain her only two vices from babyhood.  One is Blankie.  Sometimes, when stressed or tired, she just says "I need to sniff my Blankie" and within a few minutes, Happy Child returns.  Besides, 4 is not too old to have a Blankie.  But the other vice is her sippy cup.  Sure, she drinks water and juice and lemonade out of regular cups and glasses.  But when waking up, going to bed, or decompressing, she relies on hot milk in a sippy cup. Abigail loves hot milk, but she REFUSES to drink it out of anything except a sippy cup.  When presented with the choices (A) hot milk in another type of cup and (B) no milk at all, she always picks (B).  Since we forgot her sippy cup on this trip, Abigail didn't have any hot milk, but she did try something new:  hot chocolate (made from milk) in a mug!!  This is a HUGE step for her and a treat that she loved after sledding.  

My parents also took her to see Frozen for the second time.  She is OBSESSED with the movie, in a good way I guess, not in a Disney-princess way. She is singing (even more than usual), talking about eternal concepts like family, love, protecting people from getting hurt and friendship.  She is picking up and using new vocabulary, such as "isolation" and "sophisticated."  Abigail made my mother role play Elsa and Anna for hours.  During one break for dinner, my mom was relaxing with adults for a few minutes when Abigail (ready to return to playing) said "Grandma, you be Abigail and I'll be Grandma."  My mom said okay and said some vague thing.  Abigail corrected her, "No, you say 'Let's go play' and then I'll say 'yes' and we'll go do that right now!!"  We got a real kick out of how Abigail tricked my mom into playing more. 

Myth Busters: The Frozen Bubble

It is true.  When it is 7 degrees Fahrenheit, bubbles do freeze!!
Abigail also had fun throwing frozen things at the frozen pool.
Stay warm, everyone!

Snow Day

Christmas came and went so quickly this year.  And it didn't feel as Christmas-y as I had hoped.  As much as we don't over-plan our lives, we had very few free nights to hang out in the evening with our tree, a fire, and (after Abigail's bedtime, a glass of wine for Larry and me).  Out of the 22 nights before my parents arrived, Abigail had us busy on 4 nights and Larry was busy on 10 nights.  (Why can't chorus performers give a WINTER concert instead of a CHRISTMAS concert in an already over-packed, over-done month?  20 hours in the week before Christmas went into Larry's choral performance.  That is too much.) 

The absence of my mother-in-law was felt by me this year.  I enjoyed having her visit us last December.  She was a constant, calm, Christmas-y presence in front of a fire every evening for the latter half of the month, but she was unable to make the trip from Florida this year.  We were lucky enough, though, to have my parents for most of the entire week of Christmas.  They took Abigail out to breakfast on Christmas Eve and they entertained her for every waking minute of every day.  

(In retrospect, I have no idea how we could have survived Christmas break without their presence and help!)

After 12 days off, Abigail was ready to go back to school yesterday. She had a blast.  
Then the snow started.  But it was  beautiful snow.  Big, fat, wet, gentle, beautiful snowflakes began falling right after Abigail put on her pajamas.  She ran to the back door.  She ran to the front door.  She excitedly declared "It is snowing in all directions!!!!  It must be snowing at everyone's house!!!!  Can I call Grandma Judy and Yinski and tell them about this snow and see if they have it?!?!?!"  After an excited conversation, she hung up.  It was already past her bedtime, but the snow had covered the grass and, given the forecast of temps in the single digits for today, I knew that this would be her only chance to play in "packing snow."  So I put her coat over her pjs, slipped on boots, and we had a snowball fight.  We fought the back fence (a target she could hit with her mittens on).  

Today was a snow day, with with wind-chill in the negatives and the stickiness gone from the snow, we only went sled-riding, and not for very long.  But Abigail still LOVED it.