Friday, February 21, 2014

Valentines Day 2014

Valentine's Day fell just a few days after the great snow.  We were still in that cuddly, cozy sort of way.  Perfect for the day, I think.  Patrick and I made the kids a special Valentine's day breakfast.  And along with snow we had some Valentine's day treats.

 We made our first batch of snow cream on the day of the big snow.  I hadn't heard of it before but I guess it is a Southern tradition.  Luke said all the kids were talking about it at swimming, as in, "Luke, how long does your mom make you wait on a snow day to make snow cream?"  So we gave it a shot. Not as good as ice cream, but the kids ate it.
 I picked up a new Wii game before the storm, which I never, ever, ever do.  I let the kids have a Wii playing fest one afternoon. The Wii happens to be located in our bedroom at the moment.  So they played from our bed.
 I got Lucy a Pinkalicious book.  I had never seen one before.  She  loved it.  The rest of us...not so much.  Sarah thought they were mostly dumb, so I think I will only bring one home from the library a few times a year.

 Lucy cuddled up with popcorn and a movie to get warm after a time outside.

Snow day 2014

Last Wednesday the snows began, as predicted.  The weathermen said it would start at noon, and wouldn't you know the first flakes fell at 12:04.  We had fair warning of the storm, so we were well stocked up on important groceries and library books...and treats.  Roads don't really get salted here.  And only major ones get plowed.  The way it works in the South is that snow shuts down life for a few days until the ice and snow are mostly gone.  It was such a wonderful, cozy, fun-filled two days.  It was such a blessing of family time spent sledding, snowball fighting, game playing, book reading, cuddling, movie watching, cocoa drinking...and NO SCHOOL.  It was the first time I have given the kids an official snow day.  Patrick was home from work on those two days, and he is the one who declared it a SNOW DAY.  I am so thankful that the Lord blessed us with a snow storm this year and that a few days later all the snow was gone.  And a few days after that it was 70 outside!
 The "Baroness" a.k.a. Lucy loved the snow once we got her all bundled.  It was too deep to walk in, so Luke would take her where she needed to go.  Mostly she sat and ate snow!

 Can there ever be too many cups of hot cocoa?  We may have reached our limit.  But I tried to have hot water at the ready all day, so when the kids came in they could get warm in a hurry.
 We ended up with an extra kid during the storm.  Sarah's friend came over and within a few hours the roads were too bad to take her home.  She is such a sweetie and so helpful that we loved having her with us!
 I did laundry all.day.long.  I didn't mind, but am glad we only get snow about once every few years.
 The main road to our house during the storm.
Sean loved the snow more than anyone, which I found funny.  Here he is on a snow drift off the roof.
 Does this kid look sick?  Well he was.  I was thankful to have Patrick home as he got to see what 3 full days and nights with a sick kid are like.  It was so nice to have his extra hands.  Little man woke up with a fever of 103 the morning the storm was supposed to start, and the doctor's office had closed for the duration of the storm.  He was happy once we could get his fever down, but we played the fever game for 3 days.