Winter Weather Overload (Part 1)

Well, this past week and a half has been pretty interesting weather-wise.  It started a week ago Monday with a rain/sleet/snow combination that got Brian out early from what was supposed to be a long day at work (hooray!).  The next day Daddy had the day off post-call and school was canceled for the kids, so we headed out in the morning to play in the snow.  Things didn't go quite as planned - Nathan and Daddy went down the big hill in our backyard (too big Brian decided upon reflection), but inexplicably Nathan got upset while walking up the hill (not upset about the sledding though) and came inside crying.  Sarah made it outside but within two minutes was complaining about being cold, so she came in upset too.  Brian and I were pretty frustrated with them, so I announced that we would be going back out that afternoon whether they wanted to or not. 

Our afternoon outing was much more successful!  We got Sarah bundled up more thoroughly which made her a happier camper, and Nathan was just in a better mood.  Our first order of business was finding icicles to suck on (funny, I sense a theme going on about eating cold things!). 

Then we headed to the side yard to sled.  Daddy and Nathan started us off...

... then they realized that both kids could fit on the sled with Daddy, so everyone enjoyed a few more runs all together. 

As much as I wanted to sled down the hill at least once, we decided it wasn't the best idea while holding Andrew in the sling. 

The rest of the week the cold temperatures dragged on and on, causing the ice to stick around and school to be canceled day after day.  By Wednesday night the kids and I were already going stir crazy, so when I found out school was canceled for the rest of the week, I texted some girls from church and invited people over for a play date on Thursday morning.  We had tons of fun and decided to meet the next morning for free play at a nearby gym.  That was also a huge success and made last week bearable.

Things were looking up over the weekend, but school was canceled AGAIN on Monday (not that it affected us, but still!), and then Monday night brought more snow.  I didn't measure how much, but we got a couple inches to play in.  Sarah wasn't interested in braving the cold on Tuesday morning and I didn't feel like trying to convince her, so Nathan and I headed out to play after Andrew went down for his monring nap.

By the time I got out, Nathan had already discovered that the snow was way too powdery to be packable, but we had fun stomping around and kicking the snow, and to his delight I even let him play at the edge of the street since there was so little traffic.  After a while we got into a snow fight, making do with handfuls of snow rather then snowballs. 

And I didn't even get this post finished before MORE snow came last night (Wednesday night).  This time we got PERFECT snowman-building snow, but I'll save those pictures for another post.