I am well aware that winter is far from over. We'll surely even have more snow, but let's leave the rest of the arctic blast to the Canadians, eh?
I sometimes feel bad when my blogging doesn't keep up with my Facebook posts, but here's a little something just for you loyal blog readers:
Full disclosure: John was shoveling the driveway while I was trying to clear the three foot drift from the front porch/door. The boys took off across the front yard and soon we heard Daniel calling but couldn't quite make out what he was saying. Amazing how the snow muffles sound! I worried that he was calling "my boot my boot" as in "my boot came off in the snow" but luckily he was just calling "I need a boost!" Rather than immediately boosting him out of his snowy snare, I captured this video so you could share the moment.
This snow also enabled us to employ some of the knowledge we've gained from reading The Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne. In one of the stories, our heroes (7- and 8-year-old sister and brother Annie and Jack) travel to the Arctic circle and encounter polar bears. They get caught on some thin ice that begins to crack, but by observing the polar bears they learn that if you lay down on your belly your weight is more evenly distributed and you won't break through. The boys employed this trick to get across the front and back yards when walking was simply impossible as the drifts were up to their waists. (I think our official storm total was only 10-12 inches, but the winds really piled it up in places.)
We all had a snow day on the Wednesday of the storm. John worked hard to clear the driveway even through the snowplow berm and then I took over later to dig out our front sidewalk. Usually we can count on a neighbor or two to help us out with a snowblower, but this storm was too much even for the snowblowers--at least the small ones our neighbors have. Most of them were out with shovels and snowblowers, taking off a layer or two before trying to plow through. Pretty incredible stuff!
We were back in business by Thursday though and even managed a Saturday afternoon sledding excursion with Grandma and Grandpa before the deep freeze set in this week. We don't have photographic evidence, but full props to Grandpa who executed a tremendous dive/evasive maneuver when Edward was headed straight toward him after he took Daniel on a downhill ride. It only took us a few slides though to realize that the adults were inhibiting the sledding. The kids riding solo with their lighter weight were able to go much farther, much to their delight. Of course that meant a lot of trudging up and down for Mom and Dad, but it all burns calories, right?
It was a little bigger hill than we've been to before. Daniel's first reaction: "I put on my scared face because I was scared...but it was FUN!" It was getting dark so the pictures aren't the best. When Edward bundles himself up for outdoor fun you can barely tell it's him with just eyes and nose poking out from his hat/hood so no pics here.Here's the last time back up the hill to the car. John's so warm from the exertion that he's removed his hat. Daniel's so tired he begged John to pull him up. He still had to "polar bear" part of the way as it was too steep to pull, but we made it and a good time was had by all.
A few more blizzard pictures for posterity:
"Helping" John clear the driveway.
Loading the front porch snow into our yard cart to haul away because there was no more room to throw it to the side of the walk.
Sitting on top of our headless snowman (head had fallen off a few days before the storm.)
A cool "wave" snow drift in the back yard, where drifts were as high as our first floor windows.
Snow exhaustion. (Note: they put their snow gear on over their pajamas and ended up never getting dressed the whole day.)And finally, I feel I must share a moment of motherly vindication. You may recall my description of the Christmas morning meltdown from Edward ("but I didn't WANT Lego!") I'm happy to report that he is now fully obsessed with his Lego and constantly begs John and me to help him recreate the pictures in the book that came with his set. We were worried that we were doing too much, but he clearly was picking up on how to translate the pictures to reality because he created this set entirely on his own:
The book showed numbers 1, 2 and 3, but he took it all the way to 10 on his own, with only a little guidance from John on how to make the 7 stable enough to stand with the rest. I find this particularly interesting because I think he'd be hard pressed to write these numbers as his dexterity is still pretty limited. He shows little interest in coloring or any sort of writing and has taken pains to limit his requirements in this area by reducing his "signature" to Ed.
