it's the Christmas break that keeps on giving....

We had a great winter break that turned into a break that wouldn't end.  The kids ended up being out of school for 3 weeks.  We didn't go anywhere, but we tried to fill our time with fun at home.  Here's some of what we did

the older boys got to go shoot around the gym at Andy's work

Christmas, of course

basketball tournament for Cale and Marcus

practices

and, the day before school was to start again, we had a record amount of snow. crazy watching the news and how people cleared store shelves before the snow came in.  gas stations also ran out of gas as people filled up their tanks.  little bit of panic going on. we were prepared and had what we needed. so the snow came.  almost 12 inches of it.  no school the next day, of course.  in fact, no school that whole next week.  roads were slowly tended to and it was only toward the end of the week the roads started looking good.  Which was good, because we had run out of milk.

I took a fair amount of pictures.  Be prepared.

To keep the kids entertained, I pulled out a bunch of board/card games they hadn't played in a long time.

Here's one of the stacks we worked through.

While the snow was coming down it was still pretty warm (34 degrees).  You know we sent the kids outside twice to play that day.

And, the next day left us with sub zero temps and blowing and drifting snow.  The kids thought is was cool that the snow drifted up against the patio door.

Other pictures from our never-ending break....

some more board game fun

Once temps warmed up, the kids got to play outside again.  Liam liked playing around the house especially in the big pile of snow created by the snowplow.  Andy was able to take the older three boys sledding two mornings that week.

Kella looked through ads with Grammy Pammy who was brave enough to drive some horrible road to our house.  Her drive went from 5 to 7 hours because of yucky road conditions.  She also got to see the boys play some basketball games.  By the time she left, the roads were much better.

played some games with a princess

and Ash the pokemon catcher

painted my nails, Kella's nails and Liam's toenails

brought the little Christmas trees inside.  Kinley liked the lights

I had to go to work the night the snow came in.  Lucky me, I'm considered "essential personal"and can drive even when the county is telling everyone to stay home.  It really only took me and extra 30mins on my way in.  The next morning just took a little over an hour driving home once my car was warmed up and de-iced.   My drive home from work on Monday (1/6).  There was a rainbow around the sun.  I promise, I am driving on the road.

Another view of my drive.

look at how cold it was that day!

found a recipe for snow ice cream

pretty cold at night too

In a moment of brilliance, I took the kids to Gamestop to spend their giftcards the day before the snow came.  All the boys had new games to amuse themselves with.  We even got a new/used Wii balance board so we could play Wii fit again.

we made snow ice cream a couple times.  the kids thought this was awesome

Cale, showing how deep this snowdrift was.

And now, the kids have a week back at school under their belts.  I think they were excited to go back and I was ready to be a more normal routine for us.  It has snowed the past two days with more snow promised for Saturday.  And, it sounds like it's going to get pretty cold again next week....

snow play

We've had snow on the ground for a week and a half now.  I'm pretty excited that the snow hasn't melt and, in fact, has been covered by more snow.  Over Friday night/Saturday morning we probably got 3 inches of snow to cover the snow that was already on the ground.  The kids were excited.  Friday night I took the lot of them to the store to find snowpants for Cale and Marcus and boots for Marcus.  We managed to find what we needed.  Thank goodness.  They needed to play outside.


Even Kella got to play outside this year.  

Got to use the sleds.

 

 

Got to play in the snow.

Got to throw some snowballs.

Rolled up some big balls of snow.  Made some paths that exposed the grass underneath.

Ate some snow.

Rolled more snow.

Ate more snow.

Made some snowmen.  They used oranges for the eyes and little peppers for the nose.

They became cyclops snowmen.

Un-thawing inside.

please let this be the last snow

Who would have thought that I would be posting about snow at the end of March?  I am thankful for all the moisture that this winter has provided, but I think I'm ready to move onto warmer spring days.

It snowed twice on Sunday.  The first round came in the early morning and created slushy roads and crummy driving conditions.  I should know, I was coming home from work.  When I woke up from my nap, all that snow was basically gone.  I thought that was a pretty weak winter storm, not like all the news folk were predicting.

Round 2 came in as we were coming home from scouts.  The roads were icky, driving was slow and I was so glad to be home (and that Andy tolerated my back seat driving comments).  That snow came down all night and into the next morning and allowed the boys one more snow day (hopefully) for the year.  It's  funny,  I bet we got 6-7 inches of snow, but with blowing winds, you can see the grass in some areas.  As I'm writing this the next day, the sun has come out and temps are warming up that the snow is quickly starting to melt.  It should be 50 degrees this weekend.  That's more my idea of spring.

Even Liam got to go out and enjoy the snow.

The day before, the boys had made a large mound of the snow.  It's still there and probably will be the last thing to melt.  

Liam with his snowball.

Cale liked to throw the snowballs at peoples' faces.  (you can imagine how well that went)

Ewan just loved the snow.

Then, I remembered that we had sleds in the garage.  They slid really well on this wet snow.

Exhausted boy=clearly, playing outside was a success.