Can I just say "Enough with the snow already"?

Last night brought yet another storm and, you guessed it, more snow!!! I think the kids sang "Let it snow!" a few too many times! We have another few inches of snow outside now. The road is completely covered and impassable now. This snow storm also brought high winds that created snow banks up to 4 ft high. It's going to take a while to get everything uncovered this time. The worst part is that the temperatures are not supposed to increase any time soon so it won't be melting off very quickly. I just hope it clears in time for Christmas so that our honored guests can make it over for the celebration...

Snow, snow, and more snow...

It snowed all night last night and all day today. We have a pretty good accumulation. School was cancelled so I sent the kids outside and they played in the snow for hours in the morning. After lunch we hiked down the hill to the green van (affectionately known as "Goofy"), cleaned it off, and headed into town. I bought a pair of snow boots for Nate (he was wearing a size 3 on his size 5 feet), a snowsuit and pair of gloves for each of the girls, and a few more Christmas presents for our friends and family. We also loaded up on groceries.

The forecast is calling for more snow starting Sunday and not really ending until Christmas Eve. It's also supposed to stay pretty cold so there won't be any big thaw coming any time soon. It really reminded me of Alaska! Tomorrow is another day out of school for the kids. So far this week they've started two hours late on Monday and Tuesday and been out of school for Wednesday, Thursday, and now Friday. They got a nice early start to their Christmas break!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We had over four inches of snow last night on top of one inch of ice leftover from Sunday night's snowfall. Nate, Nicole, and Amanda got to stay home again with me today. They are so ready for Christmas break that it's going to be difficult to get them motivated to finish the week out if the weather clears up. It continued to snow throughout the day with an additional few inches of accumulation. The kids really enjoyed playing outside in the softly falling snow. Unfortunately, I didn't get outside with them to take pictures. I'll make sure to get some tomorrow.

Who knew walking to the bus could be dangerous?

I woke up this morning and seriously thought that school would be cancelled. Any idiot could see that having a thick layer of ice on every stretch of concrete did not make transportation easy, right? No such luck. The school district made the decision to hold school two hours late, which normally makes sense, but not today. The ice has no hope of melting today because it has only gotten colder throughout the day and it's expected to get colder instead of warmer. I can't even get my van out of the driveway right now because there is too much ice. Even if I could, there's no way I could get it down the hill without having to use houses for brakes. Since the kids have perfect attendance so far you gotta do what you gotta do, so off we trudged down the hill to the bus. If you look closely you'll see Nate falling in the background (in the middle of the street!). We pretty much had to skate down the hill on a solid sheet of ice. Since cars were doing the same thing all around us, it was a scary experience!

When we got the bus stop, the kids played hockey with a nice sized snowball that Nicole created just for the occasion.


Of course, they spent more time laying on the ice than actually moving the snowball around, but I never said that my kids were awesome hockey players, did I?

Nate was his usual goofy self and spent more time laying on the ice than actually playing. He enjoyed trying to figure out how thick the ice was, how much it would take to break the ice, and how fast he could run before he fell down (not very fast right now!).

Amanda was content to just stand with me and wait for the bus, making sure to look cute for pictures. That's my princess!

They made it on the bus safe and sound and I'm assuming all the way to school since I haven't heard any different. I'm stuck at home trying to reclaim the house from the weekend of being stuck inside. I've got Christmas gifts to wrap, pictures to go through, a house to clean, several loads of laundry to finish, and toys to muddle through. I've definitely got enough to do to keep me busy for more than the week I'll be stuck here.

I'm not even going to think about having to trudge back down the hill in three hours to pick the girls up...

It's our turn for snow!

We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland! We had a few inches of snow and lots of ice under the snow. The kids really enjoyed playing outside all day and building a snowman.

The last two weeks have been incredibly busy. I've been busy getting the last of the Christmas gifts taken care of, catching up with my friends, and getting the house ready for guests. John took last Friday off and spent the entire day with me. We had a great day!

We're ready for Christmas...

Grandpa brought our Christmas tree back from his house today so we could continue our tradition of decorating the tree on Thanksgiving weekend. We had a wonderful time pulling all of the lights out and putting them and the ornaments on the tree. We're not sure what happened to our handmade ornaments (we're missing a box), but the tree still looks wonderful. If you look closely (to the right of the tree on the floor), you can see the "Grandma Got Run Over by the Reindeer" singing stuffy. Grandpa got that for the kids a long time ago and has added more singing stuffies to their collection over the years. It can get really LOUD in this house during Christmas.
Now we've really gotten in the Christmas spirit. We're ready for all the joy and surprises the season brings. In fact, I think I'll go Christmas shopping today...

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been a very busy week. Nicole and Amanda are feeling much better thankfully, but now Nate is under the weather. He's a tough kid so I don't think we really know how sick he is.

We had Mom, Geri, Brenda, Sassy and Teddy (the dogs), and Mocha and Peanut (the cats) over for dinner for Thanksgiving.

Nicole was in charge of the menu for the day (Nate has Christmas and Amanda has New Year's Day), so she got to help choose what we were having for Thanksgiving. John tried a new recipe for a turkey brine and it turned out so delicious! Here is a link to the recipe he used:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe/index.html

We also had the classics: stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, cranberry sauce, cranberry salad, deviled eggs, 24 hour salad, rolls, and apple and pumpkin pie. Whew! We didn't even make a dent in all that food...

After dinner, John, Brenda, and I watched a movie and ate popcorn. We had such a great day! I hope everyone enjoyed their special Thanksgiving day...