Snow Day

One of the great things about Nampa is that it doesn't snow here very often.  I used to be of the mind that a winter without snow just wasn't winter.  Then I realized....exactly.  Why have winter?  Well, I guess it's okay every once in a while, as long as I don't have to shovel it or drive in it.

The other day it snowed a lot.  It went from just a few flakes on the ground when I dropped Annalee off at preschool, to a car buried so deep that I was late when I went to pick her up.  We got back home and I announced "We are going to play in the snow."

It only took us 45 minutes to get dressed.

Vander is sporting a pair of snowpants that are too long for him, but that's okay. He doesn't have any boots and he doesn't walk yet anyway, so I fastened rubber bands around the bottoms to keep the snow out. He is also modeling the season's best in polar bear head wear. (I love that hat!) Since he didn't have mittens either (and would take them off in 3 seconds if he did) I had to get creative. I put socks on his hands, then covered them with sandwich baggies held on with rubber bands. I put his coat on him and Voila! He wouldn't be able to take them off! Of course, I didn't think about him biting holes in the bags. So I had to take his coat back off and add another layer of socks on top of the bags. When I was done dressing him he was nearly completely immobile, and could only look forward to flopping around in the snow. Success.

Annalee is wearing her snowpants from last year (thank goodness they still fit), Daddy's Disney hat, and her green rain boots.  They aren't insulated, so she is wearing a thick pair of Daddy's socks over her own.

The snow was perfect for packing.  Annalee and I threw snowballs for a while, then she made several snow angels.  We decided to make a snowman.  I tried to get her to make her own big balls, but she needed me to start it for her before she would take over.  We tried to sled down the hill behind our house, but it wasn't steep enough to really get going on only a plastic bag.

Vander had great fun blundering around in the snow.  It looked like he had gotten a few months younger, back when he could get down on his tummy from a sitting-up position, but couldn't sit back up afterwards.  He ate a lot of snow.

By that night, all the snow was gone except for our snowman, which had fallen over.  I'm glad I took the time to have that experience with the kids.  It was the first time we three had played in the snow together.  In fact, it was the first time I had taken either of my kids out in the snow without Nathan.  It always seemed like too much trouble, too much mess.  (Yes, it was a lot of mess and trouble, but isn't that kind of the definition of kids?)  That kind of thinking was back when I was fat and depressed.  I like the new me, and I think my kids do, too.