I'm still here

How I've gone 20 days without updating this blog is beyond me. I've started to update a few times, but never get it done. This winter has been long and hard on me and my motivation is MIA. Between S.A.D., some major headaches, along with preschool, Spanish, and sunbeam prep and all the kids activities I've been doing bare minimum in other areas of life, like this blog.
I'll be back soon and there will be lots of updates to check out.
Kari

More Snow!!

This is our 3rd big snow storm in the last 2 weeks. This is also the 2nd snow day in those 2 weeks. Sheesh someone must want these kids to have less "brain drain" time this summer, so they're finding ways to keep them home this winter to shorten our summer break!

We have this nice, noisy snowblower that works great IF you know how to operate it! I obviously don't know how to work it, so we used our muscles to shovel the 4+ inches of snow this morning. Add in the 1.5" from yesterday and we were moving about 6" of snow. I figured a way to get my reluctant helper to help. I gave them the job of getting the sidewalk done before playtime. Having an end to their work, they got on it pretty quickly and got it done with little complaining. 

But shoveling is always easier when it's NOT your yard. The kids shoveled Doris's driveway and sidewalks last storm and couldn't wait to get ours done so they could head down there and do hers. She has ALOT of sidewalk to shovel since she lives on the corner.

 
Ammon was in charge of the front walk, steps and porch. He worked so hard and wanted to get every snow flake off. Him and Corrine had tiny shovels that take lots of little scoops to get an area clean.

Simeon and Joe working on her front sidewalk. Joe has been an awesome friend to our kids since we moved into our house 6.5 years ago. 

Corrine worked so hard to get the end of the driveway cleared. The plow puts so much heavy wet, dirty snow on the ends of the driveways and it's always the worst the place to shovel. She thought I was just taking a picture of the flowers on her hat.

Rebecca got a free ride on the purple sled that has brought so many smiles to all 4 of the kids. She has her hands full of 2 big icicles she kicked off the down spout. Today we discovered that the sled has a hole in the bottom, but for now it's still usable. It's sad to see something all the kids have used hit the end of it's life, but it's also awesome to think of all the smiles, laughs and memories made by it.

The tale of Simeon's snow gloves. He got a hole in his pair that he'd been wearing for a good 2 years. I searched for weeks to get him a good pair of gloves that he could grow into and use for a long time. 3 weeks after getting them he's already had lost one of them twice. Corrine found the 1st lost one on the way home from school. The 2nd time losing the glove and it's still missing 2 weeks later. Poor brand new glove without a pair to play with. Today Simeon eyed my pink snow gloves and went for them. He's had some very cold fingers lately. But really how do you teach a kid when they never get uncomfortable. I find these too warm for me when shoveling, so I was fine with him wearing them.

We're getting what they call "snow fatigue" with all the storms we've had recently. March has come in like a lion, so hopefully it'll go out like a lamb.

We got some white stuff!!

We have had such a mild winter here in Iowa. I don't mind not having alot of snow, but come on we need some to make the cold temps bearable. Today we finally turned white again with freshly fallen snow and it was absolutely beautiful. 

School was cancelled for the 4" we got because yesterday we were in the upper 50's and had thunder and lightening. The rain that came down yesterday turned to slippery ice under the snow, so they thought it safest to keep the kids home. Too bad the Recreation department didn't feel the same way, so Rebecca and I still had to head out for swim lessons. The roads weren't actually that bad, but that's probably because the plow had just gone down our road minutes before we left and we have a very main road 2 streets away that gets a lot of attention because of a big hill on it.

I found face masks for the kids for $4 at Walmart a few months back. Ammon has been living in his this winter. It got so stinky and he kept wearing it, so I finally had to take it away to wash it. I love how bright his eyes are in this picture. He was loving the snow, but not loving helping shovel it so he could go play in it.

Rebecca is warming up to her swim lessons. While she's in her lesson I went and walked on the treadmill in the exercise room for 20 minutes. It's nice to get some exercise in somewhere other then our basement!

A cold week in Iowa

It's been cold here. Really cold. Too cold to be outside playing. 

So there's been alot of indoor playing going on.

We've had some electronic game time. Some cooking time. Some movie watching time. Some reading and cuddling time. Some game playing. Some warm baths and pj time.  Some sickness. Some cookie time.

And some piles of blankets to keep the frozen air out and the warmth in. 

Ice Skating on Plastic

Yep you read that right-plastic. Tonight a friend and I took the older 3 kids ice skating downtown on an outdoor ice rink. It was a free event put on by the city's Art Festival. When we got there and looked at the rink it was obvious that it wasn't ice, but we couldn't tell what it was. When you looked at it you could see the spots were the pieces were fit together.

It looked wet and there were what appeared to be shavings (ice possibly) on top of it. When you skated on it, you didn't glide so much as stick, and it sounded like you were walking on plywood.
We asked a man in charge about it and he told us there was no ice at all on the rink, and that it was indeed plastic sheeting with a chemical sprayed on top to make it slick. The neat part about the rink is that you could ice skate in the summer on it because it doesn't melt.
The kids had a great time skating. Simeon happened to have 2 friends get in line right in front of us, so the 5 kids skated together. Ammon took some time to warm up, but once he did he was off and had no desire to be done skating, even after being out there for over an hour and  half. Corrine was excited to get some ice skating practice in before an ice skating birthday party tomorrow. She took a good fall on her rear right at the end and came up pretty sore!

It was a nice warm 50 degrees outside so we weren't cold as we skated and people watched.