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.

Mom & Rebecca having some fun

This afternoon Rebecca and I rediscovered the remote for the camera. We had some fun taking pictures. 

 Her latest game craze is Uno. We play it in Spanish. Since she's already learned her colors and numbers it was easy to play in Spanish. We work on saying 'me tengo', and 'no me tengo'.

Then we got silly and started taking some more posed pictures of us together. She loved being in charge of the remote and taking the picture.

This was totally Rebecca's idea to be silly behind me. She asked me to sit and then went behind me. I could tell she was doing something behind me.

I tried to be silly and give her bunny ears, but I wasn't fast enough so now I get to see what the back of my hair looks like!

The days of Rebecca and mom time during the day are coming to a close real quick. I'll be so lonely when I don't have a little one to play with during the day.

A cool new ice pack

Oh our sweet Rebecca got a rope burn on her finger from the repel line the big kids made on the Lego table. Her finger was pretty red and sore looking. She has such petite hands that any of our ice packs are giant on her and I knew that she wouldn't be able to keep one on for very long.

I opened the fridge instead of the freezer and saw a handful Taco Bell hot sauce packets in there. Perfect! The hot sauce packets were small enough for her to hold onto and cold enough to cool her skin down. They got warm pretty quickly so we kept switching out for new ones.

 I threw some into the freezer to get them colder. They get pretty hard in there, but they get squishy fairly quickly and stay cold longer then the ones from the fridge.

The saying on the packet was so perfect for this occasion. It read "It only gets better from here."

What a great little find to help little ouchies get better fast!

The Zoo Rebecca and mom built

Here is one of the Zoo Keepers.

 The puppies and the kittens share a bed. The Alligator has nobody to play with, so he can play with the Zoo keeper. The Zoo Keepers going to lock the alligator in for the night, because they don't want them to come out. That's the rule! Lock, lock, lock.

The Jaguar, lion and elephant have food, water and something for the zoo keeper to eat and drink. Water and marshmallows. No apple juice, marshmallows and syrup.

Will the lion eat the elephant? No because it's nice.

This is the Zoo Keepers bedroom. They like their bed, rug, table and house. That's all about them.

The zoo keeper with the keys locks the doors. The zoo keeper with the flag says "no people in the zoo at night."

 This is the pool for the Zoo Keepers.

Dictated by Rebecca Lucy Smith

Looks who's 10 years old

Corrine is now two full hands old.

 It's the 1st time being in the double digits in age and it's the last time she can show her age with her hands. 

What a magical, fun filled day today was. 

It started slightly dark and early when we got up to have some yummy cinnamon rolls and open presents before heading to before school Spanish.

Corrine got to open her remote control car and her gumball machine was sitting ready to be play with.

She brought orange "Push-ups" for her snack today and she said they were a hit!! She said the kids said they were the best treat ever and were so excited for them. Funny thing about them is we're expecting a big snow storm tonight and the kids were eating sherbet!

The afternoon was spent driving her car, eating skittles, driving her car some more and playing with Rebecca.

In the evening we went to swim lessons, which ended very early after a kid got sick in the pool. Luckily NOT one of ours. Corrine was beyond excited to find out that she passed Level 3, and gets to move on to Level 4 next week. (She took a session of lessons when she was 3 or 4,  and it was not good timing with Simeon being sick and life being crazy.) So really I consider this her 1st real swim lesson. She real quickly caught onto doing the back stroke and does it beautifully.

We ended the night with some yummy cheese cake complete with another round of singing Happy Birthday and lighting the #10 candle. I don't think you can sing or light the candles enough in on your birthday!

Corrine's 10th birthday edition of "My top 5 things"

5. The "totally"' comfortable" toe socks we got her.

4. Opening her presents. They were "just what I wanted!"

 3. How her door was decorated this morning. 

(It spelled Corrine and had 10 hearts hanging down.)

2. Having dad come eat lunch with her, especially since he wasn't able to last year.

1. Swimming lessons. She passed level 3 on her 1st try!!!

Oh sweet Corrine. I'm so excited that you had such a magical 10th birthday.

How in the world?

This morning Rebecca and I had a few errands we needed to do. We ended up at the Super Walmart in Coralville. As we pulled in the parking lot we saw a white car at a very strange angle. At 1st I thought I was seeing it wrong, but another look confirmed what I saw.

 

How this little car got up onto such a big rock is beyond me. The saddest thing was that the car still had paper licenses on it, so it was brand new.

I felt bad for laughing at this cars bad day, but I laughed, pretty hard!