...and the snow keeps falling.

Like most of MA, Wesley's preschool playground is currently buried in snow.  The play structure roof is in the background.  They'll be having indoor recess for quite a while.

We've had so many snow days that school is extended another week in June.  So, now the kids are over the excitement of snow days and we're hoping we've seen the worst of this winter's weather.  Every time it snows now, Wayne and I look at each other and ask, "Where are we going to put the snow?"  There are multiple 4 story high mountains of snow in the Target parking lot.  ...and we've got many more vulnerable winter weeks ahead of us.

A snapshot on the drive home.... It's actually a little nerve-wracking pulling out of the driveway since the snow blocks any view of the street.

 Wes standing in our driveway.  Yes, we are thankful for our snowblower.

Here's to hoping Punxsutawney Phil was right this year.

Bring on an early spring!

Snow Day!

Wesley: Daddy, will you make a snowman with me?
The piling on of the snow clothes commenced as our family waded outside in knee-deep snow.  This snow was too light for building a snowman, but we had fun until we froze....

Thomas working on his snow fort 

snowball fight with daddy!

There's a piper down!

Such a pretty white blanket of snow.
Peace. 

As usual, I'm the first one to head back inside our warm house.
I'll always have a streak of CA blood in my veins,
but I'm happy to snap a couple more pics from here.

The award for staying outside the longest goes to..... Wesley!

Dad's Snowboarding School

Santa brought new (to them) snowboards for Christina and Thomas. Today was DAY 1 of Dad's Snowboarding School. Christina and Thomas are skiers and weren't sure if they'd like snowboarding, but ended up having a blast. Thomas said he thinks snowboarding is "even more awesome" than skiing.

Grace & Caroline whirled and twirled on saucers.

Oh, what fun!

Spontaneous Delight

Under the maple tree

It seems like in just a matter of a couple days our maple peaked in color. On Thursday, Wesley had his pal over and as we were hanging out in the family room, Caroline looked out the bay window and spotted a bluejay in the maple tree. We hustled outside to spy on the bluejay and play under the beautiful golden/red leaves.

Time for some exercise...

Push-ups!

Sword-fighting. No eyes were poked out in the filming of this playtime.

Thank you, maple tree! We had fun playing under your beautiful leaves.

Snow in MID October!

...is TOO early! We were in the middle of enjoying 60 degree weather, and beautiful fall foliage, when out of nowhere we found ourselves in a snowglobe...

Christina took these priceless photos of Wesley feeling snowflakes fall on his hands....

Snow Day

So much for a spring welcome.....

Monday we got a foot of snow!  Wesley napped while I worked on a project, and Wayne took the rest of our crew sledding.  They met up with some friends at a hill in Marlborough and didn't seem to mind the hike up the hill after each sledding run because they were gone for at least 2 hours.  From what I could gather the families that went worked on a nice sledding trail, and despite a couple of kid-to-kid, and family-over-someone-else's-kid crashes, they had a ball....

OK, I've changed my mind.  We need to go sledding as a whole family and THEN all of this snow can go away 'til next winter.

Chillin'

I was going to complain that it's 1 degree outside & feels like -12, but then my friend, Gina shared that it's -41 with the windchill in WI.  She's got a pile of snow in their bathtub for the kids to play with...she's always been a super fun and resourceful mom.  So, I'm done complaining about freezing.  I could be in Wisconsin or Alaska or Canada right now...all of which I'd love to visit on a warm, sunny day!

I'm doing a well-being challenge for the next 12 weeks and one of the tasks is to drink 64 oz of water each day.  After running kids to school, I mixed 16 oz of piping hot water with cocoa.  Does that count?  It sure was perfect.

Cozy Warm wishes!

PS.  Have you used the Pioneer Woman photoshop Actions yet?  The actions to download (for free) are on her right sidebar.  They're super easy to use; essentially you just press "play," but you can make adjustments if you want to.  Directions are easy to follow.  I used BOOST for the first photo and SUNSHINE for the second photo.  

Ice Storm '08

Look what we woke up to this morning!  We could hear some snapping and crashing last night, but slept through the ice storm. This morning the trees are still covered in ice and you can still hear snapping and crashing from the upper limbs falling down.   You can see branches down all along our street and in nearly every yard.  In the center of the photo you can see that our grill was crushed.  The tree trunk to the right of the grill was uprooted and the top of the tree can be seen up close right outside our kitchen window....

Thankfully no windows were smashed.  We were without power last night so I got to bed at a decent time.  The kids are home from school today...Christina and Thomas are thrilled, Grace- not so much.  We'll have some fun and hope that we've seen the worst of the ice storm.

ADDENDUM:

Wayne took the following photos.  We were without power for several hours, so I'm just now able to add them here.  Pretty amazing.  We've never seen anything like this.  The sun is out now and everything is melting.  Icicles are showering down like rain.  Branches are still breaking and falling here and there.  We've got a fire in the fireplace and the kids are "cleaning the playroom."  We all cheered when the power came back on, let me tell you!  I need to melt chocolate to make my cake bites!

PS. Cheri, do you recognize Wayne's tan coat in one of these photos? It's the one John gave him ages ago...LOL!