Wednesday, March 4, 2015

We love ice!

The other morning the phone rang at the awful hour of 5:45. Truthfully I was getting up to work out, but to hearing the phone at that hour made me one of two things was happening. Number one thought was that there was a family emergency and something terrible had happened to someone that we love. Or, school was going to start late. It had been raining all night and they tend to cancel school when it rains. Well, not just water rain, it has to rain ice. Anyway, I bolted down the stairs to get to the phone right as the machine picked up. Thankfully, no family crisis, just a two hour delay to school starting. If school's not going to be canceled, I'll take a two hour delay! The phone rang again at 6:45 saying that due to the rain that had turned to ice, school was no longer delayed, it was canceled! I clicked my heels together and did a little dance. No, I'm not making that up. If I had any kind of patience, I would consider home schooling our kids just so they could be home with me, but I know myself and home schooling would end very badly, so to school they go. But, I do love when they get to be home with me! The only bummer when it rains ice is the ice. It looks like snow, but it's not. M and K were so excited to go play in it. I tried to explain to them that it wasn't play-in-able, but they really wanted to go play. Out they went. I bundled up and then put little B in so many layers he almost couldn't put his arms down. The sun was out and it actually wasn't very cold. Our house sits at the bottom of a small hill. We had this great idea to go sledding down our street. Not gonna lie, at first I was really nervous to try it because it really was just ice. There was probably two inches of ice all over the road. We tried sledding, loved it and ended up playing outside until the sun had turned the ice to slush and the sled wouldn't slide anymore. We noticed that there were a lot of people using the road at the end of our street. That's a major hill, so we went over to try that one out. Our neighbor from across the street was born in Florida and had never seen snow. She's M's age, so she came sledding with us. At the top of the hill she just kept saying, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die!" I couldn't help it, I laughed at her and told her to be brave. I told her that she wouldn't die, that she was going to love it.

M and K were so excited to go all the way down the hill! They didn't care that they were going to be flying down a hill of ice!

Oh man! I stood there laughing at their happy screams. 

K would scream and then laugh. M couldn't help but scream and E was so scared that she would scream and then scream louder. Once they made it to the bottom and E knew that she had indeed survived, she stood up and said," That was so awesome! Can we do it again?!"
K took charge of this run and instructed me on what to do and how to make it so we didn't go too fast. Little B didn't know what to think. I didn't realize that I was squishing him, at least it kept him stuffed in the middle tight right? The whole way down K and I were laughing and little B was totally silent. When we got to the bottom he said,"again?" I asked if he wanted to do it again. He got a huge smile on his face and said"Yeah!" He started marching back to the top of the hill.
K made it to the top before little B could get there. When I took this picture it was so bright outside that I didn't realize that K was already going down the hill. I put the camera down just in time to see the inevitable happen. Clearly little B got wiped out. K couldn't stop so as he slid down the hill he yelled out sorry. B laid on the ice not being able to roll over to stand up because he had too many layers on him. I tried not to laugh as his little arms were flailing and his legs were kicking trying to stand up. Thankfully, he was more scared than hurt, but when I picked him up he was saying,"and done, and home, and done." Poor kid! It was lunch time anyway, so I rounded up the kiddos and we went home. M and K were not done being out on the ice. By the time lunch was over and cleaned up, the ice on the road had either melted or turned to a slushy mess. They went out anyway and discovered that another neighbor had a perfect sledding driveway! Before you go call DCFS on me, when it rains ice here, everything is shut down. The entire day I saw one car driving in the neighborhood. No one knows how to drive in the inclement weather and so they stay in their house. I knew they would be safe sledding down the driveway because there were no cars out.

They stayed outside and played on their driveway until dinner time. I could hear them screaming even though I was inside the house. I went out to check on them and the one that didn't get to sled was on check for cars duty. The other two weren't allowed to go until they had heard that it was safe to go.


We had bathed them before dinner to help them warm up. Playing out in the ice most of the day is hard work! It was such a fun day! What made the week even better is that the ice melted and the next time it didn't rain ice, it snowed real snow!
The real snow day started out with a power outage. Thankfully, B was off because he had been on call the night before, so he was home. Clearly, it wasn't too warm in our house. Even when the power's on and the heater's going, our house is drafty and cold. I thought it was just me that thought our house was cold, but the other day my friend was over. She was sitting in front of the window. She asked if the window was open. I said no, it just feels like it's open because the windows are so drafty. Anyway, so to have the power out made our house just real chilly! To pass time and to try to prevent the freezing process from starting, we bounced a ball back and forth to each other. I knew it couldn't last long, the snow looked awesome to play in. There were two problems with going out into the snow. #1- The power was out, so when they came back in, there was no way to warm them up. #2- we don't own any snow pants, boots or waterproof gloves. I knew that they would be so cold if they went out there. It was only a matter of time before they would ask to go out. I was truly hoping that they would be so cold inside that they wouldn't want to go outside. Of course I was wrong. The ball game lasted until 8:45 and then they wanted to go out. I hate snow. I hate that it's so cold and that you get wet and then freeze. My hands freeze and my feet get so cold that they hurt. And have I mentioned that they power was out? Oh that's right, the power was out, so there was NO WAY TO WARM UP!!!! That didn't not sound great to me. B loves to play in the snow and he really wanted the offspring to be able to play in it because the forecast for the next day was warm, so the snow was going to melt. He took one for the team and took all of them out so they could play. They had a great time and I was able to get a couple pictures!

This was before they went out. We don't have any gloves for little B, so we put socks on his hands and then put sandwich bags over the socks. He kept them on for the picture and that's about it.

Yay for snow days that there's actual snow and not just ice!

What a cute kid right?!

M is totally nuts and unzipped her coat. She said that she was getting hot. Clearly she's a little sick in the head!


K would pick up huge amounts of snow and throw them without compacting them into a ball. Every time he threw snow, it was like your own personal snow storm as it fell down on you. Little B wouldn't pick up the snow himself with the socks/sandwich bags on his hands. He had B pick it up and hand it to him. He ended up just ripping the socks off his hands. Then he really didn't like to pick the snow up. Maybe someday we'll get real gloves.

What's not to love about this one?! I am so glad that they were able to play in the snow! I'm even more glad that B was home to play with them so that I didn't have to! Too bad the snow was gone the next day. Yes, the next day. It was sunny and warm, so it all melted. Now you know why we don't have snow gear. The snow doesn't stay around long enough to justify buying any. 







   




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