Of mice and (snow) men

Did you hear we had some snow up north? We did ... and we liked it so much we had some MORE!! Yay. (Not!) Hannah and Lizzie are really enjoying the snow. Me? Not so much. Rob? REALLY REALLY not so much! By the time the snow finished fall we had another 20 inches or so. We cleared off the table from storm one, to better gauge the snowfall from from storm two. We didn't shovel the deck though, so you can see the somewhat impressive snowfall. I think probably six inches melted between storms, so the total after storm two probably topped out at around 30 inches. And the second storm was much heavier, wetter and harder (for old ladies with canes) to walk in. But it looks pretty, doesn't it?

Hannah decided to help Rob snowblow the driveway. They thought (wrongly) that the mail had been delivered and you never know when a bank statement that needs reconciling might be in the mailbox ... so off they went down the driveway...

Hannah bailed on the plan after about 10 feet. There were much more fun things to do than to get to the mailbox.

Rob did a great job though ... not that it mattered because he had to go out on Thursday morning and re-do the whole thing because more snow kept falling until about 10 p.m. on Wednesday. But again ... sure looks pretty, doesn't it?

Lizzie was THRILLED because we finally had some packing snow. Lizzie has been wanting to build a snowman by herself since the winter began. With a little help from Hannah and me, she finally got her wish. Here she is with the beginnings of the snowman:
The thing about packing snow, though, is that it's HEAVY so Lizzie had to struggle to get the balls of snow around the house. The hardest part of building the snowman was to actually find a place to put him, since the snow was so deep the snowballs kept sinking. We finally found a place near the front walk that was acceptable, so all the snowballs that had been made in the back yard had to be transferred to the front yard. Oh and in the interest of full disclosure, Hannah DID have a snowball, but she's kicking it.

Here's Hannah's snowball before she kicked it (and broke it.) You might also be interested to know that they are standing on the driveway, which had been clear at the beginning of the storm ... and the snow kept falling after this picture was taken:

Finally we had success! I didn't take pictures of the building of the snowman because, well, I was building the snowman. And since I weigh significantly MORE than the girls, snow that packed down under their feet still had me sinking up to my thighs. Yeah. It was fun. :) I donated my scarf to the guy and Lizzie gave him her hat and found sticks for his arms. I found some green milk caps to use for his eyes, and there you have it...our snowman:

And here's our OTHER snowman, in from trying to clear the driveway:

Lizzie was VERY proud of her effort as you can see. I was proud of her, too. She's very single-minded when she wants to accomplish something!

Of course giving the snowman your hat in the middle of a blizzard is not without a price. So here's Lizzie when she finally came inside. Happy, but FROZEN.

And here she is a few minutes later with a cup of hot chocolate, her pillow pet and snuggie, settling in to watch the movie Beethoven. Don't you love a happy ending? Well, that's not quite the end of the story. A little later I opened the door between the laundry room and the garage and saw a HUGE RODENT run from under my refrigerator to under the car. I normally don't mind mice -- I do live in the country, after all -- but this one was huge. And I'm pretty sure he was looking for a way into my nice warm house. I'm happy I foiled his effort though.

Oh and about 10 p.m. that night, Lizzie started with a stomach bug that had her vomiting on just about every bed and blanket we have. Good times.

Oh, and the girls had Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off for snow days. Then Monday is a holiday. Then it's supposed to snow on Monday night so Tuesday will probably be a snow day, too.

However, the zoo camp brochure came today so I can at least DREAM of summer fun!!