Finally...snow!

In this family, we love winter. I, especially, spend all Summer and Fall eagerly awaiting the return of the cold weather and the blustery snowstorms. So this year, I've been feeling somewhat deprived of the enjoyment that I usually feel during the winter months. There haven't really been any snowstorms, but this morning we awoke to find that two inches of fluffy snow covered the world outside our windows. It was the perfect snowman-making snow, so the girls and I bundled up and ventured outside. I was a bit hesitant about bringing Beth out to play, but decided that the snow was deep enough to cushion a fall, as long as we stayed on the grass.

Erin did not enjoy this adventure one bit. Starting with the bundling-up process, she cried and wailed as I stuffed her into a snowsuit. She frantically tried to rip the boots off her feet, and each time I popped a hat onto her head, she angrily pulled it right back off again. Then when I put her down in the yard, she promptly fell down, rolled onto her back, and became helplessly stuck in that position. This, of course, resulted in even more tears, until finally I resorted to carrying this 22 pound child around the yard.

Beth and Amy had a wonderful time making a snowman. Actually, come to think of it, I made the snowman. They started to roll snowballs for his body, but within seconds they became "too tired", and they whined and begged me to finish the task. It is not easy to roll snowballs with a 22-pound toddler on your hip, but I did manage to make a very lopsided, not-so-round snow creature. Then Beth and Amy tried to put eyes, ears, a carrot nose, some buttons and a corn-cob pipe onto the snowman, but without much success. "Mommy, can you put this one on...please?..." became the rallying cry, and before long I had finished my snowman. The girls proudly posed beside my work of art, attempting to plagiarize it as their own.

As for Erin, her cries soon became to loud to bear, so we ventured back inside to warm up. By noontime the poor snowman had begun melting, much to Beth and Amy's chagrin. But not to worry. It's supposed to snow another 2 inches tonight.

Winter is here at last. Finally.