Crazy Winter!!

sWe have had a crazy winter!! I guess we have just been used to the winters of the last few years. We have had very mild winters ever since we had the "snowmaggedon" 4 years ago. When we moved into our house in November of 2011, one of the first things we purchased was a snow blower since we have a good sized driveway. It stayed in the box until this year.

The reports before winter started were that it was going to be a snow winter. I confess that I didn't believe it. I think because I was due with a baby in December, I didn't want to deal with an newborn and freezing cold, snow weather. Well, lucky me-I got both!! A newborn and snowy wet weather! We also have had record low temperatures. We even had a "snow" day for the cold!! There was no snow that day, but we had now school because it was too cold. Really? I could not believe it. In all my childhood growing up in Wisconsin, we never missed school for the cold weather. We didn't miss school for snow, either!

Anyhow, I do confess I was happy for some snow, since we had basically none the last few years. I was looking forward to playing with the kids and being outside. But, there was one problem....Darin managed to time the storms right and was out of the country for TWO major "snow events" as they are called in the DC area. In February, over my birthday and valentines day (another post altogether) Darin was on a work trip in Nairobi, Kenya!! He totally missed it-the snow was gone by the time he got home.

So the snow started on Feb 12th, so the kids were out of school on the 13th and 14th. Happy Birthday to me. I was optimistic to have a fun time, but, really it was not the best birthday ever. First of all, I know it was just pure coincidence in the timing, but I think I was pouting inside because I knew that Darin was finished with his work, so he got to go on a 4 day Safari-over my birthday. I don't think I should ever let him forget what I was dealing with while he was gone:) Then I was worried about getting the driveway cleared off so it wasn't icy. I had unpacked the snowblower back in January for a storm, so got it out. The only problem was that the snow was super wet so it kept clogging up the snowblower. Was super frustrating. Luckily, I did find a neighbor who helped get the snow off the driveway with his bobcat, and thankfully Jordan was taking good care of the baby while I was outside. She is quite helpful with Hunter! We did get the driveway cleaned off, so that was a relief.


Darin was home for a couple weeks, then had a trip to Singapore. And wouldn't you know it, we had another storm and more snow days. I think some of these pics may be from then...not sure.

Here are the boys in the snow. Their best efforts at a snow man. Cute little fella!

 Landon-such a cute face!

 Spencer. I was so lucky to find him orange snow boots at a thrift store just a couple weeks before. Also I had made a trip to the Children's Place and found snow pants in each of their sizes!! Makes playing in the snow so much more enjoyable!

 The one thing about winter in our new house is that we don't have a sledding hill like we had at the townhouse. So the kids had to improvise. They got the sled out and started to go down the back steps.

 Eating snow.

 I think these pics are on different days since Landon has a hat on here and a different shirt. Hmm...

 Look at how wet his coat is...this was super wet snow.

 Oh my goodness...trying to get one nice picture of these 3 was ridiculous. I don't know what I'll do when I try to add Hunter to them for a group picture!! The following shots are my attempts:

 Um, Spencer, are  you throwing a snowball at your brother's behind?

 Jordan actually let me take her pic.

 The best of the attempts!

So this wasn't the end of the snow storms...we have had 11 in total. Stay tuned for another post of the March snow storm! At least for that one Darin was home:)