Snow Day!

With Momma being a teacher, we try to make the most of our "snow days" around here. Most of them that we've had this year have actually been due to cold, so we haven't been able to go out and play. That changed a couple of weeks ago. School was called because of icy road conditions, but it warmed up significantly by mid morning. I decided to get the kids outside for a while. 

Being pulled in the sled around the yard.

Watching his sisters make a snowman.

"Just one more thing!" was uttered many times before SHE was complete. 

Their first snowperson that Momma didn't help with at all!

Tried to get Jerry in there but he just ran away. 

After nap the girls made dinner-homemade pizza!

This is how a Momma of three gets her exercise in! The girls now beg for it before bed.

Sunday Funday

With Gracie reaching the ripe old age of three, Christmas is becoming a big deal around here. She has requested several times to have our own tree this year, and we plan to do so. However, we don't have many ornaments. What's an art teacher to do with not enough ornaments? Have her kids make some, of course! I've decided to try to do a Christmas craft with them each weekend, and hopefully a few more sprinkled in the weekdays. This coming weekend will be hard, as I have grad school, but we'll try. Yesterday we did our first one: Popsicle Stick Christmas Trees!

First the girls painted the "skinny sticks" I got at Wal Mart green. If we were to do it again, I'd just have them use markers, like they did with the popsicle stick for the trunk.

Jerry was very into this project.

The girls struggled with the painting at first, so I got some tape out and taped the sticks to the paper plate. Things went much more smoothly after that.

Bee did ask for help painting, but did about 90% herself.

While the paint dried, we went outside to enjoy our new snow!

It wasn't "snowman making snow," but we did what we could.

Gracie asked Bee to help her make a "really big head, like mine!" but didn't realize that Bee's not quite capable of being gentle yet. His head got destroyed, so Gracie kicked him over. (see video)

 Oh well, it was fun anyway!

Gracie and I made snowangels, and she added a halo to mine. :)

So sweet.

After lunch and naps (which I used to glue the green sticks onto the brown trunks), the girls were ready to finish their Christmas trees. They chose which jewel to add, and showed me where to put the glue. Gracie got very into it, but Bee doesn't like getting dirty or sticky as much as Gracie does. She got glue on her fingers and decided she was done.

Gracie's is on the left and Bee's is on the right.

Momma just needs to add a string to hang them from!

Winter Fun

Grandma and I took Gracie out for some winter fun earlier this week. We started with sledding. For some reason, she doesn't like going fast. We just walked her up and down Grandma's street.

Then we made a snowman. The snow wouldn't mold, so we got a shovel and found some big chunks to stack.

Nana got the girls a snowman kit with wooden pieces and a scarf to add to the snow.

Gracie had a lot of fun pushing the wooden pieces into our snowman.

While Grandma went inside to get a hat for him, Gracie made her first snow angel.

She instsed his heart should be upside down.

Gracie & her man.

Finally, Grandma gave her a shovel ride back to the house.

Snowman

With our first snowfall this year, we decided to get out and have a little fun. Gracie has experienced snow before, but never really played in it. I had grad school all weekend, but they gave us a long lunch on Sunday, so I went home and played with the girls.

Gracie LOVED it. She had so much fun packing the snow together and adding it to our snowman! I just wished I had more time to play with her, and had to remind us both that we have a very long winter to play in the snow together!

I think this is my favorite picture.

Bee was not as impressed with snow. I think part of it was that one of her mittens kept falling off and, of course, that's the hand she would grab the snow with. She was screaming within ten minutes and needed to go back inside.

We got some branches for the arms, but didn't have anything for the face. With Bee screaming I had to just find something fast so it would seem finished and Gracie wouldn't scream about not being able to finish it. So, I grabbed some food coloring. I made the face and Gracie emptied the yellow on the head for hair.

Here's our completed snowman. Pretty unique, but LOTS of fun!