Record Snowstorm!

Yes, yes, this is another "Snow post." You just have to understand that our average winter snow-fall is less than a foot or so. Last night; once again, it started snowing. The weather channel yesterday said 2-4 inches of snow for our area. Ummmmm....they were a little off. Like about 20 inches off. In just 12 hours we got about 3 YEARS worth of snow on the ground outside! This is my dear husband standing out on our back deck with a very inaccurate but fun way to measure the snow we'd had by 9am this morning. Our back deck is half covered by the eaves of our house, so we're not really sure how much we got but check out below....

SERIOUSLY CRAZY for here! In case you can't see too well, it shows just over 20 inches.

This was our deck after during last weeks storm. Scroll back to the top of the page and behind where Luke is standing is where that chair still is laying tipped over. Can't see it? Neither can we. It's buried!

This is the view from our bedroom window looking across the house to the back deck. The chair us under that pile there somewhere.

The kids begged to go outside to "play," so Luke took them out. We weren't about to let Nater Mater go out when we saw how deep it was. He's only about 2 feet tall himself!

Good Lookin' waded around in the snow that was waist deep on him and then fell down right after I took the above picture and totally disappeared.

This is the year I am REALLY WISHING I had snow boots for all the kids. For now, these are "Southern Snowboots." Ya gotta have someway to keep your tennis shoes dry!

We were blessed to be loaned a coat just yesterday for Mr. Smiles. He was so excited and Good Lookin' was happy to have something waterproof when we handed him Mr. Smiles coat.

Good Lookin' was just a "tad bit" cold after falling face first into the snow.

Our front porch where I had just finished chipping away the last of the ice yesterday.

Those 'thigh high' little hills are our azalea bushes that are now buried. You can't even see the snow fort the kids had half done because it's now buried!

Precious Jewel trying to make a new path through the snow.
She didn't last too long.

The kids had fun "plowing" their way to the shop and goat shed. We're a little worried about the lean to. The weight of the snow is making the roof sag inward and we don't have a good way to get up and clean it off. I offered to climb up on Luke's shoulders and try and sweep some off with our big shop broom but he didn't think that was such a good idea. Something about me hitting him in the head or kicking him in the face or something.

We've made sure our pets are dry and even the wild cats are in the garage with our dog. (They are keeping an ever-so-respectful distance by staying under the car and away from her). We've made sure everyone has fresh food and warm water.

We didn't forget the little birds in all this. About every 30 minutes I'm taking pieces of stale bread crumbs and dropping them out onto the back patio where w usually feed them. They've been flocking right next to the window for the crumbs. I have to keep throwing it out because the snow keeps burying it!
I'm beginning to think the kids will be going to school all the way up until July. There certainly won't be any school for the rest of the week!

Sledding Days

The little "dusting" that the weather forecast predicted yesterday for our region of the South turned out to be a little over 6 inches of heavy snow. That is on top of the 5 inches we got Tuesday and our country roads are still not cleared.

It has been beautiful though! It reminds me of winters where I grew up in the Midwest. My kids (and husband) have been beside themselves with all the powdery whiteness. Luke has still made it to work every day. Today was the hardest day to get out of our drive. Twelve inches of unploughed snow and no 4-wheel drive make for some, shall we say, exhilarating driving. ; D

"Hold you momma?"

He could hardly walk!


Our front yard looks like a winter scene from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

The two older boys made "snow paths." Good Lookin' blazed a new trail and Mr. Smiles crawled behind. I think Mr. Smiles got the short end of the stick!

We do not own snow clothes. You know, the slick waterproof pants and waterproof snow boots and waterproof gloves. No, I don't bother buying them because we usually get only 1-2 snows A YEAR! What is the point of spending all the money on 4 kids who are going to only wear them about twice and then outgrow them?

This year, I wish I had. But, it's too late. Everyone that even has them around here is sold out as far as I can tell.

So we layered, and layered and then layered some more. Good Lookin' doesn't even have a proper coat, but with long underwear, hooded sweat shirt, Long-johns jacket, big brother's size 6 Spring Jacket and then a wind-breaker to help with the moisture, he was good to go.

He could hardly walk at first!!

Rain boots with 2-3 pairs of socks inside work well too and thank goodness for itchy long underwear that has been given to us, but never worn until now!!

We made it slipping and sliding down our country road to Grandmama's house this morning. The snow was too powdery to make snowmen in the morning, but her drive is steep and a perfect sized sledding hill for smaller people. With half an inch of ice underneath 6 inches of snow, it was slick!!

I love my dear hubby! He's big. He's strong, and he could push the kids much faster than I!

Snow Angels deep and beautiful

Good Lookin' trying to wade through knee deep snow in Grandmama's yard

Sledding down the Play set! It was fun all of about once. His face says otherwise. But, he got to the bottom and declared it to be too short.

That's all folk!

Happy Winter!

I am ready for it to be over and the kids back in school!

Valentine Flowers

Our school cancelled for the day yesterday and again for today. We've done cleaning, baking, laundry, a lot of TV and a lot of playing. The natives were beginning to get restless by mid-morning, so I went back to the Family Fun website and let them chose another craft that I already had supplies for.

Valentine Flowers! Start with stacks of whatever colored paper you have on hand. Luke's mom had given us a batch of paper for the kids, and I pulled out my printed scrapbook paper and gave the kids all the scraps to choose from.

We cut the printed paper into strips. I have a child-safe paper cutter, so I gave this project to the kids. They were in "happy paper cutting land" for a good 20 minutes.
This time it was Nater Mater who thought it would be grand to blow all the scraps across the table and onto the floor with Good Lookin' cheering him on. It took just about as much time to clean it all up and back into a pile on the table for us to use.

Then came the bag of 300 Dum Dum lollipops that I've had since Nater's second birthday. (If I knew how to link within my own blog, I'd let you just click and see what I did with the Dum Dum's initially. You'll have to fine Nathaniel's 2nd birthday post).

I've gotten tired of this bag and wanted to get rid of them. Viola! Flower Centers!

Naters really likes lollipops. "lolpop anyone? No? I'll eat 4 when mom isn't looking." Oh well, on snow days where it is in the negative digits and they cry when they step outside, what is a few "lolpops?" Just don't tell our dentist.

Next we cut out the hearts. Only Precious Jewel and I had the skills for this part of the project, so she and I kept pretty busy and even she lost interest after about 1/2 a dozen. I did the rest.

We cut a little notch in the hearts.

Thread the strips onto the stick. (The kiddos could do this part mostly themselves). The younger 2 boys needed more help. Heck, Nater just ate the "pops;" there was no threading involved for him.

Why are there no pics of the mysterious 2 middle boys? Because they honestly were more interested in cutting up strips of paper to use as sword and kept jumping down from the table to fight each other. My camera isn't so good at action shots.

Here's your cute little flower center with just 3 strips of scratch paper!

Then on go the notched hearts and the flower petals.

(A whole lot of tape is used on the bottom to hold the whole thing together by the way).

And here are the cutest ever use for the ridiculously giant bag of Dum Dums!

Our little Valentine's Garden!

Blizzard Day Valentine's Activities

We are having the first huge snowstorm here in years. I don't know how many. A lot. We actually got blizzard warnings for today and in the 12 years I've lived in the South, I've never seen a blizzard warning.

I grew up in the Midwest where blizzards are common in the winter and white-outs wreak havoc on anyone outside. This looks like what I remember as a child...not our "southern snow."

The News Channels are saying it's the biggest storm in about 50 years and covers a HUGE portion of the United States.

The above picture was taken at 10am this morning and it looks like dusk.

I let the 2 oldest boys get all dressed up in their winter wear and sent them out to the front yard. We're surrounded by trees, so the wind isn't as bad as an open field, but after about 10 minutes (longer than I thought they'd last) they came back inside near tears with wind chapped faces. They didn't ask to go out again until I needed to check on our mother goat who is due THIS WEEK! Of course it'd be our coldest week of the year.

School is cancelled and we got started on our Snow Day Activities.

Baking with wholesome goodness
I don't bake all that often. It takes up a lot of time and with lots of little people in the house I don't get many blocks of time to cook up anything other than what I need to make for meals. Today though with the snow blowing outside, I wanted to cook us up a little bit of summer.
Blueberry and Blackberry Buckle. I made it with whole wheat flour, and blueberries and blackberries that we picked at a local blueberry farm and from our pasture last summer.

Mr. Smiles helped me dump all the berries on top...

....and he sampled a few just to make sure they "were OK to eat."

Precious Jewel and I had been looking on-line for some fun Valentine crafts to put together. The more she can cut, paste, draw, glue, color, etc.....the happier she is. Family Fun had some really fun and inexpensive Valentine's Card Crafts that pretty much only required paper, scissors, tape and glue. She picked the messiest one to start with of course and we all "went to town."

This was a little 3-Dimensional Card made from melted crayons. Even Nater Mater could get in on the messy action.

First, using a hand-held pencil sharpener, we shredded whatever color of crayons they wanted onto pieces of wax paper.

It was funny watching the different personalities of the kids come out in just this part of the process. Mr. Smiles would shred and then scrape it all into a neat pile in the center; then shred and scrape and shred and scrape.

Good Lookin' shredded his crayon and then in his awesomeness blew it across the table. He was banned from the table for about 5 minutes until he agreed not to blow his or anyone else's shredded crayons. Hehe.
Precious Jewel shredded hers text book style: just like the picture on the computer. Not too neat and not to messy.

Second, we pulled out a paper Aldi's bag to cover the table and to soak up any excess crayon wax. Then we covered it with Good Lookin's yellow/orange mixture of shredded crayons on wax paper and covered it with another piece of wax paper.

Third: The website said to cover it with another flattened paper bag, but I just used an old washcloth. It worked fine.

Fourth: We pulled out the iron and began slowly ironing the top of our little projects. I let the older 3 do theirs with help, but obviously did Nater Maters for him. He'd lost interest after we finished shredding crayons anyway.

I thought they all did pretty good myself.

Five: Test it to make sure it's not too hot before cutting out the shape. Make sure it all evenly melts and if there are gaps it's fine.
Pretty huh? : )

Six: Cut out the shapes! We chose hearts for Valentine's Day, but any shape can be made.

I got involved in helping them more and forgot to take pictures of the next steps, but you basically cut a piece of paper into four equal parts and then cut holes out of the center. I just did several stacks together at a time.

Then I cut a notch into the top and bottom on the outside of one piece of paper and a notch on the top and bottom on the inside of the second piece of paper. Hook them together and you have a 3-D card that just needs it's hanging heart!

A little string and a little scotch tape and viola! It's finished!

Our first row of cute Valentine's Cards!

We're going to make lollipop cards this afternoon.