SNOW!

If there's one thing we really hope for each year, it's one good snowstorm. And this year, we got it!

It was questionable whether we'd even get anything right up to the night it was supposed to start.

But it did start and it kept coming down!

The next morning, we had 9 inches on the ground and it was still snowing pretty hard as times. By the time it was over, we had a little over 10 inches, which is pretty significant for us.

The chickens weren't particularly thrilled with the snow.

But the kids were. :) Irene was so excited to get to go out in it; a far cry from last year, for sure.

Emma, too, was raring to go when she saw the whole world turned white.

The did some sledding in the front yard.

Olivia went over to the big hill and did a little there.

Even Nukkah got into the action by escaping and running like a mad dog all around the park.

It was just so pretty...However it was freezing cold, so staying outside took some serious determination.

Olivia wanted to try her hand at shoveling. It didn't last long. :) 

Because it stayed cold (like 10-20 degrees for highs) for a couple of days, the snow wasn't any good for making snowballs or snowmen. However, a couple days later, the sun came out and softened the snow enough to make a couple of pretty good snowmen in the yard.

They didn't last long, tho. the very next day, we found the bits and pieces all on the ground as their occupants had melted swiftly away. 

First Snow 2016

The kids have been asking and asking when we would get some snow. I kept telling them we'd be lucky to get any this year, so it was ironic that only 2 days later, we woke up to the snow falling and sticking!

 It was above freezing, so the snow was pretty wet and easily packed. 

 They set right to work building a little snowman.

"Yay, snow!"

Snow Day!

Quite unexpectedly, we got a bit of snow last week. The kids were so excited! They had been waiting all year, hoping we'd get some snow this winter. For 3 days straight, we had nothing but rain but on Thursday evening, it changed over to a wet, heavy snow. 

Our poor persimmon trees couldn't stand up under the weight of the snow.

Our dogwood did ok, though.

Snow angels

Because the snow started out as rain and then froze, it wasn't very good for making snowballs. We managed to make ourselves a snowman anyway.

We gave him a pie-tin hat with bird seed, hoping to get some visitors.

Mommy started a snowball fight

And Olivia gave it right back to her. :)

We don't own a sled, so we improvised an old-school solution: a shovel.

The kids loved being pulled around on the shovel

 And now, our artistic section:

 The Many Faces of Ezra

 Last year, Olivia did a nature activity book, but there were several activities she couldn't do due to the lack of snow. We pulled the book out and managed to get a bunch of the experiments and observations done.

catching snowflakes

unfortunately, the snow was more like ice pellets, so we didn't see any actual flakes.

Observing the temperature difference between the air (39 deg F) 

and under the snow (34 deg F)

"Eskimo" snow goggles. By looking through the slits, glare from the sun is greatly reduced.

We added salt to a small handful of snow.

a few minutes later, it was completely melted.

Olivia made 3 snowballs of different sizes and then recorded how long it took each to melt. 

We snagged a bowlful of snow to make snow cream with.
Emma wasn't too keen on helping out with it.

Ezra and Olivia, however, were more than willing to stir the ingredients.

Winter Fun

We got some snow over the weekend.

We ran outside to catch the first flakes that were falling. And Olivia was so excited.

Gabe liked the snow as long as I was holding him but was not so sure when I set him down. He did like to eat it.

Olivia made a Gingerbread House. Well, she had a lot of help from Jeremy and I. She had a good time decorating it and was very proud of our work.

Olivia and Jeremy made a snowman. Olivia thought the snow was very cold to be rolling into balls. She did enjoy putting on the gumballs for his face.

Gabe finally tried to walk a little in the snow.