Snow, snow, and more snow

The kids have had fun playing in the snow that was part of "one of the greatest snowstorms that hit Chicago". We have areas of our yard where the hibernating grass is showing through, and other parts with 4 foot drifts. With the weatherman predicting the storm a few days in advance, we had time to get excited about what was coming! Right before it started snowing hard, the kids and I went out and built a support stucture for our igloo. We piled up all of the "junk" and toys that we could find in the yard to make a place that would be semi-safe to crawl into after the snow fell.

Me and Nathan in our snow garb. The drift by our fence was incredible... and tons of fun to dig paths through. Like my hat? I decided, after looking at these pictures, that the fuzzy thing would happily join the "hat hand-me-down club" that my kids rummage through before hitting the snow. Note to self... look in the mirror after adorning anything new... :)

Paul fired up the new-to-us snowblower that my dad gave us earlier this winter. It has saved the day a few times already this winter.

Caleb and Paul shoveled where the drifts were too deep while the rest of us played.

This is Noah and Nathan in the "igloo". The snow didn't come straight down, so our creation only got covered where it was drifted over, but they had fun digging the snow out and climbing through. If you look, you can see Nathan's red cheeks. The following day, his cheeks (especially the right one) was so red that it looked like someone had slapped him, and they felt hot (only on the red part). For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. I looked it up on the internet and came up with some "slapped-cheek disease" (fifth's disease) or a capillary problem. It took me a day and a half to figure out that he was NOT diseased or contagious, but had stayed out too long on that cold day right after the snow. The poor little guy had gotten some serious wind-burn on his cheeks. It's a week later and his poor cheek is still tinged pink.

Nathan and Grace right after we went out to play. The boys had dug some short tunnels through the drifts in our driveway. What a fun day (and daddy had a extra day and a half off to boot)!