February means snow!

I guess when the groundhog makes his appearance, Mother Nature decides she needs to make her presence known to us. This year, I heard that there would be 6 more weeks of winter. While that wasn't the best news, up to that point, we had a relatively mild winter so I figured what the heck. You see, for Christmas this year, we got all the boys snow bibs and snow boots. Not hand me downs or gently used but brand new, name brand, two sizes too big snow gear. Last year they had good coats and gloves but not pants or boots and when the snow came, they got cold and wet and didn't last too long. When they opened them on Christmas, they kept asking when it was going to snow. They were ready to go. Then time passed with no snow and they stopped asking. Jason and I even kicked around the idea of driving to the mountains and going snow tubing but ultimately decided it was a lot of money for our boys to see snow at this age. Then it happened!

We didn't just get snow, the first round (yes, I said first) came with sleet and ice. Not fun for snowmen or snow balls but great for sledding. You see Grandma, my mom, had gotten each of the boys a disk sled for Christmas and they were ready to be used. We decided to gear up and hit the snow, make that ice. Jason stood at the top of the driveway and gave them a push (which really wasn't necessary) and my mom and I stood across the cul-de-sac to catch them so they wouldn't go down the neighbor's driveway and into their fence or a batch of trees. Here is the video Jason compiled showing Chase from several angles going for a ride.

Sledding at the Liner house

Because this was mostly an ice storm, the roads were pretty undrivable (mainly back roads) so the public school system shut down for 4 days. Chase however, went back after just 2 which meant no make up days were needed. The little boys however, were out of school all week and home with mom.

Fast forward one week and the next round of fun began. This time, we knew it was going to be big and snow and last for a while. Chase headed off to school on Tuesday morning and the boys and I came home to get ready for the Y and speech for Jack. Before we could leave the house, I got a text message saying that Chase's school was closing at 9:30 AM and we needed to come pick them up. So off we drove through the snow (again) to get him. We got home and got dressed in our snow gear (Jason was at work) and headed outside to play in the new snow that was falling on top of the remaining snow/ice from the previous week. These were big, fat, wet flakes and so much fun! It didn't make for good sledding snow, but it was great for snow ball fights, snow angels and snowmen.

This round kept everyone out of school for the rest of the week. We are lucky to live close to a main road so we made sure to keep our driveway clear because I knew we would all go crazy if we couldn't leave the house for 5-7 days. We are a group who likes to get out and go. We stayed home for 2 days and then when the Y opened back up, off we went.

Here were are finally back on our schedule - everybody got to go to school today and Mom ran errands ALL BY HERSELF! So much easier when I am not dragging 3-4 little people with me everywhere we go.  While I loved 'forced family time' every once in a while, I am ready to see the sun shine and no more snow clouds until next season. For now, I will put all the gear away in the hopes that we don't get the snow they are predicting may come later this week. North Carolina weather - highs in the 70s on Wednesday and possible snow flurries on Thursday! Good thing we love it here!