Snow days

This year's weather has been a little bit crazy, even for us.  We've had snow and/or other frozen mess four times now - yes 4.  It is March 8 as I'm writing this (even though these pictures are 3 weeks old), and the kids still missed a day of school THIS week for ice.  This particular snow storm from three weeks ago was by far the "best" as far as the ability to actually play in it.  It was about 4-5 inches of snow with a thin layer of ice on top.  You can see Brett jumping up and down trying to break through the layer... the kids barely weigh enough to break through.  Once you got through the ice, there was some good snow underneath - you can see Brett loved to make snow balls!  We set up the "Lopez Luge" through the backyard - we had just enough of a slope to go all the way across and end up at the end of our property.  Todd's mom even went sledding - I caught it on Instagram - it's awesome.

This particular snow storm was particularly crazy though... the snow hit Wednesday while I was at work.  Target actually closed early, which almost NEVER happens!  We were supposed to get more ice that night, so Todd went to get his mom to bring her to our house because we were supposed to fly out the next day for Chicago/Milwaukee, but we needed Todd's mom at our house to watch the kids ;)  Thursday we hung out at home and played in the snow (pictured below), and Thursday night, by some miracle, Todd and I actually flew out of RDU even though 95% of flights were cancelled that day... good karma or something!  I'll tell about our trip in a different post, but we left this snow for LOTS more snow.

The kids thought all of this was great - they were supposed to have early release on Wednesday because of the timing of the snow, but then the school chickened out and cancelled all together.  THEN they cancelled Thursday and Friday (via a telephone message with the principal rapping to "Ice Ice Baby" and THEN they had "winter break" the following Monday and Tuesday.  A week off.  For real.  Thank God for grandparents because we would be struggling with all the snow days this year and two full-time working parents.

Trying to jump up and down to break through the ice on top of the snow

I decked him with a snowball right before he got this one launched :)

Obligatory snowy house picture

Kate just wanted to swing - her feet kept getting stuck in the snow/ice

She is a light weight,, so it was easy for her to sled anywhere in the yard

I even managed to go sledding!

Brett was the photographer catching all the fun!

Latergram