Snowmen and Sledding

Santa brought Ellie and snowman kit for Christmas and her dang parents got sick that same day, during one of our biggest snow storms, and she's been begging to build one every since. J.rue has been begging to go sledding since...well forever.

Lucky for both of them, it dumped snow yesterday, and both of their wildest dreams came true. I think J.rue shoveled and snow-blowed 3 times yesterday. It was a good snow day. After most of the snow had been cleared, we bundled up the kids (not a task for the faint of heart) and met in the front yard. Fitz is the best, he'll just find a nice cozy spot in the snow, take a seat and try to eat the snow. It's particularly hard for him because his mittens don't even have thumb holes, rude. He is the most laid-back kid and I kiss his face daily for it.

J.rue got to work creating the snowman's bum while Ellie and I worked on his torso. Fitz continued to eat his snow. We stacked him up and Ellie strategically placed every eye, button, and scarf on him until he was deemed "the best snowman ever!". Ellie wanted to name him puppy but I convinced her Ralphie was a tad bit more fitting.

Soon after we headed in for lunch and naps. J.rue was dead set on going sledding so around 4:45 we headed up to the elementary school. We forged down an unplowed driveway and...got stuck. Let the record show that this was no doing of mine. So we spent the next 30ish minutes trying to get ourselves out. By the time we escaped the snows slushy grasp we had about 20 minutes of daylight left. Did that stop j.rue? Never! We pulled to the side of the road, unloaded the kids and J.rue made us quite the sledding path. Ellie went down a few times on her own and she caught some major air, which she didn't find fun. At all. She kept saying, "I don't like going fast. Fast isn't fun. Slow is fun. Fast is boring." She was trying to be tough because right after her aerodynamics she burst into tears.

After a quick 20 minutes, Fitz and Ellie were done. Jeremy made a few more runs, we loaded up, and headed home. While it didn't go exactly as planned, we loved spending the time playing together. J.rue really is the best at making any situation a good one.