Winter Blah Blah Blahs

I just need to rant a bit and get it out of my system. Feel free to check back in later if you're just here for the crafts and my usual sunshine. I'm fresh out of those at the moment.

Yep, this mommy is dead tired of this winter. It. Needs. To. End. The sooner, the better.

I am tired of the cold. I cannot remember another winter when it has been so cold for so long. It got above freezing, what, twice this calendar year? Yes, it was nifty to make frozen bubbles, but this whole polar vortex thing has gotten quite old. The wind chills have been unreal. I am sick of school being canceled due to extreme cold. I am sick of being cooped up inside due to extreme cold. Thank heavens we have natural gas because I know there is a propane shortage, and I should not complain. Even though we're running the furnace higher than we ever have before, at least we are keeping warm while we are inside. Mostly. We've run through a lot of hot chocolate mix...

I am dreaming of a tropical vacation. Heck, I'd even take the kids if it meant getting away from this winter that never seems to end.

I am tired of the snow. Really, three more inches? And the snow blower is broken again?! We just had it fixed. I shouldn't even complain since I have barely done any of the shoveling, but seriously, we have had snow, snow, and more snow for two months straight. While it was fun for a while, and it was cool to finally get a snow ice cream recipe to turn out properly, I am over the snow.

The children are over it, too. They keep asking when spring will come. Even Ritzy is sick of winter. Our poor little dog hardly knows what to do. She gets stuck, so she hardly ever leaves the porch or the deck any more.

Snow, snow, snow! But no packing snow. We have not made a proper snowman all winter long, which is frustrating. I kept hoping that it would happen, but at this point, I am so sick of snow, I hardly care any longer. I've been around the house putting away all snow-related decorations that were still up: snowmen, snowflakes, the snow-covered Christmas village. I can't stand to look at it any longer!

Most of all, I am sick of things being canceled due to snow -- too much snow, blowing and drifting snow, snow that makes the roads treacherous. I have driven into two snowbanks this year, which is two more than I have driven into in my entire life prior to this winter! This means that there are two parts of the front end of my van that are in less than perfect condition now. (The most frightening part was when my van was hanging out in the road, Logan was in the back seat, and the school bus was coming. Thank God there were three gentlemen who came along and helped me out.) I have also driven through two intersections because my van did not stop even though I was going slowly and braking. So scary! And, it freaks Logan out when we leave the school, and the van brushes against the ginormous snow mound at least once a week. You'd think he'd be used to that scraping noise by now.

I am tired of the ice. We've had "snow days" that were really ice days. Do you know how much I hate that? They can't play outside when it's icy. And once more, things are canceled because there is no power, so there's more being cooped up. (I should not complain, of course, because we have been blessed with power at our house all winter, but still...)

We are out of salt. Everyone, everywhere is out of salt. It is insane.

The ice is my real nemesis. I have lost so much traction this winter! One morning, after hearing the cruuuuuuuuuunch all the way into town, I knew I had to stop and get the ice out of the wheel wells. So, I parked in the Walmart lot and proceeded to chisel away at the ice chunks -- they were solid, all the way around every single tire, filling the entire wheel wells!

I broke my ice scraper while trying to remove the ice, a casualty of this winter's extreme conditions. The good news is that Walmart had ice scrapers so I was able to replace that, at least. Also, the broken end worked better, anyway, so I'm keeping in case I have need of more ice removal. Yet another casualty of this harsh, harsh winter was my favorite dangly silver earrings. They must have slipped out while I was chiseling away in the Walmart parking lot -- where I may or may not have been the subject of photos or videos -- some weirdo appeared to have had his cell phone on me the entire time. What is wrong with some people, anyway?

I am tired of all the damages. While backing out of the driveway last Tuesday morning, I bumped into the trash can. Instead of flipping down, the rear view mirror snapped off, and is now dangling by a wire. (Brett had taped it back in place, but he bumped it again today, and it is flopping around again.) I don't even know what is to blame exactly. The snow -- driving into snow banks? The ice? The extreme cold? Neither of us could believe that it just broke like that! It's been a rough winter for my van -- and for me.

If you see a YouTube video of a frustrated lady trying to get ice off her tires with a snow scraper in the Walmart parking lot... It might be me. Also, if you happen to find a pair of silver earrings, I am still mourning their loss, and would love to have them back! In the meantime, I am still dreaming of that tropical vacation...

ABC Scavenger Hunt

With three snow days this week and extremely cold temperatures (think negative 35 degree wind chills!), we were all starting to get a little nutty with cabin fever. Fortunately, I came up with a relatively simple (and secretly educational!) idea the keep the kids occupied for a bit one afternoon. They helped me sort through our alphabet magnets to find A-Z. (Remember, I mentioned before that we have a LOT of these?) This in itself ate up a few minutes. Score one for Mama!

Then, I arranged them around the perimeter of our dining table and sent them off on a scavenger hunt to find at least one item for every letter of the alphabet. At four years old, my little dude isn't all that great with letters just yet, but he was very good at finding things and his big sister was especially nice about helping him find the correct placement for each item. Teamwork! Score another point for Mama.

In the end, some letters were notably easier to find corresponding items for. For example, B and C were starting to crowd into the spaces that were assigned to A and D. On the flip side, some letters were downright tricky to find things that matched up with them. This sparked resourcefulness on Mia's part. She began asking questions like, "How do you spell vulture?" and then she wrote the words on slips of paper and placed them near the appropriate letter magnets. I could have told her this was "cheating" but it seemed like a pretty smart solution to me! Problem solving! Add one more point to my tally.

Also, it was interesting to see what types of unusual things they came up with for each letter of the alphabet. Yes, A is for alligator and Z is for zebra. Those are pretty standard. But when you think of M, do you come up with maze, maraca, or minion right away? Probably not! How about W is for wrench and wave bottle? Doubtful. So, I am considering this little game to require higher level analytical thinking skills, and again I say, score for Mama! (The teacher in me is quite pleased with herself.)

My friend Kim said that she did a similar scavenger hunt before but instead of collecting physical things she just had her kids take photos of each item. Maybe we'll do it that way some day, too, but not until we own a kid-safe digital camera. It seems like that would be ideal for an outdoors nature-themed scavenger hunt. (Find an orange leaf, find a nut, find a purple flower, find an insect, and so on...) Something to think about for when the snow finally disappears. At this rate, I am thinking that will be around June!

Snow Ice Cream Success!

We have tried at least a couple of times to make snow ice cream, but it has never worked until today. Honestly, I don't know which recipe or recipes we used, so I can't compare them. So, I am merely posting this recipe for future reminders to myself! If it helps someone else out, all the better. I goofed and added too much vanilla this first time around, but the kids didn't seem to mind at all. The consistency was actually very good, so overall it was a resounding success.

{More brown than it should be since we added extra vanilla...}

Ingredients:

• 4 cups snow (clean, of course!)
• 1 cup milk (We used skim, and it worked surprisingly well.)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (not tablespoon, Meg!)

Directions:

1. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and mix with a spoon for a couple of minutes, until all ingredients are combined. 
2. Enjoy some fresh ice cream right away! Toppings are optional, but we used sprinkles (Mia) and mini M & Ms (Logan). 

S'mores in the Oven

Being stuck inside today with the extreme cold temperatures (at the start of the day, it was below zero, and with wind chills, this continued all day) meant LOTS of activities to entertain the kids. Unfortunately, it really was not my day. Pretty much everything we tried was a flop... except for this idea to make s'mores in the oven.

Thank heavens this recipe worked because I really needed the late afternoon chocolate pick-me-up. While it's not quite the same as roasted over a campfire, it is the best indoor approximation I have found, much better than those made in the microwave. Now we can have a little taste of summer, even on the coldest wintry days!

{Gooey goodness -- even in winter!}

Ingredients:

• 8 graham crackers, broken in half
• 3/4 cup mini marshmallows
• 3 tablespoons chocolate chip (I used milk chocolate)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Set 8 graham cracker halves on a baking sheet. (I lined ours with parchment paper first, just in case there were any overflowing messes.) Cover each cracker with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips and then top each with the remaining cracker halves to make 8 sandwiches. Kids can definitely help with this! 
3. Bake for 5 minutes. The chocolate and marshmallows should be just melted enough. Cool for about a minute before serving.

{One started with chocolate chips, one got marshmallows, and then they switched.}

I Stand Corrected

{Snow Day fun!}

Well, it turned out that the lone baby snowman wasn't the only snowman of the winter at our house. Today was a snow day that yielded a few more sizable snowmen, as well as several paths of grass that were revealed in the process. The snowmen are somewhat dirty and full of leaves and twigs, but again, they count. More importantly, we had fun making them.

{She was quite proud of the 6-ball snowman.}

{This guy loves snow painting, especially with yellow, for some reason.}

Snowman Success!

Finally. We made our first, and quite likely, our last snowman of this winter. (Unless you are counting the ones that we made from shaving cream, salt, or marshmallows.) This snowman is small, and relatively unadorned, but he has to count since he is authentically made out of snow. Mia made his eyes, nose, and buttons using green snow paint. Then, she attempted to add a small icicle nose, but it sort of shattered his little snow head. Fortunately, this was rebuilt with no fuss.