Ain't No Day Like A Snow Day

This pregnancy has, thus far, been kicking my butt.  And in case you didn't already know (or gather it from the opening sentence), I am pregnant.  But alas, I am closing in on the the first trimester and for the past few days, I have wakened each morning feeling alive and happy.  The morning sickness has vanished and I no longer require fourteen hours of sleep per night.  So once again, life is peachy.

Yesterday, school was canceled due to 'weather and illness'.  When Mae and I went outside to feed the dogs in the afternoon, I couldn't help but notice that the snow on the ground was the perfect consistency for snowball-making.  I wasted no time doddling and immediately challenged Mae to a snowball fight.  Throwing her feeding pail in the general direction of the house, she grabbed up as much snow as she could handle in both arms and threw it...directly into the wind so that it flew right back in her face.  After pummeling her with about a dozen snowballs, I then took the time to properly teach her how to pack a snowball.  We then noticed Kenny and Kyler standing behind the sliding glass doors, smiling slyly.  We threw a couple of snowballs at the doors and laughed when it scared them.  What we didn't know is that they had already snuck out the front door and pre-packed a whole bucket of snowballs.  Mae and I did not have a stockpile, so when the doors slid open, all we could do was turn our backs and hide our heads as they catapulted endless snowballs at us. 

After the snowball fight, Kenny decided that we should build an igloo.  The way he suggested it made me think that he'd had prior igloo-building experience.  Wrong.  He got out the snow shovel and started digging up our yard into one giant snow pile.  His idea was to pack it all down, then dig a tunnel through it.  As the pile reached about four feet high, I told him we should pack it down.  I jumped on top of it and sank down a few inches.  Kyler followed my lead, then Mae.  There was just enough room for one more person to join in on the packing-down fun, so Kenny took the opportunity and jumped on...and fell right through.  This caused a large rupture of laughter from the rest of us and Kenny's such a good sport that he even laughed along.  It wasn't until just then that I realized that he was wearing Mae's bright purple stocking cap, complete with enlarged pom pom on top.  So many reasons to love him!

After completing the "igloo", we hauled our frozen fingers, toes and noses back into the house, created a large pile of snowy coats, scarves, gloves and hats in the doorway, then settled down for some hot cocoa and a movie. 

I wish this was a 'snow life' instead of just a 'snow day'.