Snowed in and bundled up

We woke up on Monday morning to find that the weather predictions had been right - they may have actually been conservative in their forecast of six inches of snow...our ruler in the driveway read EIGHT!

Holy snowfall Batman!

(Guess what his favorite pj's are)

Ben said, "It yooks yike Tismas out dhere!"

"But where's Santa?"

A few pics of our winter wonderland:

birdbath from our front porch

stone retaining wall in backyard - the big lump is Ben's sandbox, and you can see the outline of the steps that go up the yard.

looking down our street.

Anyone else expect to see a horse-drawn carriage coming through?

Ben refused to wear his coat. For a while I towed a hard line about it, and there were tears and I thought he might miss playing in the biggest snow he's ever seen (including his trips to Canada). Finally we compromised and he got to go outside for a few minutes without it, but did not get to have hot cocoa when he came in...although I did end up offering warm apple cider because he was really cold!

But for those few minutes, he had a blast scooping up the snow, chasing Zoe around and helping Daddy scrape off his car.

Because, if you're Tyler, a winter storm that shuts down the whole city is just a personal invitation to put the four-wheel drive to good use!

Later that morning, we enjoyed the snow in a different way - by making ice cream! I found a quick and easy recipe here, and it actually was very yummy!

Katie Beth missed all the action while she took a nap, but it was much needed as she's been dealing with teething and a fever virus all weekend.

sweet snowflake

so the Christmas posts are coming as a few of those issues are resolved. Got to love the ol' shut-the-computer-down-and-restart technique to make things happen!