Winter days 2019, Part 2

Winter storm: Day 1

We slept in. We sat at the window and watched the snow come down. We played outside. Shoveled. Played a new game, "Blink." The kids fought like cats and dogs ALL DAY. We yelled a lot to stop yelling. We put away the last Christmas decor and brought out the Valentine's Day stuff. We painted heart-shaped stained glass crafts. Introduced Mary Cate to Dora. Made blueberry pancakes and tried our hand at homemade chicken noodle soup. (How did I not know how to make chicken noodle soup?) I did one load of laundry out of the intended six. The kids played "boarding school" because we told them they had to do school at home...it looks like we'll be here for awhile. Kevin taught the girls CPR using his Red Cross materials. School's already called off for tomorrow.

DJ's reading Dogman, so the girls drew these for him 💗

Playing Blink 

I feel safer already

Winter storm: Day 2

I was committed to getting the kids out of the house today because yesterday was a little rough. So I got them up by 9:30 and out of the house by 10:30. The plan was to stop at school for awhile so I could print some things and make some copies (and let the kids run around the gym, let's be honest) then get lunch at McDonald's and do something fun before heading home to burrow in for the deep freeze. I made the kids pack water and blankets just in case. Two minutes from home, the van alarm started dinging like mad with a warning that the engine was running on low power and I should stop immediately. So I slowly made my way home with melancholy kids in tow. Although in retrospect, I sure am glad we didn't break down further from home.

Once again, I forced those grumpy kids to play outside in the snow because I knew it was the last we'd see of the outdoors for awhile. Thankfully, Uncle Mike came out to pick up the big kids and took them to District 5! I finally got a pile of schoolwork done. When they came home, the girls made biscotti, which we've been wanting to try for months. Annie built a model of the Pentagon for her class snow day challenge while Nellie baked her first on-her-own dessert--brownie pudding cake. Seriously, school needs to start back up or they'll have to roll me out of here. The kids finally perked up with a little after-dinner dance party (Otto's spending the night), then a movie for the boys and board games for the girls. Bring it on, Day 3.

Winter storm: Day 3

I feel like we finally figured out how to survive being stuck indoors together. Since Otto spent the night, the boys spent the early morning entertaining themselves. That helped. We spent a good part of the morning on snow science, which was fun and super messy. We baked blueberry muffins, made taco soup, digitally "borrowed" the new Grinch movie, and drew Ninjago characters. After dinner, the boys went to spend the night at Otto's house! Mary gloriously went to bed at 7:30 and the big girls stayed up to watch TWO movies with us: Christopher Robin and Saving Mr. Banks. Both great. The main excitement was the emergency alert asking everyone to turn their heat down. It got chilly! The inside of our front door and window started frosting over, so we had to improvise with blanket curtains.

Snow experiments!

The kids' crafts from Monday--plus a frosted glass door (literally)

"I'm Daddy!"

He reminded me of the show "Mountain Men" after cutting wood for an hour

Annie's table

Frost forming on the inside of the door

Annie's muffins

Winter storm: Day 4

Okay. Today flew by. After accidentally napping during a movie last night then staying up until 1 a.m., I sort of forgot Mary went to bed so early until she woke up at 6:30. But she has a cold so while she watched lots of Dora, I got lots of work done that's been waiting all week. We had picnics prepared by Mary Cate with our coffee and biscotti. Once the other girls woke up, we played Clue, Monopoly Junior, and Candy Land, then taught the girls Mancala. The girls made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting from scratch (we all agreed it was the best cake ever, even though we don't even like cake all that much, generally) when we realized we were out of baked goods. DJ played with a friend while we worked on random projects and played in the basement. Grand Ledge called off school again tomorrow...and I'm hoping the van will get us to LCS in the morning!

The cake--I could get used to the girls baking on their own!

Cute Mary with cheese stuck to her chin, saying "cheese"

Epilogue (or, Winter storm: Day 5)

The big kids stayed home today, and as far as I can tell mostly watched TV and cleaned up so I wouldn't give them a hard time about it. It wasn't easy to get out the door this morning. As happy as I was to get back to school, I was nervous and just a little salty about how cold it was. Kevin had me drive his car, so at least there was heat. We were stuck for ages on the highway. But all in all, it was hard to grumble when Mary Cate was so excited about taking Kevin's car ("I'm excited for this adventure!") and had me singing "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart" on repeat all the way to school.

Now that this crazy week is over, I can say one thing--this family depends on some routine! We normally have no problem on vacation and breaks from school, but something about the unanticipated nature of it and the nagging feeling that you weren't taking care of your responsibilities had everyone on edge. It was awfully nice to be together and try all kinds of fun things, though. It really was a unique time--now, back to real life!