Snow Day!!!!!

It started out as a regular Tuesday.  Wake-up call at 5:15.  Fumble around for my glasses and slippers, and head out to make coffee (blech!) and tea (Mmmm...) and eat breakfast lumberjack-style before the kids get up. 

But, passing by the living-room window, something catches my eye.  

Something glittery and white.  

Something that covers the ground and (fingers-crossed) the street.

Detour to the TV and the morning news.  

Sarah and Will are probably out and my school is probably in, 

wreaking childcare HAVOC on our schedules. 

But, what to my wondering eyes did appear in the crawl of school closings 

at the bottom of the screen? 

My school district.

CLOSED.

I had to watch the crawl 3 more times before I believed it, and then I got a phone call with the best news a teacher can get:  

SNOW DAY!!!!!

Mike was slightly less enthusiastic when I jumped on the bed at 5:30 

with the glorious news that we could all sleep in a little bit.  But, I was too excited to sleep.  

I remember that feeling from when I was 7 and going on vacation.

We braved the blizzard conditions even before breakfast.

 And sledded to our hearts' content.

 That is, until Will claimed an allergy to the snow and people's noses turned blue.
We took a hot chocolate-and-breakfast break, watched a little Tom & Jerry, and then headed back out to perfect the lost art of driveway sledding.

 Though it was lovely to have the day off from school, thank goodness for our awesome neighbors who let us come over for snacks and even better driveway sledding.

There are risks involved with hurling yourself head-first down a concrete strip, such as face-planting while your mom is playing on Instagram (#momfail).


Anyway, the aforementioned awesome neighbors gave us some TLC and band-aids, and the little guy was super-tough about the whole thing. They even gave us a pretty serious carrot and some raisins for our very own snowman.

 Sarah is actually the one with the creative vision behind this loveable guy, and she said he's singing.  That's why his mouth is in a perfect "O".  

Perfect for a Music City snowman.  

Here's to more snowmen and snow days this year!

Polar Bathtime

This fall, I haven't been real great at the mom thing.  

Sure, I've kept the kids alive and stuff, but that's pretty much it. 

And Mike has done most of the heavy-lifting around here kid-wise.

Sunday, it was time for a change. 

Our late-night (read: 7 o'clock) cultural outing at the ballet meant that we skipped bath Saturday,  so the kids were kind of stinky.  

Stinkiness + crummy, cold weather = bathtub fun!

Since we were well-stocked with Ivory,

 I decided to try out a wintry-bath version of microwaved soap.

We stuck a bar in the microwave for about a minute,

The microwaving is arguably the best part.

and were rewarded with this fluffy, squishable, frothy goodness.

Toss in some bubbles

and a few kids,

and you've got yourself a par-TAY!

(And, quite possibly, a few fight-free minutes to yourself.)

Of course, my instinct was to turn it into some snooze-fest unit of learning about glaciers and polar animals.  Luckily for my kids, I can't find our Toob of seals and igloos and Inuit, so they're safe from the words "habitat" and "ecosystem".  

At least for now.

They got to play Hot Chocolate Stand, and I got to listen to the sounds of their giggles 

without stressing about APA formatting.

Cheers to that!