January Snow

January brought us our first serious snow in our new home. It became a time for preparations. We hunted down the last pair of snow pants at the store, size pregnant, for me and found mittens and boots and sleds for the kids. We stocked up on gas for our tractors and generator. And of course we made sure we had ingredients enough for lots of baked goods. The snow came during the day time and we couldn’t keep from just running right out to try out homes hills with the sleds.

The sledding was Jacob’s and my favorite part of the adventure. The kids got tuckered out by it, they are a little young. But we really enjoyed going down the hill with them and feeling the wind as we flew. Jacob ran into a tree once, failing to roll off like I had taught Anna. Anna went to save him and you can see that in the video below.

Anna and I went outside just ourselves. We explored, and raced. We made snow angels and crossed the road to see the pretty snowy creek. She also wanted to share with the world the detailed how-tos of sledding so she made this video:

Everyone was in a frenzy calling this storm the “snowpocalypse”.  We were grateful for the quiet and beauty brought by the snow. Though we did feel the frenzy in the days leading up to it.  The weather reports couldn’t agree on the severity and we had to decide whether or not to give up a trip to visit family. We finally did decide to stay put, then we were back out for shopping and a bit more prep. But once all that was over, peace. And a gentle blanket of snow. It really is lovely to watch. I am pretty sure Anna thought it was Christmas morning again by her excitement, complemented by her jumping on parents still in bed comedy.

We went out several times. After the last of the snow had fallen, it was far too deep for the kids to get around in it. We measured 14″ in the field after some wind, it was a lot of snow. My dad kindly came over and plowed our driveway with his big tractor. It gave us a default area of play and access to the pond. 

Jacob and the kids threw snowballs at the edges of the ice on our pond to break it off. Then he called the chips battleships to attack. The kids loved throwing stuff into the pond. A great use of snowballs. Anna loved the snowball makers that her grandparents brought over. They made nice little snowmen and she enjoyed the challenge of building a pyramid of snowballs.