With all the lovely snow we've had this year so far, we were bound to get one round that was ideal for snowman-making. You know, the kinda-wet, easily-packable snow that falls heavy and just begs to be made into balls of all shapes and sizes? The kids and I decided to capitalize on one such snowy day, and we headed out to enjoy a little snowman making. The backyard had more undisturbed snow, a bit thicker than the front because it gets less sunshine and therefore melts less in between flurries. The snow packed with little effort, my small ball picking up more and more snow as I pushed it down our bumpy hill. By the time we made it to the bottom, it was the perfect size for the bottom of a small snowman. In no time I made two more balls, suitable for the torso and head of our first family snowman.
The kids and I then began scouring what we could of the backyard to find arms, eyes, a nose, and a mouth for our new frosty friend. It's amazing how much dexterity you lose when you have heavy snow gloves on, and as I sat there trying to push a tiny rock into the densely-packed snowhead I wondered how my parents seemed to do it with so much ease when we were kids. Finally, after much fumbling and concentration, our snowman was built, smiling back at us in the backyard. Two seconds later, Baylor stepped back and ran full tilt at the poor frosty guy, knocking him to pieces. Two more smaller snowmen later, and I realized that Baylor sees snowmen as easy targets for tackling practice; we were done with snowmen for the day.
I could see the kids growing restless, but I was really hoping to really get as much as I could out of the time and effort I had put into getting us all dressed and out the door, so I offered to push the biggest snowball we had up the hill and into the front yard so we could maybe build a fort there. Of course the kids were all over that, so I started pushing the ball, about the size of a basketball, up the hill. By the time I reached the edge of the driveway in the front, it was almost up to Mollie's shoulders and weighed a ton. Luckily, there wasn't too too much snow on the driveway and it rolled across that quite easily, and I plopped it right next to the cement with the little energy I had left. Unfortunately, as I looked around the front yard, I noticed a surprising lack of snow; I had forgotten in just that short amount of time how much more snow there was in back than in front. The kids badly wanted to build something, though, and since the driveway needed shoveling anyway, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and shovel all the driveway snow to the area around the giant snowball. Bryson came home just as I was finishing up the driveway, and I had him run inside to grab the camera to document our time outdoors.
Sadly, there wasn't even that much snow on the driveway, so our fort-building snow was of a modest sum. But, I did what I could with it, and soon the kids decided that I had built a snow camel.
The kids and I then began scouring what we could of the backyard to find arms, eyes, a nose, and a mouth for our new frosty friend. It's amazing how much dexterity you lose when you have heavy snow gloves on, and as I sat there trying to push a tiny rock into the densely-packed snowhead I wondered how my parents seemed to do it with so much ease when we were kids. Finally, after much fumbling and concentration, our snowman was built, smiling back at us in the backyard. Two seconds later, Baylor stepped back and ran full tilt at the poor frosty guy, knocking him to pieces. Two more smaller snowmen later, and I realized that Baylor sees snowmen as easy targets for tackling practice; we were done with snowmen for the day.
I could see the kids growing restless, but I was really hoping to really get as much as I could out of the time and effort I had put into getting us all dressed and out the door, so I offered to push the biggest snowball we had up the hill and into the front yard so we could maybe build a fort there. Of course the kids were all over that, so I started pushing the ball, about the size of a basketball, up the hill. By the time I reached the edge of the driveway in the front, it was almost up to Mollie's shoulders and weighed a ton. Luckily, there wasn't too too much snow on the driveway and it rolled across that quite easily, and I plopped it right next to the cement with the little energy I had left. Unfortunately, as I looked around the front yard, I noticed a surprising lack of snow; I had forgotten in just that short amount of time how much more snow there was in back than in front. The kids badly wanted to build something, though, and since the driveway needed shoveling anyway, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and shovel all the driveway snow to the area around the giant snowball. Bryson came home just as I was finishing up the driveway, and I had him run inside to grab the camera to document our time outdoors.
Sadly, there wasn't even that much snow on the driveway, so our fort-building snow was of a modest sum. But, I did what I could with it, and soon the kids decided that I had built a snow camel.
I tell you what, though, if you think you lose dexterity wearing snow gloves, just try putting snow mittens on your kids. Their hands essentially become giant poking devices and little more. Poor kiddos! They seemed to want to help so badly.
I did try to make a fort and even got a window made, but the snow camel won out when there wasn't much snow left to build the rest of the fort. Baylor loved looking through the window, though.
He also loved sliding head first down the side of the camel. Funny little guy!
We finally used up all the snow in the surrounding area and decided to give our snow camel a try.
Not too bad, if I do say so myself!
Soon enough it was time to go inside for lunch, but Mollie wanted to try to sit on the original giant snow ball one last time.
We had a blast and were plenty ready for lunch once we got all our snow gear peeled off. Hopefully we'll get another wet snow like this one yet this season!
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