Snow Cakes

In our eternal quest for preschool knowledge in the Meyers’ home, I decided that this activity was worth sharing. Inspired from a ‘winter activities’ email, I came up with this indoor friendly spin. I cleaned our kitchen sinks and wiped them dry, covered the faucet with a beach towel, gathered clean snow from outside and put the snow in the kitchen SINK. Alea and Benton proudly stood up on chairs with big mixing spoons and colored the snow with food coloring. Alea got to use a spray bottle filled with red colored water. They had so much fun mixing their “cakes” and combining colors to create new colors. This spurred on a lot of conversations about colors, snow, ice, melting and baking. I gave them mini bunt pans to fill with their snowy creations. Once they were finished playing/learning, about thirty minutes later, we simply removed the towel and turned the faucet on warm. They continued stirring the snow/ice until it completely dissolved. So much fun and so easy to clean!

Adventures in Sledding

If you stay home, you’ll go crazy-that is the curse of the Midwest winter! So, our theory has become, face it . . . go out and enjoy! We decided to be spontaneous, bundle up and go sledding Sunday. We made the trek ‘up the hill’ to Saylorville Lake where there was a designated snow recreation area. In my mind there were giggling, warmly dressed families enjoying leisurely sled rides down perfect, snowy hills. I don’t know maybe someone had gone to the trouble of making snow stairs so the sledders could go up the hills with ease? To my disappointment, once we got to the “snow area” there were no hills larger than a lump and the road dead ended at the frozen lake. Gone was my sledding fantasy. We made the best of it and had a great time. The kids couldn’t have conquered hills much larger than the ones we found and Greg sure couldn’t have ‘snow boarded’ (with the kids sled??) much farther than he finally mastered. So, as we watched the sunset in the generous 8 degrees temperatures, we could not have been having more fun on our first real sledding adventure.

Medicine? Oh No!

This is Benton’s reaction to the medicine approaching him this morning, no joke! This is not rehearsed or scripted, he automatically covered his face when I came around the corner with "it". I don’t think he likes this medicine too much. I have to “reward” him with a Skittle for taking it.

What is Too Cold . . .

School is out today, hurray! But wait, it’s not a holiday, nor is it in-service. Um, why are we home from school today? Oh, I think we can attribute it to the dangerously low temperatures. How do Alaskans do it? (Kate?) Cold is just cold and this is cold.

We, being Southerners and all, thought cold was when we dipped into the twenties. Zero was unfathomable and what did it really mean to be below zero, which only happens somewhere else. Well, I must say we have a new appreciation for cold, being Midwesterners now! We began the day at negative 24 with a wind chill at negative 38!! That’s the coldest we’ve ever seen it, so far.

What's In a Day?

Benton playing "dress up"!

Alea playing in the spider web.
First round of painting.

Going for a plane ride in the stairwell.

So, what DO you DO stuck in the house all day with a one and three year old? Today and tomorrow are supposed to sport the coldest temperatures Des Moines has seen yet this season-boasting down to negative 40! We woke up to negative seven and the day just got colder from there! As Greg so justly put it, it would be warmer to sit in the refrigerator all day than to be outside. With wind chills in the negative twenties and a child who has a contagious staph infection, we just decided to make the best of the day alone and INSIDE.

Let me just start by saying that Alea got herself grounded from the television early this morning. What was I thinking-stuck in the house without TV? Though she and Benton thoroughly enjoy watching “Noggin”, their mama thoroughly enjoys the peace that still/quiet children bring to a household! As hard as it was, I stuck to my guns and did not relent to the pleading of turning the television on the rest of this cold, cold day.

So, after cartoons (early morning), camping in the dark, dress up, stickers, special lunch delivery from Megan, painting, cooking, airplane rides in the stairwell, hot cocoa, more painting, laundry, a life sized spider web, nap (for Benton), reading books, airplane ride on the couch and a bath, the day was anything but boring. I had two happy, clean, rested children and one tired mama. So, what do we do, well we play, play, play, as Alea says.

Let’s do it all again tomorrow! Ahhh, the life of an at home mom, far be the bon-bon’s and days on the couch watching Soaps!