My quilting plans foiled again!

Woke up to this!  About 3-4 inches fell last night and early this morning.

I had plans to go to the quilt shop for some fabric after sending the kids off to school, but snow in Virginia Beach means.... school's cancelled!  My plans foiled yet again.

I had some other sewing I could have done, but with my 2 boys & their friend in the house itching to go outside and play, I resigned myself to the fact that my house was going to be a wet mess and decided to "live in the moment" as they say, and go outside with them.  One of the things I am trying to work on this year is not being so schedule/task oriented and to start trying to take things as they come and enjoy the little things, I know I've heard many times that when it's time to leave this life nobody ever says "I wish I'd had more time to pick up the house" LOL...

 Bonus:  when the boys have a friend over, they are actually much better behaved with no fighting, and happy kids = unstressed mom!  How cool is it that our new neighbor's son is in my son's kindergarden class and they are already good friends? - they'll have a nice time this summer being able to just head out the back door to play with a friend instead of me hovering over them in the front yard where I don't know all the neighborhood kids/or their parents.

 I think Loch needs E.G. to come visit and help him out with the structural engineering here!

Finn in the background showing his friend some winter footwear fun - I'm glad we forgot to leave these at mom's house over Christmas!

Meet Neptune, he's the neighbor dog - he fits in really well around here, now we have a whole "herd" of herding dogs!  I let them all inside this little house afterwards to have a biscuit and they were doing figure 8's with wet paws and snow filled nostrils and I was able to just laugh it off, see - I'm improving!

The thing I miss most about living up north: MUDROOMS - this is actually my bedroom!

Mama bought a round of hot chocolate, I think these guys will sleep well tonight, they played for hours!

Other news:  "Early Purple Sprouting" Broccoli wins the germination race!

Check out this trashy light setup - hubby hasn't been able to finish my "light thing" he's been constructing since he's working long hours and we don't have a garage so the weather has been holding him up.  But the seeds wait for no man... they needed lights this morning!  So I just rigged this in the meantime, luckily I only have this one flat right now, if it was tomato time I'd be in trouble.

Here's Loch just doing his Loch thing, I didn't ask LOL...  I walked by him and just said "hey Loch, why don't you go be a 7 year old for awhile?" he just scowled at me.   :)

snow day! (post #2 today)

No School!

The kids got to try out their new duds for our trip to Minnesota.  It went like this, I threw the snowpants on the couch and their new boots on the floor and told them to get dressed, all the while I'm on the phone with BFF and not really paying much attention to them.  Finn starts crying and says he can't get his boots on.  While I'm showing them the fine art of pulling down the gaiter over the boots, I notice bare skin... "where's your pants, Finn?"  Loch says "they're over there"... both kids took OFF their jeans to put on their snowpants LOL!  So I told BFF I had to go and gave them the rundown on winter dressing 101.  I actually said "you better pay attention, what are you going to do when we get home"?

To which Loch says "we are home"!  Wow I keep forgetting that "I" am from Minnesota, but my kids are Virginians through and through!  We had to have a sit-down and go through all the gear and the correct order to put it all on LOL!

FUN! 

 I threw a plastic snow shovel out the front door and they both yelled "YAY!"

 Obviously they haven't been notified that this is work...

I promptly took the shovel away when they were done so nobody will steal it - we appear to be the only one on the street with one!

After 2 hours of play, what's next?  Of course, a round of hot chocolate!

Fun is done, now we are having freezing rain and I keep peeking out at the street light to look at the build up on the power lines.  One outage that only lasted about 3 minutes, otherwise I'm hoping for the best!

Snow Day

Morning came early today, at about 5:30 since the kids woke up and looked out the window... I think this is better than Christmas presents to snow-deprived children! So here's some photos and video of our day today. I apologize for the copious amounts of video, but Daddy's out on the ship and he checks the blog so he doesn't miss out on our daily life here. The day started out with dry, powdery snow, easy to shovel. Then the winds kicked up to about 30-40 kts and it was a mess. Later in the afternoon it changed over to wet heavy snow, and it is still coming down fiercely now at 6 pm with a lot of wind, and I am noticing the power lines are starting to ice over. Not good. I have shoveled the back deck twice today, it appears to be somewhere between 10-16 inches so far, I think it started snowing about 2 or 3 am last night. This was all grass less than 24 hours ago!

The back deck - the door was snowed shut!

Loch & Finn

Driveway has been shoveled 3 times today! We are the only ones on the street with a snow shovel, so we have to keep in inside so it won't get stolen, can you imagine?

Check out Finn's little mini-tantrum while shoveling snow, also, love the clip with the random blue-jacketed kid that walked through and decided to whip a snowball on his way cutting across our yard! The other one is of the neurotic dogs loving the snow.

Other big news on the "learning to knit" front... my first real project was completed at midnight last night! Just in time for the snow, and I will say it kept the blowing snow out wonderfully! No, it's not the best thing you've ever seen, but I am quite proud of myself for accomplishing it! I don't know how to do buttonholes yet so I cheated and attached a magnetic closure and stitched a faux toggle button on the front! I am so tired of practicing swatches and crap I just wanted to finish something without hitting a snag, so I will learn buttonholes the next time! This was originally intended to be a scarf but I wasn't able to get more yarn in the same color, so I just used one entire skein and I like this better, it even looks good worn indoors.

neck gaiter in action in the snow

I am starting another project this evening after the kiddos go to bed, not sure what yet. I got a couple of knitting books and have just been drooling over cabled sweaters today, but I need to get real and find the beginner projects tonight. You cablers and sock knitters are amazing, now that I know what goes into them!

As I was writing this, I just found out that apparently Finn decided to put snowballs in his bedroom... hours ago... oh, I can't wait for bedtime for little boys!