SunshineMama

Snowman-Angel

(click on pictures for a larger view)

Shortly after the big snowfall that we got on Valentine's Day, my daughter (who is always called Girly around the house) wanted to go outside and be a snowman-angel. Lately, she's been in a very creative mood. She's always had the creative gene.....but she's really tapped into it as of late. A couple weeks ago, she told my husband that when she grows up, she wants to be a mom and an artist, just like me. :) Awwwww....that made my heart melt.

She's been telling us that she can make anything we want. All we have to do is tell her what we want and she'll make it.

She made herself a mask after the snowfall. It was the face of a snowman. It was the most adorable thing....she drew on the carrot nose, the coal mouth and even put on rosy cheeks and eyelashes.

She wanted to be a snowman-angel in the worst way, though. I was trying to think of where she would come up with something like that, but the more I've thought about it over the past couple of weeks, I realized that she probably came up with it from making snow angels in the snow.

She wanted wings. She brought me some construction paper and I cut out some blue wings and taped them to the back of her jacket. She was ecstatic! She was hopping and leaping through the snow, pretending to fly.

There are days when she does things that make me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy inside. There are days when I realize afresh that I'm raising a miniature (but more potent) version of myself.....and that is scary sometimes. I'm just glad that most of the memories that I'm storing away are the warm and fuzzy ones.

Once Upon a Time.....

Once upon a time, an extreme Daddy made an extreme snowboard ramp in the yard. This was so that he could practice his snowboarding jumps.

One day, the Daddy’s extreme little girl-child decided to climb up the ramp.

 

The girl-child got all the way to the top of the ramp and was quite shocked, but also pleased, with herself.

The girl-child thought she could fly if she spread her wings and took a leap of faith.

The girl-child flew…..at least for a little while.

The girl-child landed in the snow, but she still had a smile on her face.

The girl-child realized that you don’t always fly the first time. After all…..wings don’t completely stretch the first time. You need to keep stretching and keep trying until you succeed.

…….may this girl-child keep trying, keep stretching, keep taking those leaps of faith until she flies straight and true. Just like her daddy and mommy wish for her.

Whoa! Look what we got yesterday!

So, we ended up getting 34 inches here yesterday. Davy went out this morning to start shoveling yet again. Here’s a picture of the “cattle shoot” that he carved out off our deck so that we could get to the driveway. Not that it really mattered because our van was buried up to the windows and there was really no place to go.

The kids thought this was pretty special. I think we need to live somewhere warmer. ;)

This is looking out towards the road (that’s the neighbor’s place across the street…to the left of the neighbor’s house, you can see the Adirondack mountains in New York) . We usually park our van up close to where I was standing when I took the picture, but Davy couldn’t get it any farther up the drive from where it is in the pic. The drifts on the left hand side of the van went up to the window. You can barely see the top of our unit neighbor’s car next to her set of stairs in front of her apartment. To the right of the top of our van, you can just barely see the top of the neighbor’s car across the street.

Here’s a close up picture of the neighbor across the street. He’s shoveling himself out. His vehicles were pretty much buried.

The south wall of our house is on the right of this picture. The back wall that you see belongs to the back wall of the utility room out front. The wall on the left is the back wall of our neighbor’s unit. The wind pushed a ton of snow into this little cubby hole between the units. The problem with this is that there are heating vents sticking out from our units back here that need to be kept clear. The lady in one of the front units lost her heat last night because she didn’t keep her vent clear and the furnace blew out. Davy had to go a few times to clear the snow out, which was about 11 feet high, so that our vents didn’t clog up (it could also cause carbon monoxide poisoning if they’re blocked up). He sunk through a couple 6 foot high spots and was afraid he couldn’t get out.

The nice thing about all this snow on that side of the house is that our house has been keeping VERY warm. The first floor is always so cold on that side of the house because the foundation has a lot of cracks in it on that side. It lets so much cold air in under the floor boards. With all that snow around the foundation, the house has been keeping the heat in SO well.

Here you can just barely see the top of our fencing around the garden in our backyard. The trampoline frame was under snow last night, but the wind pushed some of the snow off of it and you could see a little of it this morning. If you look to the left of the neighbor’s big camper, you can see what looks like a black line coming out of the grill of the camper and across the snow. That’s actually the top rim of his above-ground pool. Well…..since it’s under snow, does that no longer make it “above ground”???

Last night, we got a knock on the door at around 10:30 pm. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and Davy came in and said, “Did you hear a knock on the door?” I told him I didn’t hear anything, but then we both heard some loud knocking. Davy ran downstairs and opened the door and my youngest brother and his two roommates were at the door. My brother and his roomie had gone up north to pick up the roomie's girlfriend from work and on their way home, they realized they’d never be able to get on the back roads to get home. They could only drive down the major road that we live on (well, not really major in most other places…..it’s just a 2 lane road, but it’s a state road, so it’s kept up really well in storms), so they came here. My brother had to bust through 4 foot drifts just to get to our door. The stayed here for the night on the couch and the floor. I made chocolate chip pancakes for everyone for breakfast.

Speaking of wanting to be somewhere warmer…..Survivor is on tonight. Looking at all the beautiful Fiji scenery will make me feel like I’ve gone on vacation somewhere tropical….at least for an hour. ;)
For any of you that are jealous of our snow and wish they could have some of it, you are welcome to come up at any time, grab a shovel and take it away. I promise to make you a nice hot cup of chai.

cheers!

My best and most favorite Valentine's gift EVER!

We’re snowed in today. We’ve gotten about 30 inches or MORE of snow since this morning. It’s still falling. It will STILL be falling tomorrow. The winds have been high….there’s drifts going up the side of the house and the van. Our neighbor’s car is completely covered. We can just BARELY see the posts from the garden fence sticking up out of the snow.

My mom reminded me of a snow storm like this 8 years ago on the same day. Well, it wasn’t QUITE this intense, but it was storm and it happened on Valentine’s Day 8 years ago. I remember VERY well what I was doing that day.

Eight years ago, my husband I decided that we would take our last date night out before our first child arrived. We wanted one last date as just the two of us before the little one came. Valentine’s Day was a Sunday, so it was perfect since he didn’t have to work that day. And our due date was February 23rd, so we figured we’d have plenty of time to get out for that last date.

Well, the day before Valentine’s Day, we knew something was happening. We also knew that we wouldn’t be going out for that last date on Valentine’s Day.

My water broke on the 13th and things held off until the evening. The snow started falling during the day and it got heavier as the night went on. We were living with my parents at the time…..we had just moved up from PA to Vermont and they let us stay with them for 13 months. (It was only supposed to be 4 months…..but you know how that is.)

We waited for the midwife to show up as the contractions got stronger. My mom thought for sure that she was going to have to deliver our baby….and she had only been on the OTHER side of birth….the giving end. Not the receiving end.

Our midwife finally pulled into the driveway about 3 am. It took her about an hour and a half to drive what should normally have taken only 35 minutes. She had to come down off the mountains and through the back roads to get to our house.

The candles in our room were lit and I was anxious to have it all be over and to have a baby in my arms. I was tired and falling asleep in between contractions. My mom and my husband were my anchors, but I know my mom was praying that she didn‘t have to deliver that baby on her own. My dad and my brothers took off downstairs to play video games and watch movies. They didn’t want to be near any part of the birthing process. I was okay with that. ;)

The midwife’s assistant pulled in just 5 minutes before I gave birth. She had gone off the road in a snow drift and she had also been pulled over by the police for driving a bit too fast in dangerous weather conditions.

At 3:43 am on Valentine’s day of 1999, our little Zachariah Judah entered the world, in my old bedroom at my parents‘ house. He was the best Valentine’s gift I’ve ever been given. I was more than happy to have him 9 days early, but I was especially happy that he was a Valentine’s baby. I was glad to forfeit the dinner date and hold our first child in our arms on Valentine’s Day. What a special and precious gift.

My dad cooked a very early breakfast for all of us that morning. The midwives were hungry and I was starving. He went into town later in the day and brought home a beautiful card and a single rose for me.

Ever since that Valentine's day, I've sent my midwife a handmade Valentine's card with an updated picture of Zach and a thank you for being there to help bring my Zachy-boy into our world.

Eight years later and we’re in the middle of a snowstorm again. But there’s no labor pains. Just a happy and healthy eight year old with a brilliant mind. And he’s all ours. It’s kinda funny how we haven’t really celebrated Valentine’s day for the last 8 years. Once Zach was born, it was his day. All his. Davy and I don’t give cards to each other on this day. We celebrate it all as Zach’s day. The way we look at it, Valentine’s Day just happens to fall on HIS day. :)