Not Quite Buried...

...but pretty close.

The snow started at just about 10 Friday morning. I had an 11:30 doctor appointment that I had already had to reschedule twice, so I figured if I could still get around, I wasn't going to postpone it again. It wasn't that cold yet, so none of the snow falling actually stuck to the road. It was very wet, though, so you still had to drive carefully, plus visibility was pretty poor (although driving in snow is cool -- it's like flying through the stars).

By the evening, it looked like this outside:

The kids spent several hours outside in the afternoon. Because the snow was still so wet, they came in completely SOAKED. Miriam says she froze her toes. I had to dry the neighbor girl's things before I could send her home in good conscience.

Warming up is the best part.

This is what greeted us this morning.



(this last one courtesy of the resident 5yo photographer.) (and yes, we're living in the past)

The snow even covered part of the storm door -- Mr. Pickles spent hours clearing off the steps and walk, and digging a path around the van. I should have measured the thickness right here.

Oh wait, that's right, I did -- the snow is Joseph-waist-high. He doesn't appreciate being used as a ruler. He says it's cold.


I love the neighbor's wipers poking out of the snow, like two little antennae! The neighborhood plow has been working diligently all day -- not that you could tell. In 10 minutes everything was just whited out again. The snow finally stopped this evening just before dinner. Who knows when all the streets will be safe enough to drive, though.

So, since we're not going anywhere for a while, today we:

-completely rearranged the girls' bedroom
-vacuumed their whole room
-reorganized all their bins of dress up clothes, doll clothes, purses, dollies, and animals
-found lots of missing socks, in addition to old bandaids (ew)
-rehung the pictures in their room
-played in the snow
-ran the dryer
-drank hot chocolate to warm up
-answered the doorbell approximately 147 times
-repeated 147 times to neighborhood friends that the girls' things would be dry in an hour
-made rice krispy treats and dyed them blue in honor of the ice and snow
-played Uno while eating blue rice krispy treats
-rejoiced mightily when the dryer was finally done
-played in the snow again
-toasted toes in front of the fireplace
-ran the dryer for the 293rd time today
-had ice cream cones for dessert
-cleaned up after one child who ate dinner, then an ice cream cone, then a double-stuff Oreo, then spun around and around the kitchen until the inevitable happened

I'm beginning to regret moving around the girls' dresser. And with Mr. Pickles' marathon shoveling, we're both pretty creaky tonight!

And now, to do it all again tomorrow! I think we'll make brownies, play with Oobleck, watch a movie, and, of course, play in the snow.

Oh, and it's supposed to snow again on Tuesday. I wonder if any of the grocery stores will have restocked by Tuesday morning. I think I'm going to follow Theresa's example and get up reeeeeally early to shop before the rest of the galloping hordes.

Daddy's Helper

(taken Saturday)

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood...

It snowed last night, the heavy wet stuff. This morning I woke up inside an Ansel Adams picture.


Every tree was completely transformed. It was magical, especially driving to Mass for the feast of St. Blaise. I never appreciate how many different beautiful shades of brown there are until everything is changed into a fairy world of black and white.

Sadly, by lunch time the sun had warmed things up so much that all the trees were barren again. But it did leave things nice & wet still, so the girls are currently outside pelting each other with fat, slushy snowballs.

The weather outside being frightful and all...

It snowed again this weekend. It's supposed to snow again tonight. And it might snow later this week. Never more than a couple inches, but it's Enough. Enough to make getting around a nuisance for grown-ups, and Enough to put all the kids (who aren't home sick with coughs) in Winter Heaven. Ours belong to the latter category. And Miriam happily shoveled the entire sidewalk and front steps, so actually, the grown-ups are pretty happy too. Once the sun melted the worse of the ice on the un-plowed side streets, the problem of getting around easily was solved. I even braved the snowy roads (me! with my sunny southern California girl upbringing!) to go to the store and get brie and ingredients for chocolate fondue for a party Saturday night (to which no one came -- ah well, more brie and chocolate for me!).

The snow was very powdery -- not so great for snowball and fort making, but I-D-E-A-L for sledding. Every single incline I have passed in the last few days has been sledded smooth by myriads of children (and the young-at-heart like certain other family members). Even Joseph got to enjoy some sledding, with Daddy. According to on-the-scene reporters (since I am not so young-at-heart as certain other family members) he cried "Wheeee!" the whole way down and then "'Gain! 'Gain!" at the bottom. He and Katie have also both eaten close to their weight in snow. I had to explain to Katie that the icicles hanging off the van are not for human consumption, cutely tempting as they are. She confessed that they were a little salty. Ewwwww.

So now I am sitting at the dining table, staring out the window at oft-tramped snow, appreciating the fact that our thermostat set at 68* is much, much warmer than the 20-something outside, and sipping a warm cup of Chai tea with lots of milk and sugar. (The secret is the milk.) Ahh, bliss. Why did it take me so long to get a box of Chai this winter? Loose Earl Grey brewed in my white tea pot (a charming gift from Mr. Pickles) is the perennial favorite, but there's something so seasonal about Chai. It's only delicious on cold days, not so much in the summer. I've tried. It loses some of the magic -- even when it's an iced latte. Must be a nutmeg thing.

ANYway, back to catching up. Specifically, Christmas pictures (in two parts). Following are all the fun Christmas prep things we did.

Mommy's (and/or Santa's) little helper. Tried to crop the laundry basket out of the picture, to no avail. This is my life, folks. Little people strewing colorful things around the house, laundry waiting to be folded. And cute little elves. Must not forget the elves.


Making Christmas presents! Some of you received hand-made Christmas ornaments from Miriam this year. First she close a package of neon-bright sculpey clay (the kind you have to dry in the oven, NOT the air-dry kind) and made marbles and other shapes, which I baked. I didn't take any pictures of the wireworking (mostly since I was doing a lot of spirals to wrap the marbles in -- that part is tricky). Miriam got the idea for all this from her Thursday afternoon co-op classes. I'll have to write about that later -- it's been a great experience for the girls.

Joseph helped. (I think the clay removed some of the finish off the dining table.)


We totally broke down on the Advent fasting and abstaining thing this year, alas. But resisting a whole tin of hand-made Christmas cookies from inlaws, PLUS a box of delicious brownies from Uncle Dave, was just beyond our willpower this year. So Mr. Pickles made egg nog cookies with the girls one day and they had fun decorating them.

I don't remember ever doing this kind of stuff as a kid. Speaking now as a mother, I can certainly see why not. Store-bought seasonal cookies don't leave your kitchen in a state of total disarray for a day (if that kind of thing is important to you). :)

Some cookies they painted before they were baked (as above), others they iced afterwards. Wow, were these good!


Of course, Miriam and I made the traditional Pulla. It's not Christmas without Pulla.

It just isn't. I think that even if I am ever in labor on Christmas Eve, I will still make pulla.
(And no, I couldn't find my advent pillar candles, even though I had JUST seen them a couple months ago -- serves me right for cleaning! -- so we made do with Miriam's homemade Advent wreath, which served the purpose admirably. She added another paper flame each week.) (Have YOU ever tried looking for pink and purple candles a week into Advent?)


On to tree decorating! We went for the popcorn-and-cranberry garland again this year, something I hadn't done since the last time we had a toddler boy in the house to squish all the cranberries and eat the stale popcorn. Ah, good times.

Note to self: 1/4c. popcorn kernels is probably sufficient for a good-sized garland. If you make more, your family will be eating popcorn for the next 2 days. Also, does anyone have any suggestions for using up half a bag of fresh cranberries? Aside from making sauce, that is? How hard are they to dry?

Joseph helped. (In the same way that Sal helped her mother can blueberries for the winter at the end of "Blueberries for Sal.")

Katie doing the honors. Mr. Pickles still will not let me get a new tree topper. He seems to have a bizarre attachment to construction paper and popsicle sticks. However, this year we compromised by also putting up the angel on the other prong of our Orthanc-like tree. (note the popcorn-cranberry garland in action)

Waiting for Christmas morning!

You know you must be doing something right...

...when your children beg and plead, "Mommy, mommy, can we PLEASE read Shakespeare today? PLEEEEEEEEEASE???"

(Of course, I can't really take too much credit for this, since it's not really me, it's their books they love so much.) (But I still claim it as a moral victory.)

In Which the Last Shall Be First (so it's Biblical, right?)

I decided to start at the end, and show you the LAST of our Christmas season pictures. Just because I want to. (And because I want to get rid of certain little papers that have been lying around my counter for the last couple weeks and which shall be explained presently.)

So here we have pictures from the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, the very tippy end of the liturgical Christmas season. We still have some decorations up -- we're going to be diehards and keep up the Nativity sets and some lights until Candlemas. (We bid our tree farewell last week.)

I had purchased some English Christmas crackers from World Market, to be used on Christmas/New Year's/Epiphany/this is our last chance so let's use them now! (Note to self: just because they are on top of the china cabinet in the dining room does not necessarily mean that one will remember they are there on the intended feast day(s) for which they were purchased.) Ahem. So I finally remembered them and pulled them out. They fulfilled satisfactorily all the Christmas cracker traditions -- impossible-to-pull crackers, cheapy toys that break within minutes (although Miriam became very attached to her fortune-telling fish), lame jokes that insist on becoming part of your family joke repertoire, and cheesy paper crowns.

What's Christmas without paper crowns?


Joseph demonstrates proper donning of a paper crown -- upside-down, and preferably pulled down to one's chin. Also taped together, after one has ripped it in half in one's first attempt to mash it upon one's head.


He wouldn't let us take one of him in his crown, but he was more than happy to mug for the camera.


All hail, their majesties!


For those of you who were not fortunate enough to celebrate the holiday season with such traditional delights as Christmas crackers, here are a sampling of the jokes from ours.

Q. What do you call a multi storey pig pen?
A. A styscraper!

Q. What is black and white and noisy?
A. A zebra with a drum kit!

Q. What is wet and slippery and likes Latin American music?
A. A conga eel!

Q. What sort of vegetables do plumbers fix?
A. Leeks!

Q. What do vampires sing on New Year's Eve?
A. Auld Fang Syne!

Q. What kind of jokes does a foot doctor like?
A. Corny jokes!


Just sharin' the love. You can thank me later, after your diaphragms recover.

Back to our Regularly Scheduled Procrastinating

Finally uploaded all our most recent pictures from the camera. Since almost a month has passed since Christmas, I figured it's about time to start thinking about a Christmas post, according to the current posting schedule. :) Until then, enjoy the last of the photos from our big Snowstorm '09.

This was Sunday morning, a couple hours after the snow finally stopped coming down. The sunrise was gorgeous.


Our street. Some neighbors didn't even bother trying to clear their sidewalks. A few days afterwards, as the snow had an opportunity to melt and re-freeze several times, there were a number of ice mountains that you had to climb over to walk down the sidewalk. Late Sunday night I heard one neighbor with a snowblower -- I wish he'd done the whole sidewalk!


Real Live Icicles! They kept leaning farther in towards the house, as the snow on the roof slumped lower. All day we had snow falling off the roof. I was reminded of signs I saw nailed on boards leaning against the walls in Austria in winter, warning people with lots of Achtungs! not to stand right next to the walls, lest they get buried in an avalanche of snow!


This snow stayed for a looooong time -- we don't get any sun in our back yard in winter time. Look at that grill! You wouldn't know I had cleared it off the day before. Other things you can't see, besides the pool, are Katie's tricycle and Joseph's scooter. (Our pool is now filled with a solid block of ice -- great for ice skating, the girls think!) :)


Mr. Pickles valiantly digging the noble Pickles chariot out. Luckily we had the extra parking spot which we could use for extra snow. The neighbors across the street had to use a laundry basket to haul their extra snow to the corner. It took them HOURS. That was actually the funnest thing about all this -- everyone was outside together, talking, commiserating, loaning shovels (ours got a lot of extra work!). One family that looks like they're from some Middle Eastern country was holding up a webcam at their door, presumably to show relatives all the snow. The wife seemed just as delighted as our kids -- I didn't ask her if this was her first snow, but I wouldn't have been surprised if it were.

Our front yard was about 2 ft. higher than usual for DAYS afterward. Katie spent lots of time scaling Mt. Everest. Even thought the majority of the snow is gone, there are still random piles of what is now ice scattered throughout the neighborhood. The girls still put on their snowboots to go for walks, which always turn into climbs.

We all keep hoping for more snow this winter, although we know there won't be nearly as much as this. But even an inch or two is better than having to look at dead grass for 2 more months!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

but hot chocolate is so delightful,


and since we love playing in the snow,


let it snow,

let it snow,

let it snow!


You know it's a REAL snow storm when even the snow plow gets stuck! Ours sure did, while trying to plow our street. Katie came running down the steps from where she had been watching it, to inform us that the driver was shoveling out his truck. We didn't believe her, so we went to see -- sure enough, there he was, poor guy, digging out his tires. Finally he was able to move, although his wheels spun a bit at first. I don't know if he attempted to finish our street -- I wouldn't blame him if he quit right there! All the streets are a MESS. Northern Virginia just is not equipped to handle this kind of weather. Mr. Pickles (who is after all from Minnesnowta, where they probably wouldn't have even canceled school for snow like this) tried going out to mail some packages, and everything was whited out. You couldn't tell that the snowplows had been through recently -- you couldn't see the curbs or medians or anything, and there were even a couple 4WDs that had gotten stuck in the sides of the road. He says getting back home was an adventure -- he had to barrel throw a snow drift to get back in our neighborhood (because of course the plows hadn't bothered to come down our neighborhood street yet, and there was a wall of snow blocking the entrance to the street!), skidding and fishtailing the whole way. I'm so glad I didn't try to go out -- I might have been like one of those driving down the middle of the road, going 5mph, with their hazards on. (Okay, if you feel you have to drive with your hazards on, you shouldn't be on the road!)

So, no errands for us today! (If you don't receive your presents from us before Christmas, you'll know why!) Instead, we all got suited up to go outside and PLAY!

Joseph took this part much more stoically than last year. He maneuvered around in his boots pretty well, although he kept getting stuck whenever he fell over.

I love snow like this. It covers everything so gently, and turns what was once dead and barren into a thing of mystery and beauty.

Anyone for a swim? What, you don't see the pool? It's that indentation thing right there... oh never mind. Well, how about some grilling? (Actually, for an ironic twist we had hamburgers and lemonade for dinner tonight.)

It's been doing this for 24 hours. The snow is even deeper in the hours since I took these pictures -- our van is completely buried! I had to walk one of Miriam's friends home -- that is, I had to blaze a trail through the snow for her, since it already came up to my knees. Wow, was I tired when I got back home!

It's going to be a chore digging everything out tomorrow... but meanwhile we had lots of fun and got all thoroughly soaked and cold and tired. Time to go -- the fireplace and hot chocolate await!

Nine years!!

Mr. Pickles and I celebrated our NINTH anniversary the day before Katie's birthday. I KNOW! Where do the years go? Since this will be our last chance to escape from the children for a while, we made the most of it and got our dear friends to babysit that weekend while we spent the night at a hotel. This is where we stayed. I KNOW! Does Mr. Pickles know how to spoil me or what? After dropping the kids off we checked in. Apparently there were a couple weddings going on (why yes, it IS a good time of the year to get married after all...) so the room we had reserved was taken. So they HAD to bump us up a level and give us a loft suite. Oh, darn. Well, we're used to hardship! :) The room was AWESOME. Because the bed was upstairs in the loft, we were far removed from the door, so it was really REALLY quiet. Probably the quietest hotel stay I've ever experienced. The bathroom had a jacuzzi tub which was cool (although it made the loudest, most horrible gurgling noises while it was draining!). Oh, and we had a goldfish in a bowl in our room. (Why did I not take a picture?)

For dinner that night we walked around the corner to a crêperie and had crêpes for dinner! Fun and yummy. The next morning we had breakfast at a french-y cafe, then walked around the farmer's market. In the afternoon we went on a Food & History walking tour. THAT was fun -- in between visits to 5 different restaurants (which were all FABULOUS), our tour guide shared all kinds of interesting historical tidbits. For one thing, we got to walk past George Washington's townhouse, in addition to the tavern where he was first introduced as president of the United States! We also got to browse around the Torpedo Factory, which we've always been curious about.

Afterwards we brought pizza from this cool gourmet pizza place to our friends who were sitting, and hung out with them for a little while before we headed back home to reality. It was such a wonderful weekend together, and a great way to celebrate 9 years. Here's hoping for a cruise (with baby) for #10! :)



9 years and we still like each other. :)

Happy Birthday to the Bearcakes!

Well, it's been a month since Katie's 5th birthday, so I figured it was okay to blog about it now. :)

For those keeping score, Katie just turned 5. Yes, 5. As in, a WHOLE HAND. Didn't Miriam just do this recently? Like, 2 months ago? Sigh. I can't believe what a big girl Katie is getting to be. Well, maybe "big" isn't the most accurate description -- she'll still itty bitty. But she is getting older. There is a big difference between 4 and 5. For one thing, I can play the ol' "you're too big for that" card whenever she's pitching a fit or acting especially naughty.

Aw, but how could dis widdle face ever be naughty?

Katie with her new "Hug a Pug" with removable tutu and princess crown. :) She loved all of her gifts this year -- they were all perfect for her. I'm sure I'll forget something (WHY did I not write her gifts down? did I think I'd actually be able to remember them all? HA!), but I know that in addition to the hug-a-pug she also received a playground set for her Calico Critters -- with which she and Miriam played the rest of the day, a good book, a fun "I Spy" game, and from us, a hobby horse. Or should I say, hobby unicorn.

Is that not the girliest horse ever?? Katie loves it. It sleeps next to her every night. Joseph loved it too -- and didn't understand why HE couldn't have it all to himself, since he helped me pick it out at the toy store.

It makes noises too, which so far haven't made me regret buying it for her.




Katie wanted to help decorate her cake.


She is getting to be very particular about things. (some might even go so far as to say "picky." or even "fickle." can't imagine where she gets it...) Her preferred cake decoration kept changing several times a day leading up to her birthday. Finally when we were at the store choosing her cake flavor, a box of My Little Pony "fruit" snacks caught her eye, and her cake theme was finally decided upon.

Note the ponies frolicking in the meadow?


Happy Birthday to our princess.