And now, for something ENTIRELY different

This post is not going to be about the apocalyptic amounts of snow we've had to put up with this winter. I'm not going to mention how many times we've had to dig ourselves out.

Only to get buried again.

Nor will I mention how awful the roads were for days on end, nor the incompetence of the VDOT snowplow operators (okay, really? plowing 1 1/2 lanes? how is that helpful?).


No, my friends, this post will be about beauty.

Like this way-cool sunrise that definitely made it worth being woken up before 6:30 to see. I couldn't get the colors quite right with my crappy photo editor, but if you tilt your screen to darken it you'll see a sun pillar shooting up into the sky.


This post will also be about joy.

Like the joy of having Science confirm that yes, there really is an alien being taking over your body.


I feel kind of sorry for sonographers. They turn on a screen, squirt hot goo on a total stranger's abdomen, and then have to take measurement after measurement of this uncooperative moving thing on a screen. Meanwhile, the new parents, who really don't give a rip for checklists, have been looking forward to this moment for months, and at the first quiet words of "okay, well, let's see what we've got; okay, here's the head," these unreasonable parent people want to stop time and savor this most amazing, miraculous moment when a window to the inner secrets of love is opened, and they behold their offspring, that bundle of bumps and kicks which they have only been able to feel for the last month or so. They just want to sit and wonder at the marvel of the new life which God has entrusted to their care -- they don't want to be rushed into taking pictures of spinal columns and cranial measurements. They want to pause at such unscientific moments and study useless things like the profile, the hands, the feet, marveling over and over that It's Really a Baby in There, Their Baby. This is a Someone they won't get to see again for many more months, and they act like they have to treasure these all-too-brief glimpses, this shaft of light straight from heaven, before ordinary reality thrusts itself in and demands attention to the mundane minutia that make up our daily lives. But at least these silly parents are allowed to keep some mementos of the glory and beauty of the moment, something to remind them of the grace and the mystery that is dwelling amongst them, something to stick on their refrigerators and make them smile with thankfulness.

A future piano player if ever I saw one.

And dancer.

My belly button is halfway popped out, so I must be halfway done!

Homeschoolers don't get snow days.

However, they do get 3-hour recesses followed by hot chocolate in front of the fireplace. And they DON'T have snow make-up days in the middle of June when by rights they ought to be swimming in the pool.

So, here we go, it's snowing AGAIN. Like, blizzarding snowing.

It's very blowy and cold. Don't think we'll be going outside today.

Yeah, go ahead and laugh, you happy little snowmen. YOU might like it when it's 17* outside, but those of us made of flesh and blood get tired of it after a while.

Actually, we're holding up very well. Mr. Pickles is now on Day 6 of being at home, since DC is simply shut down. It's like being on vacation! (And who knows when the streets will be passable enough to sustain rush hour traffic again!) We're all getting very spoiled. And I'm trying not to feel stir crazy. I'm just sooooo grateful all our power lines are underground, so we've been one of the lucky ones whose power never went out.

We went out shopping for groceries yesterday, important stuff like more chips and bacon. Mr. Pickles the Minnesnowtan drove, so Li'l Miss California wouldn't have to worry about getting stuck in the slush or slipping on the ice (which had formed from the unplowed snow the previous day melting in the sun and then freezing overnight). The store was strip-mined -- the milk and eggs were GONE. I was surprised to see some bread on the shelves -- that truck must have made it through. And once again it took us 20 minutes to get through the checkout line. We bought bagels to keep the munchkins pacified. I hope the dairy trucks get through soon -- I don't know what we're going to do if we can't make hot chocolate!! :)

And the snow is still pretty to look at.

I wish WE had an outdoor skating rink.

Day 3 of The Storm That Ate Virginia

Final snow measurement on Sunday using the extra-accurate method of holding up the snow shovel to a pile of snow, marking the measured length against my arm, and then measuring my arm with a tape measure inside the house several hours later: 26 inches.


In sum: it's deep. The snow comes up over Miriam's knees, almost to Katie's waist, and up to Joseph's chest. Miriam had to figure out a very creative way of getting around, since it was nearly impossible for her to trek through.





On Sunday we actually made it to Mass. Mr. Pickles scouted out the roads early in the morning and found them ugly, but manageable. We actually made it to church in record time. I think there were MAYBE 6 other cars in the parking lot. Fortunately two of the women who were there could cantor and play the organ, so we had our own personal angel choir! It was lovely.

Getting home from Mass took us an hour. The street that the church was on was never plowed, so we followed a bumpy, rutted, one-lane track (apologizing to our car's alignment the whole way) to the much-better-plowed church parking lot. Coming out, however, we couldn't take a left turn (because the bumpy rutted one-lane track didn't go that way) so we had to go the other way along a godawful slushy barely-plowed road. The road was just barely wide enough for two cars, and at one point the inevitable happened: trying to make room for an oncoming car, we slid over to the side of the road, where the plow driver had helpfully plowed out part of the ditch. Whee.

Most thankfully, we weren't stuck in the ditch very badly, or for very long. A couple guys driving 4wds stopped to offer assistance (they tried to push the van which was totally fruitless, since the snow was soooo slippery), and a man using his tractor to plow his driveway offered us the use of his shovel. (The smell of the exhaust from the tractor reminded me so strongly of Maywood and Grampa B!) Then an angel disguised as a nice man with a very powerful pickup and a tow rope came by, and he pulled us out back into the road. Even his truck was slipping & sliding while he was hauling us out. He said we were the 4th or 5th car to get stuck on the road that morning, while the plow driver was sleeping in his truck at the end of the street. Nice. Thank you for an eventful Sunday, VDOT. We took a much longer way to get home, choosing roads that we assumed would be plowed better, ha ha, silly us. Everywhere was AWFUL. We even saw TWO SNOWPLOWS stuck in the snow.

However, it could have been SO much worse for us. While we were dealing with our own snowbank, we watched as a much larger SUV plowed into a much larger snowbank 100 ft in front of us. I didn't believe Mr. Angel would be able to do anything about that poor truck -- the snow came up to the dashboard. I hope they weren't stuck for long.

Well, we managed to make a donut stop on the way home, so all was not lost. :) After brunch, we all went outside. I finally braved the snow. My snow boots went kaput last year, and I haven't found a suitable replacement yet (nor am I likely to until next fall. serves me right for being picky. fashion before comfort!) Mr. Pickles fashioned a snow cave for the kids while everyone else on the street was busy shoveling out their cars.

Look, look! See Miriam in the snow cave.

See Katie in the snow cave.


See Joseph eye the snow cave suspiciously and refuse to go in.

Finally Mr. Pickles took the kids to this monster hill at the back of the neighborhood to go sledding. Katie is turning out to be a little daredevil! I would have been intimidated by that slope, but she just shrieked with glee the whole way down. I can't believe I didn't take any pictures -- I think I was starting to lose feeling in my fingers and toes at that point. :) Joseph wasn't so hot about sledding -- he was perfectly content watching from the sidelines and making comments.

While Mr. Pickles was taking the kids sledding, I had the bright idea that I would clear this path to the back gate. As I was huffing and puffing my way through, I realized as I was about a foot from the gate that our gate opens outward... and there were over 2 feet of snow on the other side. Sigh. Pregnant women should not be allowed to think without adult supervision.

There's nothing like frizzy snow hat hair to end the day.

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!