Snow Day

Tuesday night, we got some snow and the boys woke up to the yard being covered in about 2-3 inches of snow on Wednesday morning. A lot of schools closed on Tuesday even though the snow wasn't expected until Tuesday evening, also a lot of businesses closed early. On Wednesday, the entire town was shut down. The boys were so excited to go play in the snow. After their Snow Mountain trip, they know what it's all about.

I'm glad we already had all the snow gear from going to snow mountain a couple weeks ago, that made it much easier to get them dressed. Evan loves crawling in it and rolling around in it. He loves to throw snowballs but not as much as he loves getting hit with them. Carter likes to play gently in the snow. He doesn't like getting hit with a snowball and hates when the snow gets between his hand and glove or neck and coat--he immediately makes me help him because it's too cold, he says.

The boys started the morning off with just playing on their playground. They loved going down the slide since it was icy/wet and they went down about twice as fast as they normally do.

Carter thought it was funny that the wagon was filled with snow.

Greg got right out there and played with the boys and threw snowballs, helped them make snowballs, chased them around, etc. While I sat in a chair with my hot coffee--just the way it should be. :)

Evan would get tickled every time Greg hit him with snow. He thought it was the funniest thing and it never got old to him.

Look at that happy face!

And he loves throwing snowballs at us and he's really good.

Carter got some sand toys out, like this shovel and just had a nice, relaxing time playing and digging in the snow.

Then he used his shovel to catapult the snowball towards Evan's head. haha.

Burrrr.........it was cold.

My 3 boys having a blast in the snow.

One last snow ball before we go in.

After we came in, the boys wanted some hot cocoa. We had some on hand with extra marshmallows, so that's what the boys got. They loved it.

 

These boys managed to get that hot cocoa everywhere. But, they LOVED it.

 

After the boys cuddled up on the couch and watched a movie we rented for them, Greg decided it'd be fun to go outside again. Greg was really having as much fun as the boys. He grew up in Arizona, so he's getting to experience this with the boys for the first time and he loved it. He decided to help the boys build a snowman--his first snowman ever. The snow wasn't sticking very good to make a snowman, but all 3 boys wanted one, so Greg was going to make it happen.

See, Evan, just likes to lay in the snow, it's so funny.

Here they are supposed to be helping Greg and Evan's laying down.

Greg, Carter, and Evan's first snowman ever!! So cute.

We added some eyes and a mouth after the picture.

Carter was so thrilled with the snowman.

Evan was just so happy to be outside.

I'm ready for spring, but I am glad we got this snow. It's such a fun thing for the kids (and greg) The boys are at an age where they actually go out and play in it. We didn't spend more time getting them in their snow gear than they spent outside. It was nice since Greg was also off, that the three of them could play outside in the snow. But, we had our fun, now it's time for 70-80 degree sunny weather. I'm ready. :)

Little Bit of This and That

Nothing much has been going on the past week, so I figured I'd just do a quick photo dump post so I don't get too behind on blogging. I have lots of little things I want to remember, so if I go too long in between posts, they just end up being way too long.

The other morning, while I was eating breakfast, Evan went and got his coffee maker and toaster so he could have coffee and toast like me. It was very cute how he kept "adding more coffee" to his cup.

I've been trying to do more with the MOMs club and we went to a play date last Monday. They meet every Monday and the boys had so much fun playing with the other kids. The club divides up the kids by age and each age group meets once a week along with other activities throughout the week for all the age groups to get together. It was a rare warm day, so the boys had a picnic outside when we got home. It has been SO cold here lately, so it was nice to be outside, even if it was just for one day.

I made a coffee filter wreath and it was so easy, that I've already colored some more coffee filters to make a pink one for Valentine's day and a green one for St. Patrick's Day. I tried making a mesh one for the front door, but it didn't look right and I need to start over on it.

We've gone to Chick-Fil-A after naps a couple of days because it's just too cold to go outside and we like to let the boys do something active. They used to be happy going there and playing and maybe getting a chocolate milk, but the boys love their chicken, so now they have some chicken and then go play.

The boys have been sleeping later the past couple of weeks, usually 6:45-7:00 is when Evan wakes up, but we had a morning where they both woke up early, so they watched some tv on my ipad in my bed while I got ready. They weren't quite ready to be up and playing yet. They loved the show they were watching, so I don't know why Carter looks so grumpy--I swear he wasn't. But, his expression cracks me up.

My mom's birthday was last week and the boys made her an apron I saw on Pinterest. They love doing crafty things and anything messy.

So excited to put their hands and thumbs in paint.

I think it would have turned out cute if I hadn't drawn the flower stems (Greg thinks they look like cactus, the boys called them trees) I have a fun Valentine's craft for the boys to make that doesn't involve any drawing on my part, thank goodness!


Besides getting the boys something small to eat at Chick-Fil-A or McDonald's when we take them to play there, we've really cut back on eating out. When we do go, we usually let the boys help us make the decision on where to go and we somehow always end up at Mellow Mushroom. They both love pizza.

Sunday, we took the boys to McDonald's to play in the play area. We got them a chocolate milk and packed some apple slices for them to eat. They played for a long time and they always play so good with the other kids. It's crazy how easy the kids all become friends and play so well together every time we go.

 Monday, my mom kept the boys so I could go to a preschool open house. It's hard finding the perfect fit, and the boys preschool in Virginia was so perfect for us. This school that I looked at is close by, has a summer program, which I think will be good for the boys, encourages parents to volunteer (which I really like) and they also have kindergarten. Greg and I are sending the boys to a 1/2 day kindergarten and I think it'd be nice to have them go to the same preschool and kindergarten. By going to the open house, I am able to register them two days before registration opens up to the public, which was supposed to be tomorrow. But, the entire state of Georgia has shut down because of the snowpocalypse that's coming, so I'm hoping I can just go by on Thursday and register them. There's a couple of others that we are considering if the boys don't get into this one, but hopefully they get into this one so they can be registered for next year and we don't have to worry about it anymore.

Tonight we went to Chick-Fil-A after the boys naps to get out of the house. It's calling for 1-3 inches of snow on tonight. It was originally calling for 1/2 an inch tonight and almost all the schools closed down for today and tomorrow.  The boys did still have school today, but it is cancelled for tomorrow. Greg is also off tomorrow. It hadn't started snowing yet, but all the businesses were closing early and nobody was out. I've NEVER seen Chick-Fil-A that slow, there was hardly anybody there and nobody in the drive-thru. We're 99.9% positive that it's not going to be bad tomorrow and we'll be able to drive and go about our day like normal. But, just in case we can't, we wanted to get out of the house one more time and let the boys play before it did snow.

I'm going to be SO happy when the weather warms up. I am so ready for spring.

Snow Mountain

Sunday, we went to Snow Mountain at Stone Mountain. For Christmas, we decided we'd rather ask for things that we can do rather than objects. We looked into all the things that we wanted to do with the boys (zoo, aquarium, Stone Mountain, etc) and when we looked at Stone Mountain (in Atlanta) we saw they had a special Snow Mountain exhibit they did for the winter. They have a huge area with snow to play in, little hills for small kids to sled, tubing, etc. We thought the boys would LOVE that, so my parents gave us tickets to go there for Christmas. You make your reservations for a date and time and you get two hours to snow tube, but the entire day to play in the snow areas. I had been really, really looking forward to this and told the boys we were going for a week or two now, so they've been super excited. Carter didn't understand that we were going TO the snow, so every morning he'd get up and see if it had snowed.

It's about a 2 hour and 15 minute drive to Stone Mountain from our house, so we left at 7:45 and got there a little after 10am. Our two hour tubing reservation was from 11-1, so we had plenty of time to park, check in, get in our snow gear and play in the snow some before we went tubing.

I always upload a lot of pictures for each blog post, but there's a TON in this one.

This is my favorite picture of the boys from our trip, this was right after we got them dressed and before we went to the snow area. They were so excited and I just love that they posed together. I got a pair of snow pants and some snow overalls at Goodwill for $2.00 each.

We had to have our tickets clipped on us where the employees could see them-the wind blew right as I was taking their picture in front of the sign. The boys had to be measured when they got there to see what they could and couldn't ride. Evan was 40.5 inches and Carter was 41. They had to be 36inches to do the snow tubing and under 42 to do all the little kid things, so they were the perfect height to do everything except go down the adult tubing hill by themselves (you had to be 42 inches for that)

We started off in the snow area and let the boys do a little tubing on the small kids slopes. They LOVED it.

They weren't scared at all. I didn't think they would be and I'm pretty sure Carter would have done this the entire time we were there and been perfectly happy.

This is the kids tubing area.

Stone Mountain

The snow area. It was so nice when we first got there, the snow was still fresh and it was easy to pick up snow balls and play in it. Evan's favorite thing ever was having snow ball fights. He talked about it the night before we went about how excited he was going to be able to "snow ball fight with daddy"

At 11:00, we went to the snow tubing area. They had several lanes set up for individual tubes (which the boys were just a tad too short to do) and then 4 lanes for family tubes. They had these HUGE tubes that would fit 5-6 people in it.

You'd go up a huge escalator and then get in the correct line. It took about 30 minutes to go through the line and down. The boys were such troopers in line. We definitely couldn't have done this last year, but they were perfect this year. They did so great in the line, no running off, getting impatient or anything. We took a few selfies while in line.

Standing in line, like such big boys.

Greg suggested we get one of us. I'm trying to be in the picture more since I'm always the one taking pictures and he remembered that I had said that.

The boys saw Greg and I take a picture together so they wanted me to take one of them together, the camera was facing them and they could see themselves, they think they're something when I take pictures of them like that.

They took some family pictures of us on the tube, but it didn't really seem worth the money to get those, so I just took a quick one with my camera before we went flying down the slope. I was terrified the first time we went down. I'll do all the rides at theme parks, snow tubing, water slides, but I'm always terrified each time I do. After we went down once, I realized it wasn't bad and was fine the second time. The 3rd time, we went in a different lane (the speedy lane of death) and there was somebody squirting water on the slope to make it go faster. We FLEW down that slope, I swear we got down twice as fast in that lane. It was terrifying. But, the boys LOVED it. I would joke with the boys before we got one each time and ask them if this was the one that I was going to go flying out of and after we got done, Evan said "you didn't fall out again-yay!" and Carter said "good job" haha.

We did have to take a meal break about 12:00, the boys were starving. So, we had lunch and then went back and rode the tube two more times before our session was over.

We were exhausted after we were done tubing. The boys were so excited to go play in the snow. That was Evan's favorite part, he couldn't wait. They found a snowman that somebody else had made and decided that he needed a carrot nose. Stone Mountain provided all the things you needed to play in the snow-buckets, shovels, ice cube shaper things (to make forts and igloos) and all the things to decorate snowmen.

Evan throwing a snowball.

He would laugh and laugh after throwing a snow ball and when we threw one back, he thought it was the best thing ever. Carter liked it--until he got hit in the ear and had some go down his coat, then he was kind of over snow ball fights. He really wanted to go down the kids snow tube hill, so Greg took him over there and I stayed with Evan and played in the snow (which is why I have way more pictures of Evan)

A picture of the snow area, the kids snow tubing hill and the fort with tunnels for the kids to crawl through.

Evan loved rolling around in it. We all started out bundled up, but it was warm (in the 50's) so we got hot quick. The boys took off their hats and greg and I had taken off our coats.

I told Evan to go behind the little photo stand so I could get a picture of him and he stuck his head in each hole laughing and going the next one saying that I couldn't get his picture.

There was also a kids sledding hill that Evan went down several times. Next year, they'll be too big for this, it's just for toddlers, so it was such a perfect year to go as far as their height and age.

There was a merry go round for snow tubes for the little kids. I think the boys were probably too old for this, but they saw it and weren't too tall, so we let them. You could tell it was nap time because 3 of the other kids were trying to sleep on this ride.

Carter went down the hill on the sled a few times, too.

I got so tickled at how Evan would just lay down in the snow and roll around. I'm so glad we were able to find the snow suit for so cheap, he would have been soaked.

I love this picture because you can see how happy he is just rolling in the snow.

Carter doing snow angels.

Some people built some really cool things, Carter found this fort that somebody else had built and had the best time playing in it.

Him and Evan playing in the snow fort.

They had as much fun wrecking it as they did playing in it. I saw several people knock their creations down before leaving and the snow was getting pretty packed in at that point, so once people were done with their creations and left, other people would come over and knock it down to take the snow to build their own creations.

We let the boys go through the snow fort tunnels a few times and then we called it a day after 4 hours of playing. We were all exhausted. The boys wanted us to carry them to the car. They actually managed to stay awake for the entire car ride home--and they were great, no fussing or anything. We thought for sure that they'd pass out before even leaving the parking lot. They were in bed and asleep by 7:30--they were worn out.

While we were there, we decided we wanted to come back when the weather was a little warmer. We thought the boys would have blast (they have so much to do) and it'd be nice to go when we weren't wearing layers and layers of bulk and carrying gloves, hats, etc. Before we left, I checked the price to see how much it'd be to come back and it was cheaper to upgrade our tickets from that day to the annual membership than it was to go back and buy day tickets for another day. We've always found that most places, the season tickets pay for themselves in two trips. So, we upgraded to the annual membership and can't wait to go back.