I just love it when it snows.

Sure, it's nice to look out the window and see the world around me all dusted with powdered sugar.

It's nice to have an excuse not to leave the house all day.

It's really nice to sit on the couch all wrapped in blankets reading to my kids all morning long.

But do you know what I like best?

I like it when the kids beg to go play in the snow after lunch.

I love it when I tell them they can after we clean up the house and magically there is no whining about cleaning up.

I love it that our house gets super clean in record time without fits.

You know what else I love?

I love it that Doodle and Beano can get their own snow clothes on all by them selves now.

I only have to bundle up one kid.

I love it when I can watch from my nice warm house with Baby as the kids have a ball in the freshly fallen snow.

I love that they can still play in it like it was the first snow fall of the season.

I think it's so funny that they only last 1/2 hour until they come in frozen, ready for a big mug of hot cocoa.

Technically my kids don't like hot chocolate (I know, weird, huh?), but they do LOVE hot vanilla.

And I love the heart shaped strawberry marshmallows.

How cute are those, I ask you!

How do you make them you ask?

Let me tell you, I slaved away in the kitchen the whole time they were outside just so these could be ready when they came in.

No not really, they are super easy.

Just flatten a marshmallow with a rolling pin and cut it with the smallest heart shaped cookie cutter and there you have it.

Fun and yummy heart shaped marshmallows floating and melting into a big ball of sweet gooeyness right in your very own mug of hot chocolate...

or vanilla.

Don't worry, I only ate one.

OK, two

So what if I ate half the bag!

Walkin in a Winter Wonderland...In October

"Happy Christmas!"

"Snow Angels!"

"Snow Men!"

Oh wait, It's only October.

These were the first words I heard this morning being shouted from the top of my children's voices as I was still wiping the goop from my sleepy eyes.

When I looked out the window this is what I saw.

My poor little apple trees with leaves still one their ever so fragile branches covered in at least 6 inches of snow.

I have never seen snow before the leaves fall from the walnut trees out front. They looked so awkward and clumsy with leaves and snow.

The swings looked like they had been sitting gathering snow for weeks now.
Just look at our neighbors sunflowers! Quick, someone bring them a blanket! They're supposed to be SUNflowers, not SNOWflowers.

Good grief!

The kids just had to go out in it first thing this morning before church. I had to let them because it is the first snow of the season (which season is it exactly? I thought it was still fall! Or did we fast forward that part and go straight to winter wonder land?).

I just had to let them because I felt sure that it would all be gone by the time the sun came out and I would be in big trouble if they did not get to play in it before it all melted away.

But no!

Surprisingly it snowed all morning long. It snowed as I made breakfast. It snowed as I finished preparing my lesson for church. It snowed as I showered. It snowed as I bathed and dressed the kids. It snowed as we drove to church. It snowed the entire time we were in church. It snowed long and hard. It snowed big fat snowflakes that land on your hair and melt into big shining beads of water. It snowed the perfect clump of huge snowflakes for catching on your tongue.

It snowed huge piles of snow on the car waiting to be brushed off before we could drive home.

Just as we were getting home from church about 2:30 it stopped. Beano dug out his bike that he had left on the grass. You know, the bike he was riding 2 days ago in the perfect 70 degree weather.

Then guess what happened at dinner time.

You guessed it, it snowed some more of those huge winter wonderland snow clumps!

There's only one thing left to say,

"HAPPY SNOW DAY!"