Huge Snowstorm, Lots of Snow Days, and More Swim Lessons

Samantha: 116 Months, Week 3

Aedan: 84 Months, Week 1

Owen: 40 Months, Week 3

As we were approaching the end of January, Ben was getting ready to start the spring semester. They pushed the start date back because of Covid, giving students more time for Christmas break and then getting rid of Spring Break in an effort to keep kids on campus and not traveling, contracting Covid, and then bringing it back to campus. It was very odd for Ben to not be starting the semester until February, and it was even more strange because we had a snowstorm that was cancelling classes on the first day of the semester and forcing Ben to do his classes through Zoom from home, not his ideal way to start the semester.

Here are some pictures of Izzy out in the snow. She is definitely a cold weather loving dog, and she loves to run around the snow in the yard and bury her nose under the snow. It's funny because she doesn't like to get wet if it's raining, but she definitely doesn't mind getting wet in the snow. You can tell she's from the U.P.!

Here are Samantha and Aedan playing outside and watching as Daddy tries out our new snow blower for the first time. Much better than shoveling the whole driveway!

Here are some pictures I took of Owen (and Izzy attacking him on his bed) as I put him down for his nap that afternoon. I love this special time that I have him to read books to him, cuddle with him, and see his silly side come out.

I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to be, but Owen worked very hard taking these base ten blocks that I was using to help Aedan with some math, and lining them up like a fence on the kitchen floor. He wanted me to take a picture of it.

It hadn't snowed quite enough that morning to go sledding down the hill in our back yard, so Samantha and Aedan decided to go back out and go sledding that afternoon while I was making dinner. I took a few videos through our living room windows. They were having a great time, and our yard is so fun to sled down, we just have to figure out a way next year to stop them from running into the retaining wall really hard. But the kids love playing outside in the snow, and our back yard is like a wonderful winter wonderland.

While Ben taught his classes on Zoom from our bedroom on Monday, February 1st, I did my best to keep the kids quiet and not disturb his classes. The snow just kept coming down all day, so it was a good thing they cancelled in person classes for the day. At 3:30 in the afternoon, we had 10.5 inches of snow. Campus was going to be closed again on Tuesday, and the kids were off, too. All told, when the snow finally stopped, we had 16 inches total. Such a huge snowstorm! We hadn't seen that much snow since living in the Upper Peninsula. It's one of those things where when it gets too deep, it's not as fun because then it's more difficult for the kids to walk around and play in. But they were definitely enjoying their snow days off of school!

Like I said, the kids had Tuesday off of school as well, so we enjoyed time to just play at home. Samantha made this cool stained glass picture with colored stickers that she hung up in the window of her room. You can see her nice view of our snowy back yard and the woods behind our house.

Every once in a while, the kids play really nicely together and on this particular morning, I was able to capture it on video. I love watching them play imaginatively and creatively, and Owen loves to be included in the Lego playing. They make quite a mess of Legos on the floor, but they have a good time together. Aedan, in particular, loves Legos. He loves to build, and he loves to pretend with them. It was fun just having this extra time at home with them and the downtime to just enjoy watching them play together.

The snow just kept coming down all day, and it was definitely piling up around our house. Here are some pictures of the progression of the snowstorm. As you can see in the video, it was coming down hard, and the wind was blowing around some pretty significant drifts.

Poor Izzy likes snow, but she wasn't sure what she thought of this deep of snow. Here she is in the yard after lunch that day, trying to make some new tracks for herself through the snow, trying to find a place where she could go to the bathroom.

Izzy was still sticking her head in the snow, trying to sniff around for things though! She definitely enjoys prancing around in the snow, even if it's deep, she just can't go quite as fast.

That afternoon there was a lull in the snow, and we had already gotten around a foot. We had a snow blower now, but the snow was too deep for a snow blower to be of any use. That afternoon once Owen was down for a nap, we all went outside to start shoveling snow. Samantha and Aedan even helped us some. Every little bit helped the process of shoveling ourselves out of our driveway go faster.

On Wednesday the kids were supposed to have a two hour delay, and Ben was going to be back to his normal schedule for the first time in almost three months. The kids' school ended up being cancelled again because the roads were not good again because of the snow we got overnight. The kids were very excited to have another day off. Sometimes it's hard to keep them entertained for multiple snow days in a row, especially because now the snow was way too deep for them to even be able to go out and play in because it was too hard to walk around. Having them home makes it a little harder for me to get things done that I need to do around the house, but it's always fun to have unexpected days off at home with the kids, and they enjoy it, too.

Aedan made a ship out of Legos that looked like the Millennium Falcon, and he was flying it around the house, playing with Owen. I could hear them playing from the kitchen, so I took a break to come out and take a few pictures and a video of them playing together. I like to capture these simple moments where they are enjoying being together, getting along well, and just bonding as brothers.

Ben made it down to campus that day for his first day of in person classes, even though the roads were not great. Also, they still had AWANA that night which I was glad for because Ben and I were planning on going on a date that night when we could take advantage of the free babysitting.

On Thursday when it was time to get ready for school after having three snow days of extra play time at home, Aedan cried when it was time to get shoes on and get ready for school. He is definitely more of a homebody, and he loves to just have free time at home to play how he wants. With the kids back at school and the roads finally cleared, Owen and I went grocery shopping that morning. Owen kept telling me that Daddy gets him donuts on the way home from Walmart, but Ben said he has only done that one time. It was finally a nicer day with no snow or clouds, and I didn't realize how much I missed seeing the sun. 

Another interesting thing that happened that day was that the kids' school sent out a call saying they will now be moving to e-learning days so that we don't have as many snow days to make up at the end of the year. They will make sure to send home the kids' Chrome Books so they can just complete assignments from home, which I thought was a great idea.

Owen was super tired and emotional that day, for some reason. Maybe he was also reacting to Samantha and Aedan being back at school and not having built in playmates at home with him anymore. Also, to make things even more challenging, Ben lost his car keys, and we were thinking they were buried somewhere out in the snow. We looked around quite a bit and couldn't find them, so we figured Ben would just have to get new office keys, and we would have to wait until the snow began to melt to see if we could find them.

Here is some work the kids brought home from school. Aedan played a sight word matching game, got a 93% on his chapter 6 math test on adding tens and ones, a 100% on his weekly reading test, practiced writing his spelling words with ng and nk sounds, and practiced with greater than and less than numbers by comparing the tens and then the ones.

Here is a sheep Owen made at AWANA, coloring the head green and gluing cotton balls on its body.

Aedan really enjoys reading, especially these Star Wars books from the library, so here he is, sitting at the kitchen table, eating his snack, and reading his book. He's such a cute boy, and I love that he's developing such a love of reading.

The kids only went back to school for one day before having another snow day on Friday. They did a Google classroom day where the teachers just posted their assignments for the kids to complete and turn in on their own. Samantha had four assignments posted in Google Classroom (one in each subject) along with directions. Aedan didn't have much to do and was done in about forty-five minutes, whereas Samantha had a couple of hours of work to do. However, at least it was counting as a school day and wasn't another snow day that they will have to make up.

I forget what we went to CVS for, but while we were waiting for a prescription to be ready, Samantha and I looked at Valentine's Day things, and we had fun making animals sing and dance and looking at this giant Mickey Mouse animal. Samantha has such a wonderful, silly sense of humor, and I love spending time with just her, which is something I don't get to do very often.

Aedan's teacher sent home packets for reading and math, and the kids were basically supposed to pick one paper from each packet to complete as part of their Google Classroom days. As you can see, he didn't have too much work to do for school, but we were okay with that!

Here is our beautiful dog taking a nap in the sun shining in the patio door that Friday afternoon. She's such a good dog for our family.

Samantha was still having trouble with sleeping, and for some reason she had a really hard time on Friday night. She was up past 11:30, getting up out of bed, walking around, coming downstairs and talking to us, and being unable to sleep. We felt so bad for her, but we didn't know what we could do to help her or why she was having such a hard time falling asleep. This was one of the latest nights though, and she was really tired on Saturday morning because of being up so late. In fact, Ben had to wake her up for swim lessons that morning.

I took the boys to their swim lessons, and here are some pictures and videos I took of their lessons that day. Here is Owen practicing holding on to a kick board with each arm and kicking around the pool.

Here is Owen practicing floating on his back and kicking his legs while holding the kick board above his tummy. It's still hard for him to lay back comfortably in the water and get his ears wet.

Here he is jumping in the water, still feeling a little nervous about jumping in without holding on to his instructor's hand.

Towards the end of every lesson they have the kids swim down to the other end of the pool. They had black floats and pool noodles to help hold them up. Owen was bringing up the rear, but part of that was because of him flailing his arms and legs so much, and being silly by putting his face down into the water, and then popping up surprised that he had water all over his face. He's so silly, but he loves being in the water so much!

The instructors wanted the kids to practice jumping off the top of these platforms or off the side of the pool, but Owen was still pretty nervous about jumping in and being completely submerged, so the instructors helped lower him in more gently. It's funny watching this now because he has no fear about jumping in and becoming completely submerged now.

In this video the instructor got him to climb up on top of the platform, inch his way nervously out to the edge, and she held his hand until he jumped in to the water, where he was completely submerged and swam back over to the side. Way to be brave, Owen!

Next, it was time for Aedan's lesson. Here he is practicing a back float. The instructor then takes their head to hold it straight and above water, leading them around the pool as a way for the kids to practice keeping their bodies afloat. Aedan had a hard time keeping his body up as she guided him around the pool. He kept sinking and having to kick himself back up to floating.

Here are the kids with back floats and pool noodles to help support them as they swing the length of the pool to the other side.

Here's Aedan standing on the platform, plugging his nose, and getting ready to jump in. They did still have their back floats on to help them come back up to the surface and swim back over to the side. Aedan has gotten so much braver in the water, and I am so proud of him. He has always been more apprehensive, and it wasn't until a couple years ago that he even liked to put his face in the water to begin with. We are working towards more independence in the water for him and learning to swim without his floatie on, so every little bit of practice helps. He was definitely enjoying jumping off the platform that morning!

Here is another picture of the snow accumulation in our back yard after it had been trampled down some by the kids playing. Owen was even out there playing with his digger truck in the snow.

In preparation for small group on Sunday, Ben had the kids help him make Rolo cookies, soft pretzel bites, and deviled eggs. He learned something after baking that day though, that when baking with children, always use a bigger bowl than you think is necessary. He always does a good job of including them in cooking and baking and teaching them along the way.

(Blog about January 31-February 6, 2021)