When Life Gives you Snow. . .

Make Snowcones!

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I ate my share of snow growing up, and I lived to tell about it. Pollution has worsened since then but the snow falling through the country sky at the cabin still looked white enough. So after the sledding had become dull and snowball fights were just ending in fights, I brought cups, spoons and snowcone syrup outside to the kids and told them to eat up. They looked at me like I was crazy, but they know not to question my sanity anymore.

Apparently Jack Frost didn't get my memo. I'm oVeR him. Unfortunately, he is not ready to move on yet. I ran over the snow shovel this weekend. Poor shovel, it probably wanted to end its life anyway after what it has had to go through over the past several weeks. RIP little shovel. Trying to make the most of these storms we decided to get snowed it at the cabin. Warming ourselves from the fireplace to counter our power outage, we still managed to have a delicious breakfast thanks to our propane powered stove and enjoyed the snow while the kids played endless rounds of checkers and Old Maid. But now I'm done -- done with the snow, done with the cold, done with piles of wet snow clothes in front of my washer. Lowe's has stocked its seed displays and hasn't restocked the shovels, spring must be near. Please spring, be near.

Some Arctic weather tubing.

Bridger was the smart one who played in the snow while keeping his internal body temperature stable. He eventually overcame his sensory issues and grabbed at it with energetic fists when he saw that you could make balls with it.

Kid-style sugar cookies: 100 calorie cookie with 800 calories of toppings.

Just the cutest babes ever.

Lance's prayer last week was so cute as he blessed all of the people in Haiti that they would be cared for in this storm. We had a little discussion about latitude after that prayer. It really is sweet though as my kids, without prompting, have included the people of Haiti in every single one of their prayers every day for the past month. Yesterday for Valentine's I was asking them how we could send a valentine to God. They came to the conclusion that showing love to someone else would be the way and they decided to donate money to Haiti. When I asked them to go get the amount of money they would like out of their banks, Sadie came back with everything she had. Eva came back with her only paper dollar that she just received for losing her long-overdue first tooth. I told her that she could just donate some of her coins and she declared, "Mom, I can always lose more teeth!" Lance came back with a quarter. After discussing it a little with him he went back and returned with a dollar. He had been saving so hard for some Pokemon cards, but I reassured him what you give always come back to you in some way.

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Those images of Haiti are forever in my mind. Particularly, the pictures of some little children as they had waited in line for hours in the heat, in crowds of thousands, to finally receive a single 12 ounce water bottle. On their face was the biggest smile ever as they graciously thanked every person they passed after receiving their bottle. I'm not sure people here would have had the same reaction to waiting that long in the heat for a small water bottle. But if those children can -- and have a radiating, grateful smile after, then surely my threshold for happiness has to be stronger than the annoyance of always choosing the wrong grocery line, or the inconvenience of our street not being plowed out, waiting for 2 hours to see our 8th doctor of the week, or any other trivial circumstance life throws around.

I have at least a dozen 12-ounce water bottles (however frozen they may be right now) and can get more at any time. I'm grateful for the simple lessons of faith, patience and happiness demonstrated by the humble people of Haiti.

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Do what you will Mr. Frost, the winter blues will not have a home here.

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