Snow Man

Yesterday we got quite the snowstorm. They predicted 10 inches to start at 3am. At 7am there was no snow and I felt a little silly for working from home. By mid morning it seemed like just a light snow but it accumulated like crazy and snowed constantly for hours. I was so happy to be home so I could play!

Mid morning or so Simon came into my room to say hi and we watched the snow out of the window. This picture is a little dark, but look at how excited he was to see the snow out there! We planed a snow-play date after Simon's nap and I got some work done. 

Outside pictures and video after the jump.

At 2:30ish we went out and I shoveled about 4 1/2 inches around the backyard. (I measured! It was so much snow fast.) I put it all into a huge snow pile for Simon to be king of the mountain. When he walked out the back door and saw me shoveling he said "Help you". His yous and mes are a little inconsistent so at first we thought he was asking for help getting down the steps to the snow. Then we realized he wanted to help me shovel! All in good time, my boy, all in good time. I found him a plastic gardening shovel and these first few pictures are of him helping. 

When the shoveling got old, we put Simon at the top of the mountain and did some snow throwing. Simon was very into making snowballs and trying to throw them. Usually he didn't pack enough so it just fell out of his hands. While he did that Jenn and I made a snowman. We discovered it has been a long time and is way harder than we expected. We ended up having the tiniest snow man - perfect Simon height.  

Jenn went inside and got some eyes, a nose, buttons and a hat. She started placing while Simon closely inspected. 

Jenn placing his eyes (aka Cranberries) 

Jenn placing his buttons (aka Cheerios)

Simon is going to help.

pat pat pat

Adding Cheerios buttons

Adding the arms/hands (gardening gloves)

Definitely need another button on this side.

Had to take off the gloves to properly place the cherrios.

Note the enormous mountain of snow behind Simon. That was where Simon was sitting to observe the initial snow man creation.

Immediately after this he realized his hands were little ice cubes so Simon and Jenn went inside. Lucky mama got to go shovel the front. Amazingly, when Alan got home at 6 (about 3 hours later) he could barely even tell I'd shoveled - there was at least another four inches out there. It is going to be above freezing all week so the snow will all melt soon.