It's a blizzard!!!

Tom and I finally got our wish for snow....though I think our wish worked a little too well! This past week we got 21" in less than 24 hours. We couldn't believe how much white stuff was coming down! It finally stopped snowing around 4:00 in the afternoon, so Tom and I went to go shovel our driveway while Jackson was sleeping. Underneath the 21" of snow was a nice layer of ice. It took us three scoops per section just to get from the top layer down to the ice layer. Needless to say, our backs were really tired after we got this done. Our area that we were scooping kept getting narrower and narrower....

Can you believe how high the snow is?? This is Oklahoma, for Pete's sake! We were surprised how many people were out that day shoveling their driveways after the snow stopped. I think we all realized that if we didn't get it done soon, it was going to semi-melt and then turn into ice...and who knows when it would get warm enough to melt! The next day, however, we saw that one of our neighbors had a snowblower....and then they brought it over to our friendly neighbor's house next door to help him with his driveway. If only we hadn't been so proactive...but I guess it was good exercise, right?

If you remember from before, we didn't think to get Jackson any snow boots or waterproof gloves before the first snow hit. We were totally unprepared for the snow and the super cold weather. By the time we made it to the store, they only had rain boots (they work just as well as snow boots, right?) and hot pink waterproof gloves. By this point, we weren't too picky.

Many of the pictures I've seen on Facebook of friends' kids in the snow show them wearing nice warm snow suits, waterproof clothes and lots of layers. Jackson is setting a new trend...

And now Jackson LOVES his hot pink gloves. Today was the first day back to daycare after a week of being out due to the snow. He proudly wore his hot pink gloves into school, showing everyone that he passed by. I was running a little late to pick him up, and as I'm walking up the stairs to his class, I hear Ms. Kathryn getting his things together. She picks up the gloves and says, "Jackson, where are your gloves? All I see are these pink ones. I think someone took yours home!" I sheepishly had to explain what happened and that those pink ones were in fact his gloves.

As we stepped outside, we couldn't believe how much snow we had received. Notice how the snow is level with the seat of our white bench!

By this point, the snow was nice and crunchy. Jackson weighs so little he barely even made footprints in the snow.

We wanted to see if Jackson could climb up one of the snow drifts, but he sank in one before he got too far up it. He was not happy at all when the snow went up to his knees!

Daddy rescued him from the drift and was much happier:

All Jackson wanted to do in the snow was throw snowballs at Mommy and Daddy - he got his wish!

I ended up working from home on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, I came out of the office to find Jackson and Tom playing with playdough. Jackson seems pretty proud of his carrot.

I just love this picture of Jackson; doesn't he look old in this picture?

Jackson has started playing with our computers more and more during the snow break. Sometimes we'll call him to come out to the kitchen or the living room, and he'll call back "In a minute! I've got lots of work to do!". Other times when Tom or I are on the computer, he'll walk in with such a serious face and say "I have a lot of work to do. I need to work."

One night, he was playing on the computer, and I had opened up a word document for him to play type. A little while later, he starts yelling for me to come in here because he wants to show me something. Lo and behold, he had typed his name (both first and last). Farther down in the document, he also typed "catcatcat". When I came in, he said "See, I did CAT! C-A-T!" He's already learning to spell! For the rest of the night, we practiced typing and writing various words. He's really starting to get interested in reading and writing!

Here he is hard at "work":

I hope everyone is keeping warm. The next snow is coming tomorrow night - hope it's not as bad as they say it might be. I don't know where we will put all of the snow! Tom's school is still out - a week after the first storm. I have a feeling they will be out of school all week!