"Is he died?"

Much to my delight, the Muppets have done it again:

World's Worst Valentine

Not only did I get my sweetie a Valentine, but I failed to get my kids set up properly for their Valentine's parties. But, honestly, I'm not losing sweat over it this time. So be it. After a tinge of guilt I've let it go.

You see, after the worlds worst snowfall/school closings/DC in the midst of a panic I assumed that we'd write Valentine's Day off completely. Any other year I'd sit with the boys as they addressed some form of store bought valentines (all this crafty artsy in me and the kids always want the store bought - KILLS me), and we'd have them ready for their party. Well, this year they were snowbound on the day of their party, so nothing doing on that end. But we were also snowbound the week before their party, so that too ruled out the acquisition of said store bought Valentine's. The failure on my part comes in when we look at all the free time we have had over the past 10 days, all the craft stuff that I have here, and my complete and utter lack of motivation to do anything. But more on that later.

So, the kids all head back to school, and yesterday, much to my surprise, the boys came home with a bag full of Valentine's from their classmates. After a bit of questioning as to how the ENTIRE rest of the class knew to bring their stuff in, they both told me, in the smallest voices possible, that they knew on Tuesday and just didn't bother to tell me. So I guess I'm not the only one who isn't losing sweat over it.

Now I just need to figure out how to repackage these Xmas cards and gift cards and get them to their teachers as we missed the last three days of school before winter break too!

Holding my vacuum hostage

Stuck at home for days and days, one would think that house cleaning would be a top priority. I mean, you are living in the place and there's not a whole lot else you can do to hide from any messes that are made. Not me though. Apparently when I'M stuck inside I order cleaning products online, knowing that a bigger storm is arriving, and laugh to myself as they are held hostage by the shipping company:

ALEXANDRIA, VA, US 02/12/2010 7:22 P.M. EMERGENCY CONDITIONS BEYOND UPS' CONTROL
02/12/2010 12:00 P.M. ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED
02/12/2010 12:00 P.M. ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED
02/12/2010 4:14 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY
ALEXANDRIA, VA, US 02/11/2010 12:00 P.M. ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED
ALEXANDRIA, VA, US 02/09/2010 6:57 P.M. EMERGENCY CONDITIONS BEYOND UPS' CONTROL
02/09/2010 4:36 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY
HARRISBURG, PA, US 02/09/2010 1:11 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
ALEXANDRIA, VA, US 02/09/2010 12:01 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
HARRISBURG, PA, US 02/08/2010 8:15 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 02/08/2010 5:36 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

At some point, though, UPS will realize that our street has finally been plowed and will bring me my new little vacuum. And don't worry - we have two full size vacuums - I'm getting this one so that the boys can clean up after their messy selves. THAT'S the part that is driving me nuts about being stuck inside. As they get bigger their messes do as well, and I figure now is as good of a time as any to teach them to clean up after themselves - ALL the time.

I'm on a horse

This has to be one of the best commercials ever. This is by no means an endorsement of Old Spice, but you HAVE to check this out:



This man has everything a woman wants - including two tickets to the thing I love...

SNuhOW!

What is this - storm #3? I'm beginning to lose track. More of the lovely white stuff - this time coming at us from every direction. It's "Blizzard like conditions" and we are once again getting pounded. Fun times!

At some point we will have to dig out again. The snow crept all the way up to our front door this time - no place to step out and snap photos. Then again I didn't really want to open my front door and let all of that stuff in. (And look at that poor little bush out front. I fear it's not the only one we lost.)

We were finally plowed out last night - right before this round started. Can't imagine when it will happen again. We were stuck for 5 days, and here we are looking at probably at least 3-4 more.

You're kidding, right?

From weather.com:

Farther east, light snow has already reached the Baltimore-Washington area. Snow will be on the increase through the evening and overnight and will spread northeastward as a new storm forms along the North Carolina coast.

That storm lifts northward and will grow rapidly stronger overnight and Wednesday bringing heavy snow and strong winds from northern Virginia through southern New England.

The combination of the heavy snow and wind gusts over 50 mph will produce blizzard conditions at times in the Washington, D.C., to Boston corridor. Some gusts over southeast New England may reach 60 mph.

Snow accumulations of 12 to 18 inches may prevail from northern Virginia through southern New England.

At some point this joke has to be funny. Not so much right now. Northern Virginia really is the south, at least on my block. But looking out my front window you'd believe otherwise:

Sam and Lucy

Today's post is brought to you by the letter "S." S is for snow, and S is for shoveling and S is for school being cancelled. And S is for sigh...

Sam

Lucy

Guess it IS Snowmaggeddon after all

A few weeks back, during what was one of the bigger storms that the Washington DC area has ever seen, I said in a blog post over at DC Metro Moms that I guess it wasn't Snowmageddon after all. Well, today President Obama called this storm Snowmageddon.

Guess it really IS Snowmageddon:

We are at about 18" and counting, and it's still snowing. Our little baseball bat is almost completely buried due to drifts.

The Baseball Bat

At some point in the last few months Virginia was lifted up and placed in Minnesota. Yes, we live in the land of snow now. This past week the boys went to school for a total of TWO days. Monday was a holiday, then we were snowed out both Wednesday and Friday - from two separate storms. You see, this winter we have had in the DC area 24" of snow. Our average for this area is about 15". Already we are over that average, we have snow sitting on the ground, and they are forecasting between 20-30" of snow today and tomorrow. Yes, we might get 2.5 FEET of snow. This is still DC, right? Crazy. Anyway, instead of a yardstick, which we broke measuring the last snow, we are using a handy dandy plastic baseball bat. The kids certainly can't use it indoors over the next few days, and hopefully it's tall enough. So far this is what we have:

First at about 11am this morning:

Then at about 7pm:

And now at midnight:

And apparently it will be snowing between 1-3" per hour over the next few hours. I'm wondering what we'll wake up to in the morning. Will we be able to even tell where the driveway is? Will we be able to get out to play tomorrow? Will it stop snowing at all tomorrow, or continue all day as they are predicting? Well, I can tell you that we will be able to find the driveway, thanks to Facebook and a fantastic hubby. My friends on Facebook (and one via e-mail) mentioned that they were shoveling or had shoveled several times today. You see, we snow deprived folks have to take our cues form our surroundings as far as functioning in conditions like this. So when I see that loads of other DC folks are shoveling, well, I send my hubby out. So he's out there right now trying to remove the 6-9" of snow that's fallen thus far:

And they are predicting another storm that will arrive next week, on top of the bazillion inches of snow that we have now. Wild, loads of fun, and makes for great sled runs. More from the bat tomorrow!

SNOW Again!

Is it a good idea for the sled driver to close his eyes? And does the passenger even care?

After sledding for a bit, Sam mastered the art of SNOWBOARDING down the hill!

Lucy was doing her part to "help" the boys build their snow castles.

And Max finally got up on the snowboard (and hit the ground a few seconds later!).

Lucy's Big Boots

Lucy loves her shoes. If she could she'd wear shoes all the time. She loves her snow boots the most, but this time she grabbed her big brother Max's boots and went running. So, we helped her get them on and this was the result: