When I picked her up at the end of school day, she informed me that it still hurt.

“Well, you probably bruised it”, I stated.

“Oh no! Does that mean I have to go see the TOOTHODONTIST?”

Earlier this week it was “Five Little Junkies Bumpin’ on the Bed”.

Tonight’s music was courtesy of the jingle on a TV Commercial.  ”I’m Sixty And I Know It”.  (We didn’t bother to correct the lyrics.  ”Sixty” sounds better than “sexy” when it’s coming from a 5 year old.)

She’s five.

She can belch the alphabet and giggle all the way through it.

Last night she had her words mixed up and serenaded us in the car on the way home.  She sang “Five Little Junkies Bumping On The Bed” (at the top of her lungs).  She had no idea what she was saying but she finally got the words right on the last verse and sang “Five Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed”.

She was bummed out last night because when we told her “We have an appointment tomorrow night to get our taxes done.” she really wanted to get them done right then.  This is a consistent theme with our daughter.  One year, she actually had a pretty major meltdown because there was a really big snow storm on the night we had scheduled and everything was closing early.  Through sobs and tears that night she whimpered, “But I want to get my taxes done….”

Tonight Em was cuddling on her Daddy’s lap and leaned within 5 inches of his eyeballs and very matter-of-factly stated, “Wow!  You look tired!”  She then proceeded to point out the dark circles under his eyes and the fine lines on his face.  Glad it was his lap she was sitting on.  I have a lot more dark circles, lines, and my gray hair count is catching up with The Hubs.

This girl also has a very keen sense of smell. She stuck her nose almost IN her Daddy’s mouth and asked what the smell was on his breath.  (Let me just say that someone’s nose that close to my mouth makes me very uncomfortable but apparently sniffing each other’s breath is something they do fairly often.)  He told her it might be the smell of a drink he was drinking.  ”No.  It smells like food.”  And then the investigation and inquisition  began.  I’m not sure if she ever closed the case or if she chalked it up to daddy being a lunatic.

Just another 24 hours of life in our family.

Created at 5:30pm one day. Melted away by 5:30pm the next.

One of the many joys of living in Ohio:  You never know what the weather is going to do from one day to the next.  Thankfully, I had informed our daughter early on that Snow Momma might not last very long.  In true form, Snow Momma was gone in 24 hours and still looks like just a snow turd in our yard just 3 days later.

“Yeah, but I’m not done napping yet.  I’ll get up soon.”

Ten minutes later, I manage to crawl out of bed after my Sunday nap.  Man, I love those things!  (Well, who am I kidding?  I like any kind of nap!  I’m really good at them!  But I digress…)

When I find Em, she’s sitting on the couch with a new set of clothes on.

“Mom.  You know I accidentally slept with my clothes on last night?”

I’m wracking my brain and specifically remember her picking out a pair of summerish pajamas that she wore last night.  I’m sure of it.

“Em, you DO realize that this is still Sunday, riiiight?”

“Oh, no!  I thought it was Monday and I was going to school today!”

Fast forward about about 20 minutes and we were back out in the snow.

This kid has been looking forward to building a snowman since our first dusting of snow.  Around here, you never know when or if you’re going to get this kind of snow again so we had to take advantage of it.

Now remember, it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve made any sort of snowman.  I always have this idea in my head that it’s going to be really fun and really easy (because everyone’s snowmen always look really good).

However, those dreams are hardly ever my case.

(I apologize for the bad lighting in the pictures… we didn’t get outside until about 4:30pm and we were losing daylight fast!)

Example #1: Frosty the Termite Mound

Example #2: Lumpy the Snowman

Almost done... Snow Momma

Em's very own Baby Snowman

I started to make my own baby snowman and determined pretty quickly that my gloves were VERY dirty. Can you tell?

My Baby Snowman and if you look really close you'll see the hubs in the window.

Now that Daddy was up from his nap, we begged him to help us find a carrot from the fridge for Snow Momma’s nose and then finished our creation!

Nose in place and a kiss goodnight!

Momma Snowman and her maker

And when the Snowmomma was finished, we took a final opportunity to sled once more in the backyard before it melts this week.  The track was fast and fun!

…. as a follow-up, when we came inside we told Daddy how tough it was to make the snowman and how much work it really was.  He didn’t seem to be buying it.

Later, I found out he thought THIS was the snowman that we had been working SO hard on…

...really? This took an hour to make?

It wasn’t until he went outside to pick up pizza for supper that he became acquainted with Snow Momma!

Ah, family life.  Hehehe…

Soooo. What are your thoughts?  Do you like to make snowmen?  Do you roll them or have to sort of pat them together like we ended up having to do?  Are there special tricks to making snowmen?

I hopped on the sled and made a few starter tracks and the rest is history…

This morning is just one of those days.  Cold air, crisp snow, crunching underfoot.

My last couple of weeks have been pretty rough.

It’s a stressful time at work, which leads to a stressful time at home because I have trouble shaking things that keep my mind spinning.

I’ve broken through the home stress with grace and mercy from my family and the crunchtime at work is starting to die down due to passing deadlines.

Which brings me to crunchy snow.  Have I mentioned I love crunchy snow?

Days like these are the kind I wish I could capture in pictures or videos but you just can’t capture the cold, crisp air coming in and filling your nostrils and lungs and awakening you as opposed to the regular flinching and ducking your head like you’ve done for the past several weeks because the wind is what delivered that cold air.

Today actually brings the coldest weather we’ve had yet this winter.  It was 7°F when I left the house this morning.  The lowest we’ve had so far has been 13°F.  I know this because our 5-year old daughter is our family meteorologist and loves checking and reporting the weather every day.

If 7° is what it takes to get crunchy snow.  I’ll take it.  The sun is shining this morning.  The sky is blue.  And, the snow is crunchy.  I love the sound it makes as I walk across the parking lots and sidewalks.

It’s still not a great snow for snowmen or snowball fights but it will work for sledding.  And that’s what I’m hoping to do this weekend with our daughter before the predicted rain comes.  Yes, I’m going to go sledding, in the brisk air with crunchy snow.   Hopefully the sky will still be blue and I can take my camera along for the fun.

If I do, I will share pictures because I’m nice like that.  That’s how I roll (in crunchy snow).

Aunt Shell presented us with this picture at Christmas.  Em was unprompted and had written this on her own without copying it from anything. 

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