Despite our best intentions, February flew by without any posts after our Disney World recap. We are now anxiously awaiting the birth of our son, so what probably could and would have been two posts will end up crammed into one. Here are our girls dressed in their Sunday best.
We had a large blizzard that hit us on the East Coast the week of Martin Luther King Day. We wound up being reasonably close to the hardest hit area. When it was finally over, we had around 28 inches of snow at our house over the course of 24 hours. The wind driving it caused drifts much larger than that. Here I am trying to shovel us out the next morning during a lull, before all the snow had finished falling. As you can see, the drifts at our house went up to my waist. I enjoy shoveling snow, it's one of my favorite winter exercises, but even I was sick of it after a while.
When we were deciding on dates for our Disney World trip, the week of the blizzard was the other option we considered, due to the MLK holiday. Tanja's pregnancy and Morfar's work schedule helped push us a couple weeks earlier. Obviously, we're glad we did. I wouldn't want to have tried to drive home in this, and we probably wouldn't have been able to make it. The girls enjoyed playing in the snow; here's Karina on top of our 5-foot-tall pile after I finished shoveling that section of driveway.
Here's Lydia all bundled up and playing.
Climbing up the hill of snow.
They thought it would be funny to lick the snow. At least it was fresh, makes it a little less disgusting.
Lydia had a hard time climbing up. Either that, or she hasn't quite mastered the art of making a snow angel.
Karina at the end of our freshly shoveled driveway. After the third wave of me shoveling until I got tired (no sense causing myself a heart attack), one of our neighbors with a snow blower took pity on me and slowly made his way across our unplowed street with his snow blower to help me finish the driveway. Twenty minutes with him helping easily saved me a couple more hours of shoveling by myself.
Declaring success - you can see how tall the pile of snow is behind me.
Then it was time to clean off the deck for fear that the weight of the snow could cause a collapse. So a day or two later, we were out there to shovel and clear the snow. Karina and Tanja came out to help. Karina tried her hand at making snow angles.
Then they got into a snow fight - occasional snowballs, but mostly just tossing the fluffy stuff around.
We made good on our promise to build a snowman - this one wasn't my greatest work, and his head was barely supported by his scrawny little neck, but we managed. I haven't really been able to roll big snowman-style snowballs out here. It's unclear to me whether my skills have atrophied, the snow is different, or having kids asking if the snowman is done yet is the real cause of my futility.
Lydia "helping" me clean off the remainder of the driveway after the plows came.
The plow for our particular cul-de-sac did an excellent job of clearing things out right to our driveways. Since the rest of our neighborhood wasn't plowed nearly as completely, I imagine it is because we have a school bus that comes into our cul-de-sac and has to turn around. Makes it nice and convenient for us, I guess.
The snow eventually melted, and our house was one of the last in the neighborhood to still have some snow in our yard due to the shade and things. In the meantime, here are the girls playing dress up and looking so fancy.
One day while I was at work, Tanja and the girls went to a local nature center. One of the rooms has a lot of dress-up clothes, animal furs, antlers, etc. Karina decided she wanted to be a bumblebee - I think she's pretty cute.
Here are our girls:
And Snoopy:
Mormor came for a visit in anticipation of the baby. Tanja was having contractions early, and so Mormor even changed her flight to come a few days earlier. It's been nice having her here. One day, they went shopping at a second-hand store. Apparently, this T-Rex from Dinosaur Train was too exciting to pass up for Lydia, so she came home with a new toy that roars and talks. I muted him about a half hour after I came home.
Lydia is obviously very excited about her new treasure.
The other find is this tunnel - it seems to be more heavy duty than the ones I have seen at IKEA. It has thicker fabric and a stronger frame, so I think it was a worthwhile purchase. They have had fun playing inside it, standing it up on its end with it pushed down, then letting it bounce up over them, etc.
Both of them with their new treasures. Lydia thought it would be funny if her dinosaur ate her, so that is why she has her chin inside of its mouth.
Mormor with the very happy girls.
The girls were kind of crazy diving into the tunnel from the couch.
The girls are excited to have the extra attention.
And I am occasionally called upon to be a horse carrying them around the house.
Karina and Mormor playing catch with her tights.
I guess it is funny to have extra long fingers by grafting LEGO Cinderella castle pieces onto fingertips.
As I finish this post up, we are at the hospital as Tanja is in labor. Everything is going well, and we are anxiously awaiting our son's arrival. We will probably update the blog soon with baby pictures, but we have a few other pictures on Mormor's camera and on our phone that we will have to look at and post if they are good enough as well.
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