Cooped up

Winter finally came to Indiana on Wednesday. We got a nice coating of snow that lasted all day. All in all, we got a total of 3 inches. You would think it is 3 feet the way the news is reporting it. Cars skidding off the road!! Extremely cold temperatures!!! The winter that would never end!!! This allows me to get a few things off my chest.

1. The State says there is a shortage of salt. Every time the sky gets cloudy, there are salt trucks everywhere. If this is the shortage, I would hate to see what my car would look like when there is a surplus of salt.

2. Cars are skidding off the road. Well, this simply shouldn't be the case considering all the salt that is on the road. People see white and automatically do one of two things. They either drive at the speed of idling, or they drive straight into the nearest ditch, retention pond, highway sign. I saw an article on the front page of the paper this morning about this guy who crashed his truck. I started to feel bad for him until I realized he was standing in the snowy ditch wearing SHORTS! This brings me to 3.

3. It's Janurary. It's Winter. Start dressing like it people. My children had preschool canceled today because of the extreme cold. Get ready for this, my Minnesota and Wisconsin readers, it was -4!!!! Come on. I don't want to go "When I was in Minnesota..." on my neighbors,

but...

When we lived in Minnesota in the winter of 2004, I was pregnant with Evie. Like 8-9 months pregnant. In all of Janurary that year, the average temperature was probably 2 degrees. I had to walk about 1/3 mile from my parked car to the building I worked at the U. It was so cold one day that the power steering fluid in my car froze. We planned on going to the winter carnival to see the ice palace, but they closed it because it was too cold (-18 with a wind chill of -45). Now that is cold. All this and school wasn't even delayed. This -4 business is child's play. In fact, the kids in MN had to go outside for recess (even the preschoolers) until the weather got down to 10 degrees. No school delays because of the cold bus stop.

So, Indiana, suck it up, put a coat and hat on and consider dressing in layers. Fortunately, this weather will probably only last a week and we will be back to Indiana winter of 30 degrees.

Anyway, here's a picture of our winter wonderland. The one good thing about this weather and the mentality here is that people really look down on you for bringing your children out in this weather. This is a perfect excuse to stay in Pajammas or Sweatpants all day.
Our new year baby still celebrating.

This afternoon, Evie got out her 101 piece art set from Aunt Becky and Uncle Bran. (9 pieces are paper clips--I think I may have wrote that before)

Here's a picture she was drawing of me and Jim skiing. The finished product included pants, in case you were wondering.

The nice thing about this "extreme cold" is that the sky is nice and clear. We enjoyed sunshine through the windows all day today. The girls decided to read in the rocker. Evie is starting to read, but mostly is telling Annalise the story from memory.

Extreme Shlee.

These are the smocks that Aunt Becky made for Christmas for the girls. Aunt Becky, Annalise was excited about the dogs on her pocket.

LOVE. I may have to post this on my facebook page (hey, be my friend, if you aren't already!)

Then, I decided that they haven't drove me crazy today, so they would be rewarded with littering the floor with little bits of playdoh. Our playdoh is getting pretty old and hard and very crumbly.

Annalise made a square!!