Big Snow

So in all my time living in this part of Washington, I have only a few memories of decent accumulation of snow. Now we can add one more. Being unseasonably cold and randomly wet, we got dumped on. I think it started on a Saturday, and just kept coming - the roads were awful! I went to my hip hop class (extremely slowly), but not many others did. I have been altering my route so I don't have to try to go uphill or turn left without a light. And don't get me started on the amount (or lack thereof) of cleanup there's been! Granted, since they don't usually see this they probably only have 2 snow plows, but jeesh, do something! Some of the roads had brine on them before the snow came, but after that it took several days before the main roads were plowed.

Of course, lots of snow meant time in the snow. But the snow was too dry (all powder) to make any snowballs or snowmen. Z liked it all the same, though. With all the snow we had to constantly shovel, brush and de-ice the walk and driveway (thanks guys :)), so Z had a good excuse to "help" Dada. He wanted his own bucket and shovel. This day he didn't get to stay outside long as the wind chill was just about at 0, if not lower. It was cold!!

With all the cold weather, we got to pull out some of our cold weather accessories. I wish I could find my snow pants! I don't know where they've gone...probably in some random box in the storage unit. It's lame. But I did find my scarf, beanie, and we currently have three sets of goggles, which of course all have to be out to play with. At first Z was a little scared to put them down over his eyes, but then he thought it was great fun.



I think this is my favorite - I look at it and wonder where my little baby went! He looks so old here.

The boys shoveling the snow again.

I for some reason hadn't gotten a picture of our "cookie man house," but I'll hesitantly admit that after sitting for several weeks Z and I actually ate some. He really wanted to eat it, so I figured it wouldn't kill us. Just old frosting and really stale graham crackers. With m&m's, of course. Those were the parts he really wanted :). Wasn't too terribly awful, though it was really sweet! One day I felt myself getting a little jittery afterward, so I had to eat something with very little sugar to offset it.

I don't remember exactly what day, but one night we went out to the mongolian bbq place. I used to go there a lot, and it's so yummy! The skill is getting all the food in your bowl, then piling on the noodles. It's fun. Though I did find out that for next time I need a lot more veggies. Man, how one's tastes can change!

Zach has also been quite the copycat lately. Jason spends a lot of time on the computer "working on job stuff." It's almost the sole reason he's on there when Z is awake, so Z has started to need to work on the computer so he can work on job stuff. He'll even pretend he's working on other things like boxes. It's pretty cute - he'll move his fingers as if he's typing.

We've also picked up several neat books from the library. Our favorite lately have been the cinco monitos books - the five little monkeys. Their bilingual, which is helpful. Though I'm not so sure about some of their translation. But Z gets a kick out of them. We read books so often that he knows a lot of the lines. It used to be the Fraggle Rock book "Case of the Missing Socks," but now it's the "If I Ran the Zoo" book by Suess. J had mentioned that he gets a little bored reading books to Z while he sits on the potty, so I told him to read a few words, then pause to see if Z knows the rest of the line. Sure enough, he did. J was actually really surprised. Kid knows almost the whole book, even if they are words he doesn't quite understand. He knows the sounds, which is pretty cool. He's one smart cookie. We ran into a lady at the library and Z just started talking away. She used to (or still does) work with special needs kids, and her daughter had speech therapy a while back. She seemed to indicate that Z was quite advanced in his speech. Which is something we hear a lot, but have no basis of comparison. But he is one smart cookie.