We had our first blizzard of the season. The snowfall the other day was beautiful with large snowflakes drifting gently to the ground. I was quite impressed with the accuracy of the weather forecast. I was told snow starting at 2pm, and amazingly the snow started to fall at exactly 2pm. That’s gotta be noteworthy! Around here it never seems to snow or rain when they think it will.
Later in the night the wind picked up. It howled and on occasion shook our windows. Thunder was even heard in a few locations. I received updates from some other people locally that power was out in some locations that stayed that way for a day or so. Our lights did flicker once or twice, but we lucked out and kept our power.
Yesterday morning, roads were icy and several had not been plowed. Hubs went out and shoveled our driveway then headed out to a morning meeting. When he returned I headed out to run a couple of errands. Man will I tell you I am happy we have a Jeep with 4 wheel drive! I stayed mostly on emergency snow routes, but had to veer off to some side streets for some of the stops I needed to make. It was great to see everyone helping each other, giving rides, jump starting cars and I even caught a group who were using their private snowblowers to plow through a street that hadn’t been cleared yet. All of this was happening in extreme cold with the wind blowing something fierce.
The decision had been made earlier today, but solidified then…my kids weren’t getting out in this beautiful mess until it calmed down some!
So, we needed some fun winter activities to do with the kids while we were in the house. Here’s what we came up with:
1. Baking. Nothing better than warming up the house with the oven on and some amazing goodies heating up on the inside!
2. Playing Pretend. We do a lot of this, but even more over the last couple of days. All of our dress up clothes came out for princesses, pirates, police officers and everything else their little minds could come up with. We even pulled out their Care Bear costumes from Halloween!
3. Warming by the Fireplace. The whole family, cats and dogs included, loves to curl up in front of the fire place! We keep our house fairly cool in the winter, so any chance to warm up a little more is always welcome. We pull out pillows, bean bags and blankets to make some little nests and comfy spots to sit and watch movies, read or tell stories. We’ve been having a blast!
4. Board Games. We have a ton of games to play, but we never seem to ever pull them out. Being snowed in really seems to spark that inspiration and motivation to pull out those games and start playing! Right now the girls favorite is Monkey Dunk.
5. Get Moving. Being cooped up in the house can leave everyone on edge with some built up energy. Why not take some time to exercise! It will burn that energy and it will warm you up in the process Dancing, yoga, sit ups, whatever you want. Our preference is always dancing because we just love to get moving. But I won’t turn down a chance to relax some with Yoga when the girls head off for naps.
This post is so timely. It just started snowing where I live on last evening, and has not stopped. I have all of my cookie making ingredients ready.
We always have hot chocolate when the weather turns back. It just makes it feel more festive. We play board games, watch a movie, or sometimes we do a lot of cleaning since we are stuck inside.
Cleaning is always a good thing, lol. We try to do a little every day, but there are always big organizational projects that seem to be pushed aside that we can do when we’re stuck indoors!
Love these! While we won’t have snow, we have had quite a few rainy days where we’ve been cooped up in the house. Dance parties are a favorite here. As are pillow and blanket fort building.
Love blanket forts! Another thing we do is push all the chairs together and create a boat, then we can pretend all kinds of things with the boat…pirates, fishing, sailors or even princesses sailing across the ocean!
Living in the SW desert, we don’t get snow like this. And ya know what? Sometimes, I really do miss it. Most times… not so much LOL
Same here! As crazy as Nebraska weather is, usually we get a 1 to 3 big snows each season and it melts away within a week. It’s enough to give us a taste without having to deal with it for 3 months straight, lol.