Snow Day

We woke up this morning to snow!  It was so exciting to see the flakes coming down, and to know we already had plans to meet up with friends.  We were getting ready to leave the house and the girls decided they wanted to do each other's hair.  Grandpa and Grandma Mary - we opened one of your presents early, and as you can see, it was very well received - thank you for the horse hair brush sets!!

They are already being put to very good use.

Hair is a serious business - at least Clara thought so.  She had Elena sit there for at least 15 minutes!

Then we headed up to our friends' house, and played in the snow.

Okay, so Elena played in the snow.  At first, Clara just wanted to stay inside and play Rock Band on the Wii.

Our friends' son, Grant, very sweetly watched over the girls while they played outside, and Christina got to stay inside toasty and warm.  Elena begged to go on the snowy trampoline, but once she was hauled up there she decided it was not her best plan and played in the snow on the ground instead.

And just as she was ready to come inside...

...guess who was ready to head outside?

Thank goodness for Grant!  He took over with Clara and helped her make snowballs while Elena got warm and settled inside.

With a nice mug of hot chocolate and marshmallows.

She and Charlie had a nice warming-up hanging-out party while the other kids stayed outside.

Clara settled in to munch on some snow - also a lovely snack.

And she was SO proud of the snowballs Grant and she made together!

Catching snow on her tongue - she reminds me of Lucy from Charlie Brown.

Soon enough, though, she was lured back in with a warmer snack of hot chocolate and marshmallows.

What a fun first snow day - and what fun friends we have!

Then we went home, had naps, and had our traditional first-day-of-snow chocolate chip pancakes.  And by then, all the snow had melted.   Well, it's okay with us - a little bit of it is fun, a lot of it is just a headache anyway!
***** Edited to add these favorite quotes of the day:

Elena:  Mommy- you are so patient to me.  You are so nice to me.  You are my Mommy and my sweet heart.  (First time I got praise like that, totally unprompted and out of nowhere while we were driving to Costco!!!  I so often feel like I am NOT those things that it meant the world to me that she would say that).

Clara:  (During a dance party we had this morning, dancing to Taylor Swift) Mommy, look!  I'm like Rachel! (our first babysitter).  I have chocolate hair! (she has brown hair -not sure why Clara thought she did at the moment, too, but she was kicking her legs out in a very high stepping dance and she looked SO proud of herself).