It's Christmas time

Little Aiden with his red, red cheeks and what he calls his "snow stick". He's really had a lot of fun playing in the snow over the past week and a half. It's certainly been interesting having this kind of weather. We currently have between 16-18 inches on the ground and I guess a little more is expected today and tomorrow. The stuff that's on the ground is strange though, as there was a bunch of snowfall, then ice covered it, and then more snow fell on top of that. So you've got this weird ice layer somewhere in the middle. Aiden is light enough that he can stand on top of the snow for a minute before he cracks through the ice layer. We had a fun adventure on Monday, when we walked to the store. It takes a lot of energy to walk through this much snow and even though the store is only 1-2 blocks away, we were exhausted by the time we got home. I ended up with very sore arms as I had Nathan in the front carrier and he fell asleep on the way home. So I was holding his sleeping head in one hand while I had a fairly heavy grocery bag in the other. It was still nice to get out and experience our winter wonderland.

After some snow fall - about 7 inches.

Add another 8-10 on top of that!

I've been keeping my toes very warm - knee socks, fuzzy socks, and slippers. Putting my yoga ball to good use too (as a foot rest!).

When I said it was icy, I wasn't kidding. This was going down the side of our building right out our front door. We're on the 2nd floor and it was like this from the roof, all the way to the walkway below.

Snow fall at night. It's really amazing how bright everything is with any light reflecting off the snow and the clouds. It's been so beautiful.

Nathan didn't like this very much, so we coordinated by John setting him in the snow and me snapping the picture quickly. I felt bad, but it had to be done. Who knows how long it will be before we get this much snow again?

Aiden's been loving this! We don't have gloves in his size, so he's been wearing a pair of mine. This picture was in between big snow falls. This is around 7 inches. The following day, he would step into the snow and it would be up to his knees.

The courtyard outside our apartment. It makes for a great photo background and many people have been coming by and taking pictures in this area.

I am happy that we will get a rare white Christmas, but I can't say that I'm looking forward to chaining up to make our way over to John's parents' house. For a drive that would normally take us 20 minutes, I think we'll need to give ourselves twice that much time, if not more. I suppose it depends on the road conditions tomorrow morning.
For now though, I'm looking forward to tonight (even though our church canceled the Christmas Eve service!). After we put the boys to bed, John will get to join me in a Christmas tradition that I've personally had for many years: wrapping presents by the tree while watching A Christmas Story. I finally bought the DVD this year and so I'll be able to start my tradition up again after a few years of not being able to watch it (we've not had the DVD and we only have basic cable, so no 24 hours of a Christmas Story on TBS for us). It's my favorite Christmas movie and I'm so excited to finally watch it with my husband.

Tomorrow morning, I get to wake my children up and open presents with my family in our own home for the very first time. This may sound strange, but oddly enough, we've never spent Christmas morning at our own place. We've always just gathered up the gifts and opened them with John's family. Don't get me wrong, I've always enjoyed it, but there's something about being here with just us on Christmas morning that I've been missing. I will be armed with the video camera first thing tomorrow morning!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. And for those of you traveling, I hope you have a safe journey - snow or not! Merry Christmas!