We did, in fact, make it outside to play in the snow this afternoon, and everyone had a good time. The snow was not sticky enough for snowmen, but there was still plenty to do out there. As promised, here are the pictures.
Sophie went for a ride in Julie’s old sled
Julie got in on the sledding action for a bit.
Julie made some snow angels. It looks like she’s in pain here, but she’s having fun – her face is all scrunched up because she doesn’t want to get snow in her eyes as she flails her arms around. I took a video of this, and it is mildly hilarious, but features my nasal voice directing her so we’ll pass on the YouTube this time around.
Julie with a big chunk of snow. We couldn’t really form snow balls, but there were chunks laying around where the snow plows had thrown slushy snow off the road. Notice Julie is not wearing her handknit hat. She’s fickle about which hat she wants to wear which day. This one was a gift from Uncle Dave last year.
What do we do with those chunks of snow? We throw them into the street and watch them smash. We call this a snowball fight. Our lawn is pretty much flush with the road, but Julie is about two or three feet up from the road on the piles left by the plows as they went through. St. Louis Park has some of the most efficient plowing routines I have ever seen – they had already been through once when we woke up this morning and came through at least once more before noon.
Me and Sophie. I can’t seem to find the hat that goes with my glittens, so I had to dig out this floppy old model that is huge on my head. I think this was my first attempt at hat design from maybe four years ago.
Sophie was getting cold, so we headed inside. I took this picture a while later from the back door. Joe and Julie were digging forts in the three-foot pile of snow by the driveway.
I finally had to insist that Julie come in after she’d been out there for an hour and a half – she was still having fun, but I didn’t want her to get too cold. I even got to serve her a cup of hot chocolate, and we all got to experience the torment of waiting for it to cool enough to drink – a fact of three-year-old life that I had long forgotten.
In knitting news, I have pulled out the blue and white Wooly Stripes yarn and the knitting machine and am going to have a second attempt at that sweater. I did a bunch of re-measuring and some more swatching and blocking then more re-measuring and some calculations, so I think I may have it figured out this time. It is worrisome that the gauge changed so significantly the first time between swatch and garment. I wonder if it could be that the weather changed in the intervening month or so, and maybe that affected the springs in the machine or something? The only other thing I can consider is maybe I was handling the yarn differently – maybe I was more careful to pull the yarn free from the skein before knitting it in the actual garment than I had been in the swatch. Wish me luck as I have my second go!
It looks like the girls had a great time!
Fun snow photos! Good luck on the stripey sweater.
Wow, looks like fun!