blissfully buried

We got dumped on over the past 24 hours.  School was cancelled yesterday, there has been a traffic ban that just now got lifted, it has been dumping and blowing.  I have never seen this much snow all come down at once.  We went from not a trace of snow to this in just one day:

There’s a lot of it.  It is beautiful, all white and clean. And, I have to say, this whole storm has been glorious.  I love snow storms.  I love being stuck all together in a warm house with a cracking fire.  Good music playing, everything cancelled, everyone stuck.  Stuck together.  No errands to be tempted to run, no places to get to.  Just all of us cozied up. 

We all cuddled in our new big bed yesterday morning before the snow started coming down.  I love all of us together in bed.  It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it means time has slowed down and it’s all crystally (until someone starts kicking for more space). Jeff and the Biscuit (Em) made biscuits for breakfast and we spent most of the day getting tons of stuff all organized (things that have been bugging me forever). 

It started coming down in the afternoon and we heard they were going to ban all traffic, which we had to sort of ignore since the Kruckenboys were over at our house and we needed to get them, and all of us over to their house for dear little Saul's birthday.  So, we ventured out in Jeff’s trusty newish four wheel drive bishop-mobile and we got their safely (without being hauled off to prison for driving during the ban).  We had a lovely (but quick) birthday dinner for Saul and cake and presents and then slowly made our way back home through what was quickly becoming a real full blown blizzard.  Here we are trying to walk back to our house after parking the bishopmobile in the school parking lot:

(does everyone hate the way they sound in videos? especially videos where they are interacting with their children?  do I always sound that funny?)

Today we woke up to snow drifts taller than Emmeline and it was still coming down!  I told the kids they could go out after they tidied their rooms and made their beds and boy did they move fast.  They couldn’t wait to go out!  I felt like such an experienced mom as I told them all to go and use the bathroom before I bundled them in all those snow clothes.  After they took one lunge into that armpit deep snow I thought they’d only last a few minutes out there, but they were out for what seemed like forever, having the time of their lives.  Brave, warm blooded little souls. 

  The pictures just don’t do this snow justice, check out how they had to barrel through those drifts.  We were worried Em was going to get lost under there.

Peter and Jeff and I stayed inside to watch out for Em, tend the fire and bake the bread.  

It was a pretty idyllic day.  I nearly choked up when I took this video, scanning our little splice of life made me well up with gratitude for such simple things like all being together, slow, warm, unrushed and utterly present. 

Now, i didn’t snap pictures of the mess our kitchen was by the end of the day with a thick cocoa dusting and honey butter coating.  I didn’t video the yelling that happened during dinner because people were all sitting in the wrong spots or how angry I was that no one was helping me get the table set.  For some reason, those black marks on the day seemed faint, they didn’t feel big.  Somehow they were minor compared with how tangible all of our blessings and love felt.  Living presently puts everything into perspective.

Eventually Peter caught on to how much fun it would be to go out, so he and Jeff went out to move around snow drifts with the shovel.  We all adored Peter as he got ready to go out.  Everything that boy does is adorable.

I even made it out to shovel snow for a while.  Not sure how productive I was since the wind was blowing around all the snow I was throwing around, but man was that good exercise!  Made me feel a little better about eating nearly a whole loaf of home made bread.

The kids were pretty cold when they came back in.  Check out that ice on Charlie’s hat and Em’s eyelashes.   

Thankfully we had a big pot of hot cocoa to warm us all up, soup to eat for dinner and lots of Little House to read by the fire.

Living presently is a glorious thing.  Now I just have to figure out how to do it when I’m not stuck in my house.  How to choose to be present on a normal day.  That is my big motherhood challenge.  I want to look back at all these pictures and know I really was there, all of me, drinking in all the glory as it was spilling out from our life with these little kids. 

“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure that you are.” – Mary Jean Irion