winter weather--finally!

We LOVE winter!!!!  And we have had our hot chocolate, marshmallows, and new popcorn maker ready to go, along with several "snow day only" special activities waiting, and it's been so warm, so rainy, so NOT winter-y!  But last weekend brought us enough of the white stuff to get out and shovel and wonder at the beauty of winter.

ghung-ghung was cold and forgot her parka (a clothing item modeled after animal blubber--a little Arctic info we learned!), so she snuggled safe and snug in Four's hood:)

             We filled our beach buckets with snow and created winter wonderlands in our jammies in the  
               living room.

It was interesting to see the differences in the ways Four played with the snow vs Seven's preferences.  Four needed her own space--her own bucket for her own "guys", which included moose, fairies, a gnome, bears, zebras, and a unicorn.  She carefully made blue footprints in the snow by dipping the animals' feet in food colored water and they walked around the snow.  Even though her bucket was MUCH smaller than Seven's, it was all hers, and that was more important.

I had set up a big, wide bucket with snow, ice cubes, and water made blue with food coloring, with the intention Four & Seven would share the space, but that didn't work out.  Seven was willing to share, but Four needed space.  Seven's play really reflected him--no nonsense, "real" inhabitants, non-fiction, serious business.

This polar play, with real snow, ice, and water is just so cool!  Seven played with this for ONE HOUR straight when we came in from shoveling. Four stopped for hot chocolate & popcorn after about 30 minutes, but returned to this play several times before bed.  And yes, you will often find odd things like a couple of huge buckets of snow and ice on any random day of the week, but, this is us. :)  And we have a lot of fun!