On Saturday the snow fell steadily all day, and nobody lasted very long outside. It was pretty gross out there. Scott and Jed did try, though, and I opted to watch from the warmth of our apartment. Jed insisted on bringing his umbrella outside, which I'm sure did keep him a little warmer as it kept the snow from falling on him...but my suggestion to wear a snowsuit, a hat, a coat, and gloves fell by the wayside and Jed froze after just a few minutes. 4-year-olds aren't known for their great rationality.
With the desire to be outside now solidly checked, we mostly stayed inside and played, and put together Jed's new loft bed that had arrived in the mail on Friday (perfect timing!). It wasn't supposed to arrive until the beginning of the following week, but I wonder if they made an extra effort to deliver what they could early before the storm hit. Jed helped assemble the bed, of course. Scott had to complete the last 30 minutes of work by himself, because I got too frustrated and needed to cool down - so Jed and I played Super Mario Bros. until Scott was finished.
We tried to find lots of other things to keep us occupied while we were cooped up inside with the grey and snowy skies outside, but we were all feeling the cabin fever pretty badly. We decided to make adjustments for Sunday to boost morale!
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| A variety of inside activities |
On Sunday we woke up to sunny skies and 3 feet of fresh snow - we could tell from the beginning it was going to be a better day than Saturday. We made a list of lots of options and displayed them on a board. As we did each of the activities, we moved that post-it over to the "done" side of the board to see our progress. Jed was in love.
We did things inside, but made sure to spend plenty of time outside as well, with lots of snowman-building and snow-shoveling. Jed had a great time helping everyone he could find shovel snow away from their cars. He of course wanted to come inside and drink hot chocolate when we were done, though I'll be honest - I was sweating like crazy after shoveling all the snow! My back wasn't feeling too great either. It made me wonder what kind of increase in business chiropractors see after a major snowstorm.
Monday was Jed's birthday, and we had planned to go pick one out a fish with him that day. We'd been prepping him for about a week, talking about what we need to do to prepare our house for another pet, what steps we need to take to set up the aquarium, what the fish needs, what we will have to do to take care of it once we get it from the store, etc. He was BEYOND excited and remembered everything we had been reading about what betta fish need. It was been really fun to see him be a part of the process, and he seemed much more invested in the fish than he might have been if we just said, "Hey, here's a tank! Do you want a fish for it? Let's run to the store and buy you one right now!" Impulse buying isn't usually a great idea, especially when it comes to pets.
Because of the storm, Scott had a couple days off of work. Sadly, he didn't get them for free, as the federal government expects employees to telework on snow days - or use annual leave. Scott wasn't set up for teleworking at that point, so he had no choice but to use leave hours. So we made the best of them! Jed was thrilled that Scott was home to celebrate with us all day on Monday. He had been telling me for a couple weeks that Scott was going to be home for his birthday, because it was "a special day, like a holiday." Luckily for him his prediction came true!
The first thing we did was make pancakes for breakfast, and the second was call the pet store to see if they were open or not. They were, so we drove to the store to get Jed's new fish - which he named Siamese Fighting Fish ("because that's what he is"). After getting the fish situated in his new home, we went to Silver Diner - Jed's favourite restaurant - for lunch. He was in heaven.
His first birthday celebration was super fun, but Jed was lucky enough to have two of them. He and his best friend, Eve, had planned a combined birthday party that weekend and invited a few friends. After much discussion, they finally landed on the idea of having a "royal" party. Katie Curtis (Eve's mom) and I collected giant cardboard boxes and over the course of several days, built a kid-life-sized castle in her living room.
The day before the party, Jed and Eve exchanged their birthday presents for each other. These kids are so cute! Eve gave Jed some rescue trucks, and Jed found a few DigiPenguins for Eve that sing individually, or as a choir if you put them together.
The kids had a great time at the party, and were SO excited to be together. Katie had the kids decorate their own (giant) "tea cups" with Sharpies and then we baked them in the oven at a low temperature. I made each kid at least one sword, and made a couple shields that everyone had to share (they took much longer to make than the swords!). They were a huge hit, especially with the castle to play in!
Finally it was time for cake and ice cream. Jed had requested a sandcastle cake - which at first I thought would be easier than making a cake look like a real castle, but it turns out that combining frosting and animal cracker crumbs and making it NOT look like a lumpy, crumbly mess was more difficult than I anticipated. But after much trial and tribulation, I ended up with something that wasn't terrible. The kids helped me add all the gummy bears, as "guards" for the castle. But since we used toothpicks to stick them on, their impaled little bodies seemed more like warnings to invaders...But whatever they were, the kids had a blast decorating and the cake tasted delicious.
We wanted to do a pinata but didn't think that having a bunch of kids inside swinging a stick or bat around wildly (and blindly) sounded like a good idea. So I found an idea for a ribbon pinata online and made one of those instead - it even worked with our castle theme! I took an old oatmeal container and cut turrets into it for the shape. Then I made a little trap door, lots of slits for ribbons, and stuck the ribbons through each one - except for one ribbon, which was attached to the trap door. The kids took turns pulling a ribbon until somebody found the one that released the loot!
All in all, it was a pretty fun day. I can't believe my little boy is 4 already!
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