This winter I built an ice rink in our backyard. It makes me really happy to see the kids playing outside with a bunch of friends on winter days after school. One of the kids' friends told me she hoped the groundhog would see his shadow so that winter would last longer. How often do you hear that wish expressed? I think I'll have to buy hot chocolate and animal crackers in bulk though, because the kids do need to warm up once in a while.
We had some extreme cold for about 3 days the first part of last week. With the windchill it was as cold as -43 here on Monday and only marginally better on Tuesday. Amazingly, Thursday was above freezing. School was cancelled on Monday so the kids and I hibernated for the day, but had a fun time doing "home school." The kids did math, reading. piano, gym, art, home ec., and even a very interesting science experiment. We put out three containers with one cup of water in each container. In one we also added 1/4 salt and in another 1/4 cup sugar. We observed the containers every 15 minutes. After 2 hours, the water was frozen, the sugar-water was slurpie consistency and the salt-water was still entirely liquid, but very cold.
Tonight I was very brave and gave all three of my boys haircuts even though I was home alone (with Rob and Alyssa at a basketball game). Though the ordeal involved many tears (none from me, I'm pleased to say), the haircuts turned out well. The best part is I cut the hair short so we don't have to go through this again for a while!