Forty Inches of Snow and Counting

Thus far Iowa City has received 40 inches of snow, half of which has fallen in the last 2 weeks. And it is only February 9, with more snow predicted over the next several days. It has really become a joke here amongst the people; there are no more snow shovels in town, no ice melt, and there is no where else to plow the snow that is falling so trucks are hauling it all to who only knows where. Right now we have about 20 inches of snow on the ground, and no warm up in sight to melt it.


This is a "before picture". Not much is happening, but I posted it so everyone could see the dramatic difference between this picture and latter ones. Here we had 10 inches of snow on the ground (8 inches fell on Super Bowl Sunday and 2 inches from an earlier snowfall). The snow that is falling is the beginning of the 11 inches of snow we received 2 days after the big game. Please note the lack of giant snow drifts and that you can still see the wooden planters and bushes.



Olivia has some snow time fun with daddy.

An "after picture" with 20 inches of snow on the ground. Let me tell you, shoveling was no fun since we had to really lift the shovel pretty high to get the snow over the drifts (a big thanks to the 2 neighbors that helped us!). Anyway, as you can see, the drift is higher than Olivia (even if you took away the wooden ledge it still would be), the lamp is buried, and on the right side of the picture is where the wooden planters are supposed to be.

Here you can see that Olivia's leg is completely sunk into the snow and I doubt that she is even touching the ground. Her big smiles didn't last too long in the snow today. It is difficult to walk on, impossible to sled in, and wasn't that enjoyable overall.

Ethan buried up to his shoulders in the snow. He was obviously not happy about sitting in the snow.

Olivia loves the book "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" where they make pink snow. So of course we had to make some pink snow today, too.

Joe made a snow tunnel for Olivia today. When else will this chance arrive? I cannot remember central Illinois receiving this much snow all at once for decades. I must admit, I was much more excited about the idea of a snow tunnel than Olivia was, but she still enjoyed it.

Ethan still crying in the snow.

Joe enjoying his creation.

Where is Waldo? (I mean, Olivia.)

Since Ethan was crying in his previous pictures, I wanted to post a happy picture of him. He really is an overall happy baby - not much crying comes from him. Just lots and lots of energy - he is now an expert crawler, is starting to climb on things, can dance (just sort of bounces along), waves when prompted, can walk behind a push toy for a short amount of time, and loves to babble loudly (namely mom-mom-mom or bababa, Joe is working on dadada).

Just a random picture of how Olivia attempts to keep Ethan at bay. Her new game is to shout "Oh, no! There is a monster baby coming! Help!" She will then attempt to "save" whatever toy she is playing with. At least Ethan thinks it is all fun and games. Learning to share with Ethan is an ongoing process now. She shares great with kids her age, though, so we have hope that this will eventually transfer to Ethan as well.