A South Dakota Winter

I was pretty disappointed in winter so far here until last week. My expectations were then fulfilled. Up until last week, we only had one real snowfall, and that was in November. 

We got some pretty good ice accumulation with that storm that came at the beginning of January. Owen enjoyed ice skating on our driveway.

Our little town is awesome. There is an ice rink and free skate rentals through the city parks and rec. Camille had been looking forward to ice skating for the last two years, so she obviously enjoyed it. I think she was a little disappointed that it wasn't quite as easy as Daniel Tiger said it would be.

Owen just walked on the ice until I put him in the smallest size skates, which were still a size or two too big. He was okay in the too big skates.

We finally got to put the snowblower to use when we got the big snow. Camille also was glad to finally build a snowman.

Since it has been too cold to spend much time outside, I have come up with a schedule (that we don't really follow...) and a list of structured activities for the kids to do so Owen doesn't destruct the house everyday.

One of the more popular ones (as in they lasted more than 5 minutes) was building things out of marshmallows and toothpicks. Owen only ever built little dumbbells, but Camille made some bigger structures.

Another more successful one was whipping up suds with a small amount of water and dish soap. I even put different food coloring in each batch. Owen was hesitant to play with it, and I made the mistake of putting it in the bathtub, so it was hard for him to reach. Camille loved it though, and I used the opportunity to scrub out the tub really well after.

Owen has been obsessed with vacuuming, which I consider a win. Although now he demands to vacuum at certain times and expects me to clean up the floor so he can.

Camille has been into stealing my phone and taking pointless pictures of things like the kitties on her pants and videos of herself yelling and singing.

We have been trying to figure out the best way to do temple trips. We did an overnight one, which was a big hit with the kids since the hotel had a pool. Things weren't as cheerful the next morning when I was watching them while Brian took his turn. But Owen slept for 3.5 hours while we went to a dealership in Omaha to test drive a car, drove home, and then left him in the car until we decided he should wake up.