This picture shows a great day. We took this picture in our backyard after we received over a foot of snow one day in early December. It was my youngest daughter Kate's first time playing out in the snow. All bundled up and unable to move! The big kids pulled her around on the little toddler sled we bought for her (complete with a seatbelt!) and she lasted about 15 minutes. Alison and Christopher lasted much longer, sledding down a little slope in our backyard for about an hour with Daddy and then making a Ninja Princess Snowman. (In case you're wondering, it was holding a stick "sword" while wearing a tiara. This is the compromise reached between a 5-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy). It was a fun, beautiful, fantastic winter day - topped off with hot cocoa and marshmallows.
Fast forward nearly two months later. Here in Minnesota we are enduring days where the temperature never even reaches zero. (I laughed this morning while watching the Today show and the reporter was in Times Square in New York City holding a thermometer showing how "freezing cold" it was in NYC...a whopping 16 degrees. Amateurs.) Our hands and lips are chapped beyond recognition. My children are slippery from so much lotion and chapstick. It is too cold to play outside. We are getting tired of outings to Target, Costco, Perkins and the library. We just want to ride our bikes, swing, and breathe some fresh air.
But that is all at least three months away. This is the "hard" time of a Minnesota winter. Christmas has past. The joy and delight of the first big beautiful snowfall is gone. And now you are left with cold, hard, dirty snow and much-too-cold temperatures. But through all of this, I look at this picture. The fun and joy of Minnesota's winter beauty. Snow angels. Cocoa. I'm trying really hard to remember this!
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