Making a mountain out of a snowfall....

All told, I think it was closer to 12 inches out there...and the lower layer was WET and HEAVY. But still...I decided NOT to let the "irritation" get to me...and let the kids just play. Of course, I had to set some ground rules (STOP. EATING. THE. SNOW!), like stay out of the construction zone right next door please (the older kids in the neighborhood decided to jump off the sides of the excavated area. And no, in case you ask, the construction company did not bother to put up any restrictive fencing to keep the kids out. And yes, they KNOW we have several kids here, because they see them playing all the time. I may have to request fencing...no...INSIST on fencing.

Anyway...the kids were sledding down the very little hill at the side of our house...they finally had the snow packed deep enough that they were getting speed and zooming over the berm that was created by the excavation of the area next door - it's just a small bump, about 1 1/2 feet up, but it was enough to give them a little lift.

While they were doing that, I was shoveling the driveway. Because of the way our driveways are all shaped, there is very little place to put snow, once you reach the bottom. I can't throw it to the right, since that's our neighbors' (party boys) drive (and they don't bother to shovel either). To the left, I have about a 1-2 foot strip of land - this is also where the cable and electrical junction boxes are, so I can't really bury those. And if I throw too hard, snow ends up in yet another neighbor's (Cindy) driveway. I decided to try and get as much as I could to the top and right. I was pushing snow UPHILL. But you know what? It was worth it. I made a decent sized hill, and the kids were sledding off it. It shot them right into Cindy's driveway. She is not home, she's at work, and her daughter, Jisel, is my babysitter. She also happened to have a few flying saucers in her car, so the kids were able to stop bickering over the only two flying discs we had (Hannah's and Scotty's).

Here's my mountain:

see the clean driveway, up to the garbage can? Because it gets a lot of sun exposure, by this evening, it will be dry and clean...and since it's uphill, that's a GOOD thing!


Here's Hannah...just about ready to go down the "mountain" for her first run.


And there she goes - the track of the hill took them right between the car and the garage.


Scotty gets ready for his run...notice the dirt on his face? That's from eating snow. He also gets really red-faced when he spends a lot of time outside, but he just has SO much fun!


CHEESE! He really should be saying SNOW!!!!


This is Kamryn, one of the neighbor kids. She had a blast going down the hill. She's only 2 (will be 3 in March), but she keeps up with all the big kids in neighborhood. She's a tough little cookie. She's not even LITTLE...she stands as tall as Scotty does, and they're a year apart!


This is Darius, Kamryn's older brother - he's 4. As you can see by their faces, they ALL had a good time. I wasn't able to get any good pictures of Will, and Tre and Ty went in before I brought my camera out....but I'm sure they'll be out again later! Though I don't think I'll make it out again, except to go for groceries and out for dinner tonight....