Diary of a Homebound Family

This is what we woke up to this morning:
And, since I resisted the urge to order a studded-tire Subaru to have delivered this morning, it was quickly clear that we wouldn't be going anywhere today.

While I was momentarily lamenting the fact that I couldn't get out to finish my Christmas shopping, I actually realized that I have all my Christmas shopping finished! So, I decided to just embrace this whole stranded in the wilderness concept. Ok, we aren't exactly in the wilderness, but that just sounds more romantic, don't you think?

We started off the day with apple sausages, and crunchy french toast:

Peter and Soren headed out to sweep off the deck. Why exactly? Well, you'll soon see that the question why doesn't often come into the mind of the housebound. Kind of like mountain climbers, they swept it because it was there.

Of course, it is always only a matter of time before snow sweeping turns into snow throwing...

And when neighbors see that other neighbors are out it isn't too long until people are stopping by to chat...

After the sweeping we put on a few concerts in the family room. I play a mean kazoo. And yeah, I worked hard on that smeared mascara look. Much more "rock star" don't you think?

Soren ripped open a few Christmas cards that I'd set aside for him. He absolutely loves opening them and will spend several minutes looking at the picture on the front.

Once the cheeks were thawed from the deck sweeping, we all headed out for some more snow action.

Though Peter's idea of "snow action" is much different than mine and Soren's. Yes, he is actually shoveling our road!

Apparently the testoterone builds up rapidly in housebound men, because one neighbor got his truck out just to see if he could drive on the roads. This quickly led to Peter saying "pull me!"

Meanwhile, Soren was doing some creative snow planning himself...

Once he arrived at the job site (me pulling him and wheelbarrow down the road to where Dad had shovelled himself) Soren quickly got to work too.

Although we might need to put chains on his wheelbarrow tire next time.

After all the snow fun we came in for the requisite hot chocolate and left over french toast in front of the wood stove.

Which was also a convenient spot to be sure the rising bread was warm enough...

Sending Soren off for a small PBSkids.org break,....

...I whipped up a batch of cheesy cream of broccoli soup from the broccoli we froze this summer from Peter's garden. Yum!Then we cut up some pomegranates for dessert!

Fresh bread with warm soup on a cold winter day - what could be better?!

Soren's buddy, Maddy from next door came over for a brief - but very welcome! - visit this afternoon.

Then we made some no-bake cookies...

Which of course, led to endless negotiations of "how many bites" of non-sugary food he had to eat before he could eat a cookie.

We also tried to make some Zeusse Babbellaars, a traditional Dutch candy. Hm, not sure what happened there. The taste is good, but they didn't really set up thick enough to be hard candies. It is more like peanut brittle without the peanuts. Tasty, but strange.

And then of coure, there's nothing like a bath to kill an hour and a half at the end of the day.

It was above freezing for most of the day, so there was significant thawing. And the weather report from in town listed raining all day. More rain and warm temps predicted for tomorrow and Monday. I think we'll try to make a run to town tomorrow.