Sledding!

As you may have heard, we've gotten some SNOW around here!  A few days ago we got about 10"-12" of snow and we are expecting more tonight!  The kids are having an absolute blast with it which is so fun to watch.  Here we are playing in the backyard.  

 Nolan carefully climbed the stairs of the playhouse and decided to go down the slide, crashing into a big pile of snow at the bottom!  He loved it.

 When Darin came home a few days later, we decided to go sledding as a family.  We found a big hill at the back of our neighborhood that we hoped would be fun to sled down.  It was nice because it was just our...no one else was there...and we could just walk down our street to get there!

 The kids asked to sit on the sled and have Daddy pull them.  Gotta conserve our sledding energy.

 So when we got there, Darin thought the hill was too steep.  Since this was my first time sledding, I didn't know much so I let Darin try it out.  Darin went down the hill by himself and it was quite a steep climb.  As soon as he got down, Nolan was begging to go with him.

 Wave hi to mom!

Wheeeee!

Whoa!

 Next it was Maya's turn.  Daddy had to help both kids up the hill cause it was so steep.

 Next, I went by myself to see if I could handle taking a kid with me. So much fun!!!

 Of course, Nolan wanted to take another turn, so off we went!

We got a little snowy on our landing....

In the meantime, Maya built herself a quasi-snowman.  The snow was still powdery in parts and didn't pack very tight I think.  Not bad for a do-it-yourself job though.

And from then on, Nolan was on a mission.  He began climbing the hill all by himself, all the way to the top.

 Then he would slide on his bottom all the way down!  He did this at least a dozen times.  What I thought was especially smart was that as the hill gets steeper, it is harder to get your footing without sliding since the snow was starting to melt.  Nolan started punching the snow with his hands to get himself a little foot hole to step in and that seemed to help him.  He figured that out all on his own!! My little problem-solver.

After watching Nolan for awhile (and building some more mini snow men) the rest of us joined him.  I have to say, sliding on your bottom is almost as much fun as the sled!  We all had waterproof snow pants and we really put them to the test!  Maya really had a blast too which is a big change from last year when her max was about 15 minutes outside in the cold.

 Of course, Nolan has been begging for the last 2 days to go sledding or play in the snow again.  I don't think he'll be disappointed to see 10 more inches of snow on the ground tomorrow!