Icemageddon!

Friday morning rolled around and we were all pretty excited.  No school!  Who hoo!  What should we do, mom??  Well, how about make a gingerbread house?

They both loved getting to assemble and decorate it...

but then Lila took it to a whole new level.  So much for eating icing off of her hand--let's just get it straight out of the packet!

As you can see, this was by far her favorite part of the whole activity!

A few hours later, they finally talked me into letting them go outside.  We spent at least a half hour digging out ski clothes.  We tried our best to make the ski clothes fit Jackson that we bought a few years ago, but he's grown just a bit!  After his pants kept falling off because we didn't snap the bib, we cinched them up on one side, but that just made them come up three inches above his socks.  Finally we just went with it and both snow bunnies were ready to venture outside.  And, oh my, IT WAS COLD!!

They soon realized that EVERYTHING was covered in ice.  There were icicles hanging off of the trampoline...

and even though it looked like the playground was covered in a nice batch of snow, it was indeed ice, too.  Pretty for pictures, but not so easy to play on. 

J man slipped a time or two trying to walk up this part of the playscape.

After striking out on it, they headed back to the tramp.  Jackson worked for a while just chopping up ice with his hands.  He was very proud of this 1 1/4" thick block of ice that he got loose!

We'd almost had enough with all the crazy ice, but we had to check out the front of the house, too.  And yes, more ice was everywhere!  The driveway and sidewalks were just covered in it.  Homebound for sure.

Saturday morning we woke up to an even colder morning and it was Jared's birthday.  I felt so bad that we couldn't take him to a fun breakfast or anything of the sort.  The kids did, too, so they made him these signs and pictures and we created a birthday shrine to Dad before he woke up!  He loved it.  We had to cancel our dinner plans that night because the roads were too bad, but thank goodness for college football, because we watched a lot of it that day.  We had also made cookie bars at his request, so we lit some candles on them and sang him Happy Birthday.  Then Lila gave him her rendition.  It went like this: "Happy Birthday Daddy.  I still love you old man.  I still think you are handsome, even if you're an old man!" What a goose!

I sure hope he felt the love from all of us. We love you, daddy!

In addition to a few other gifts, the kids got their daddy this goofy shirt.  All three of them share an extreme love for the video "What Does the Fox Say?" so they got him the shirt.  Ha!

We also got him a Wake Forest beanie.  Not sure what he liked more, the gift or the kiss from his youngest:)

Sunday morning the kids woke up bright and early and were SO thrilled to be able to report that Johnny the Elf was able to fly to the North Pole and back the night before.  They were very worried about him because icemageddon had kept him homebound for the last few nights, too.  It was so good to see him back to his old tricks and they found him reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas to three of his friends.  Too funny, Johnny!

A little while later, we needed to go check on our old house in Garland.  Imagine our horror when we drove up and saw THIS!  Holy Macarel!  My mouth literally fell open.  Both big trees were down in the front yard and the whole neighborhood looked like a tornado hit it.

By this time, my dislike for ice was getting pretty darn high.  To fix this huge mess, my dad, Jared and Uncle Andrew had to spend the afternoon cutting it all down with chainsaws.  It was one day that I was happy to be 8 months pregnant and forced to stay inside. 
Icemageddon, we now hate you!

We still had one more bright spot in our weekend, though, and the whole fam was pumped to be celebrating Jared's birthday at Babe's Chicken Dinner House.  The chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and cream corn was calling our name.  The ice had melted on the roads so we did not anticipate any problems.  We arrived at the restaurant at 6:20 last night.  There were plenty of cars in the parking lot and people inside eating their delicious dinners.  Then we tried to open the door and it was locked.  Uh oh.  Then we saw it.  A sign that read, "We are closing early tonight due to the weather.  Closed at 6pm."  Neat.  Are you kidding me?!   At this point Jared declared it the biggest Birthday Fail Ever.  Thank goodness we were near A Taste of Italy and it was open.  We ended up having a great time with everyone and he was so thankful to have a big family to celebrate with.  Icemageddon, you may throw us a few curveballs, but you will not bring us down!