Confined

We are once again held hostage in our own home! Monday night we were under a blizzard watch which brought some ice and lots of snow. Yes, I said a blizzard watch! We are often under a winter storm warning but blizzard?!? Since when did we move out of Arkansas? Sheesh! When I first started staying home with Ashlyn it was so nice to stay in all bundled up and warm when winter storms hit. When I was working at the clinic we never closed, we would open late or close early but we still had to go in, so snow days were kinda fun once I had Ashlyn. Now, it kinda gets annoying! I'm just wondering if the ground hog sees his shadow today. Come on Spring!

Monday before all the snow came in Makenna came over to play while her mom took care of some much needed things. As soon as Makenna came over both girls were asking to play dress up. They are like two peas in a pod!
Right after Halloween I snatched up two princess dresses on sale for Ashlyn. They were marked 3T. I knew Ashlyn wouldn't get too much wear out of them but Aubrey could wear them in a couple years. When I got home and took them out of the package they were teeny tiny. They fit Aubrey now! The first time I put Aubrey in one of the dresses she freaked out. Ashlyn kept asking why Aubrey was crying and telling her "Aubrey, they are dress up clothes". Ashlyn couldn't grasp why someone wouldn't love dress up clothes! Ha! Well, Monday I put Aubrey in a Bell (Beauty and the Beast) costume like the big girls and she loved it. The two older girls were squealing when they saw her, they loved it.

I love how Aubrey is looking at Ashlyn, sucking her thumb of course. She is always watching Ashlyn, she loves her!

Typical scene in Ashlyn's room!

Tuesday morning we woke up to a little bit of snow on the ground. Schools were canceled and they were advising people to just stay in. Phillip packed his laptop the day before so he just stayed in and took some conference calls from home.

By mid morning it was snowing and blowing hard!

We just stayed in and played. It was too windy to venture outside. Ashlyn made a train in the kitchen. My mom has a picture very similar to this of my younger brother and I. Aubrey loved it and would mimic "chug a chug a chug a chug a , choo choo".


Today the snow is still piled high so we are hanging out at home while Daddy went in. His car is super good on the yucky roads so he decided to just go in. He loves being there on snow days because it's a ghost town and can get lots of work done in the quiet.
In an attempt to break up the snow day blahs we made some new crayons. I had a bag of old broken crayons from when Ashlyn was little. First we peeled off all the paper and separated them by color.


Someone else thinks she's big enough to help!


We broke the bigger pieces so they would all be about the same size. Or "make them look like the cubes Pawpaw feeds the cows" as Ashlyn says. Then we placed them in a greased mini muffin tin.


Next we baked them at 300' for about 8 minutes until they were all melted.


After cooling on the counter about 20 minutes I put them in the fridge for about 5 minutes. That will cause them to pull away from the tin and makes it easy to pop them out.


Ashlyn thought they were pretty cute and fun to color with! They are actually for Aubrey so she can hold on to them better. But after her attempt to eat all the crayons earlier we may put these away for another couple months! I'm sure they are non-toxic and safe but seeing crayon wax on her teeth makes me shudder. Yuck!

This is what it looked like outside my door this morning. It's a wee bit too deep for my petite munchkin to venture out in without snow pants.
Note to self, snow pants will be a good investment for next year!


And this is what the temperature looks like right now...

Right Now	Next 36 Hours

	Tonight	Tomorrow	Tomorrow Night
Cloudy	Partly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy	Mostly Clear
14°F	-3°	26°	5°

It won't be melting away any time soon!

Looks like MDO will be canceled tomorrow and we will be scrounging for some more indoor activities!