I asked for snow...

and we got it. 

Huge, slow-falling, beautiful snowflakes for me and my boys to enjoy.

And enjoy it they did.  We busted out the winter gear and spent the entire day outside.

And snow means building a snowman.  And in Rex's case...that means eating a snowman.

And the snowman's nose.  Poor ole' Frosty didn't stand a chance with my little muncher.

These boys worked to make that man out of snow, and they were quite successful.

(This is Rex doing his victorious laugh).

After a morning of building snowmen and shoveling our sidewalks, we took a lunch break and a quick nap and then headed out to harvest our own Christmas tree at a local farm.  It couldn't have been a more dream-like setting.  It was still snowing, there were tons of trees, and the boys were beyond giddy.

They might have been more interested in the snow than picking the pine.

And then it was back home to just enjoy our little winter wonderland.

Backyard.

Front yard and view of the 'hood.

We ended the day kickin' it eskimo-style by building ourselves an official igloo. 

Shawn even tried to convince me it was warm inside.  I took his word for it. 

The snow stuck around for about a week and a half before it all melted off.  Embracing my new found winter-self, I decided to take the boys sledding one day while Shawn was at work.  We had recently purchased two sleds for the boys at Bed, Bath and Beyond of all places.  So we bundled up, loaded the sleds and drove a couple of miles to the giant hill at the park near by.  I had heard people talking about sledding there, and I wondered how hard it could be.  I think I had been once when I was little and a few times at ski resorts since then and remembered it being super-fun and kinda a no-brainer. 

So we show up at "the hill" and see a kid from Roanin's preschool class.  He and his mom have been sledding for a couple of hours.  They invite us to join them.  I explain this is my first go-round and giggled nervously.  The mom assures me it is a piece of cake...her boy loves it.  I notice that her son has a different type of sled from ours, but figure any kind of plastic on the snow should do the trick.  The hill is quite long and steep, but has tons of room at the bottom and only a few trees here and there.  At the top of the hill, both of my boys are practically drooling to get on and "go, Mom, go!" so I throw Roanin on the sled and send him on his way.  He went about 20 feet and kind of just slowed down and tumped over, turning back with a huge grin and excitement for round 2.  Great!  No problem!  So I grab Rexy's chubby little body and set him on his sled.  It should be noted at this point in the story, that we had moved over about 3 feet toward the middle of the hill before I sent Rex on his way. 

With a little push, I shout "here you go, Rex!" and send him on his first official sledding adventure.  Not 3 seconds after letting go of his little back I came to the horrifying realization that he was going to have a completely different experience than Roanin did.  He instantly began to fly, and was speeding faster and faster toward the dead center of the hill where it is the most steep and in line with the few trees mentioned above.  I took off in a dead sprint, following my little blur.  After a few seconds of the chase, I saw my window of opportunity and knew I had to take it.  It was either make contact to stop him, or he was going to speed out of my reach and I would have no control over his outcome.  And let's be clear: I am not a fan of no control.  And in my book, even mis-judged, mis-guided, and poorly planned control is better than no control.  So I did what any normal control-freak would do - I took a flying leap into the air, diving toward my baby and grabbed his hood which was flying behind him.  I grabbed that little hood and held on with everything I had. 

I think we all know how this turns out.  The psycho-controlling mother dive bombs her two year old and sends him into a back-flip which results in a dismount from his flying sled of death and major snow-rash all over his chubby little cheeks.  It wasn't pretty, people.  Not pretty at all.  To say he was traumatized would be a gross understatement. 

Needless to say, Rex and I shared a sled the rest of the afternoon and I will never buy plastic disk sled (aka:ticket to hell) again.