Snowpocalypse!

In Portland, gentle flakes of snow falling from the sky only have one message--batten down the hatches and grab all the food you can, your whole world is going to shut down!! Hours before the snow arrived we found out the van battery was dead, but luckily Jon had the day off so I got one more gym visit before we became shut ins. It was a good thing too. Have you ever sat inside for five days, watching snow fall and figuring out what to do? Here's what you DON'T do (if you're me)--anything productive. No clothes were washed, nothing cleaned beyond normal. We ate the contents of our freezer and from a large box of Valentine's candy and Girl Scout cookies from my mother in law. (Say what you will about mother in laws, but mine hates chocolate but does not hesitate to send a lot of dark chocolate our way on Valentine's.) We went outside each day with the kids, but between our lack of snow gear and Margot's 10 minute cold limit, we spent most of it inside. I made a big batch of play dough without any food coloring, which makes it look like well, dough. Margot ate a lot of it. Jon got out on Saturday to get a car battery and a few things from the store and called me that a certain delicious bakery was open and my response was "BUY IT ALL!!!" Oh, and we didn't even try and jump the van, it was too hard to get to and we couldn't drive it out on the roads (there was so much snow!) so we just figured it was a goner and bought a new one. Because we are, above all things, practical American.

One of my favorite things we did was make a lot of indoor forts with our couch, chairs, and a walking stick from New Mexico. I had reading constantly on my mind as that is all I do when it snows, so we put a sheepskin rug and pillows in there. I told Theo we would make it all nice and cozy, and he internalized that phrase as "cozy and sweet." So he kept saying, "It's so cozy and sweet!" "I'm going to make it nice and cozy and sweet." When I hear the phrase "cozy and sweet" I feel very afraid because it is so adorable it instantly makes me want to have a million more babies that will make up more phrases just like that.

Some people got a little stir crazy but I have to admit I did not. Jon happened to have Thursday off by a miracle, work on Friday was cancelled, it was the weekend, and then he went into work late on Monday. And the Olympics were on. I would have liked to sled or something if the opportunity arose but I was perfectly happy eating homemade chicken noodle soup wrapped up in blankets reading books on my couch, all cozy and sweet.

This is a blurry picture but still captures everything that was wonderful about fort time--pajamas, blankets, babies, books. And pretzels.