Friday Five - Snow Day Edition

Today's Friday Favorites are brought to you by #allthesnowdays...

When it snows in The South, everything shuts down. We don't have the equipment to deal with it (since it happens so seldom), so literally the schools and businesses close - for one inch of now.

The school closings actually started last Friday when there was a threat of ice, but Parker and I snuck out for hot chocolate and cappuccino before the temperature dropped and the ice set in. #priorities 

Monday was a holiday for MLK day, and then Tuesday and Wednesday were called as snow days... they're fun at first , y'all, but then it gets a bit stir crazy. Also, we got one inch of snow. Not enough for the really fun stuff, but pretty nonetheless. 

I busted out the macro lens and tried to capture some of the snowflakes. I had so much fun but the macro lens is no joke. The depth of field is basically nothing, so for every in-focus photo, I had about fifty blurry ones! 

So what does one do on a snow day? Well, making an ice ring bird feeder was first on our list! We just filled a bundt pan with water and sprinkled in dried orange slices, cranberries and rosemary from the garden. It froze pretty quickly and Parker thought it was so neat. 

Playing in the snow of course, though we had to limit our time outside because it was so darn cold - like eight degrees when we woke up on Wednesday morning. 

Piano practicing - Parker even had a song in his book titled Snowflakes! 

And game playing. I introduced Parker to Race to 100, a game I used to do with my first graders. All you need is a Hundreds Chart (print one from here), dice and place markers. Each player takes turns rolling two dice (start with one die for an easier version for younger kids). The player who rolls the two dice adds the numbers together (encourage your little one to identify the larger number, then use the dots on the other die to "count on") then moves his or her marker that many spaces on the Hundreds Chart. The first player to 100 wins! I love that this game opens the opportunity for math talk and gives hands on experience with the chart (Parker was already making observations like "our numbers are ten apart" at points during the game). 

Give me this lunch on repeat for any snow day - tomato soup and grilled cheese. Yum.

I also tried this recipe for Banana Sticky Toffee (Bread) Pudding from my current issue of Food & Wine magazine. I randomly had cream, dates, and overripe bananas so it was just meant to be! The recipe is very forgiving - I mixed up one of the steps and used a circle plan instead of whatever it called for, and also accidently added an extra quarter cup of butter - but it was still delicious! Think banana bread, but better. 

While Parker napped I worked on organizing. Each year after the holidays are over, I hole punch that year's cards and secure them with binder rings like these ones. I love being able to look over past years' cards! I'm also making a separate book of our own cards to keep for Parker. 

The back of our cards usually have a little update from the year, and it's neat to look bak through all of them. The first card in Parker's book is the Christmas card we sent when I was pregnant with him!

I also love to reread Marie Kondo's second book every January for organization inspiration. It goes over specifics of how to store items, and I took the "everything vertical" suggestion to heart when cleaning out Parker's game cabinet. It's working well!

I was also able to get a bit of blogging done! I usually skip over writing about our travels. By the time we get home from traveling, I'm usually playing catch-up and never get around to it. Or, if I do write about a vacation, I peter out half-way (I think I made it to Day 3 of our Honeymoon, haha). But for our recent London trip, I made a real effort to record every single day. I wanted us to be able to look back on the experience, but also, when I was planning London, I loved reading every bog post I could find on every single aspect. The flying, the restaurants, the attractions. So I wanted to put our take on everything out there as well. If you missed the London recaps, you can find: Day One HERE, Day Two HERE, Day Three HERE, Day Four HERE, and Day Five HERE (our last full day in London, Day Six, is coming soon!).

So, who else was "snowed in" this week? 

SaveSave
SaveSaveSaveSave