snowy donut day

I think a good part of why I like living in the midwest/midsouth is the weather.
I love a good hot summer (but not never ending sweltering hot like Texas or Florida or Arizona) where you want to be in the pool or the lake and then also a taste of a winter with snow.
Oregon gets not enough snow and the rare and little bits we got were usually slushy and icy, while Michigan was too much... okay, not too much because really you can't have too much in my opinion; how about too long. It's so cold for so long it never ever melts and not seeing the ground from November to April is just ridiculous. The snow gets so gross; all dirty and gray and everything's just wet and gross and salt residuey and a nuisance in the end.

But in (certain parts of) the midwest and -at least for this year- in the midsouth, it's just right... a few-to-five inches of snow a few times a year... just enough to make everything white and pretty and for the kids to play in and maybe for everyone to enjoy a day off of school and work... and then it melts and everything goes back to normal in a day or two. You don't have to spend the winter bundled up like the arctic just to go outside and in fact the kids will be playing outside in the dry backyard again by the end of the week.
I love snow.

We got about 4 inches here overnight Sunday-into Monday. School was called off, and Ryan "worked" from home. We all ventured out bright and early to a friends' house just a couple of miles away where they have a great sledding hill in their neighborhood. We did the hill a bit, stopped at a playground for a snowball fight, and then ended up back at their house for some hot chocolate which turned into a day of lunch and Wii games together.
The afternoon was spent back at home napping, watching movies and playing out in our own backyard snow.

It snowed a good amount throughout the day and a little more overnight last night, so of course our overly cautious school districts all are still closed today. Ryan went back to work and we've had a lazy morning of more video games before I finally kicked the kids outside. They spent a good amount of time out back making a family of snowmen this morning and when they came in to warm up I had a little treat for them:


We all know donuts make hot chocolate better, but did you know that building a donut snowman makes both better?!















While the kids were outside and while I was heating water for hot chocolate, I remembered I had grabbed a bag of mini powdered donuts on sale at the store this week for a snowday treat. Then I scrounged through the cupboards trying to come up with snowman supplies... the donuts of course, pretzel sticks, mini chocolate chips, bell shaped candy leftover from our stockings and the key snowman ingredient; way back in the back of the cupboard, candy corn leftover from Halloween!! :)













I also found a Twizzler Twister in the scraps at the bottom of a still-in-the-pantry halloween candy bucket. What? It's only two months old.
I thought that would make a perfect edible scarf for our snowmen. Unfortunately the Twizzlers were just old enough that I couldn't exactly peel them apart in one piece. I spent a ridiculous amount of time on that stupid candy. It wasn't pretty.


So I clipped off a couple of scraps from some felt in my sewing stash instead.







And then both kids decided they didn't want scarves on their snowman anyway. :/

But they loved the idea of Donut Snowmen!



























































































Yum!!
It was a great come in and warm up activity after the snow. :)
































Happy
Snow
Day!