Sara’s handmade Valentines; she named this painting, “Sparkly Purple Heart”. We missed her class party, but we’re still taking these to school this week.  No one worked harder on signing cards than Sara.  She used real letters and everything (to quote Miss Sara).

Valentines Day and the State-wide celebration and chaos that IS my birthday leaves us facing the rest of the winter.  Celebration-less.  Fanfare-less.  And quite honestly, simply covered in snow.  Snow followed by snow, making the world so white that this afternoon I couldn’t tell where my street ended and the drifts began.  Up to the mailboxes…banks upon banks of snow.  I like snow.  Until about February 14th, when, I’m kind of over it.

I could possibly enjoy the snow if the magic fairy who gives our children crack pipes at night would stop giving my children….well…CRACK.  I feel like I’m living inside a pinball machine.  My girls are the balls, just bouncing around, off of me, into me, until I lose my temper, grab their arms, and yell, “STOP!  STOP MOVING!  STOP FIDDLING!  STOPPPPPPPP!!!”  Oh yes, I did it, at the grocery yesterday.  After quietly requesting that they wait patiently by the cart while I took 30 seconds to pay, they proceeded to shove our cart into the cart behind us, fall into the bag rotunda, rip off not only the plastic bags, but the stack of reusable bags as well, stumble out into the main aisle, where Sara tackled Kelly by grabbing her hood, attempting to hug her on the way down, landing them both on the dirty floor.

A group of us tried to take the kids to a bounce place today, only to be run over by a 9 year old birthday party so rambunctious, we had to ask for our money back and leave.  At least it’s not just us.  Apparently the 9 year olds have cabin fever twice as bad as the 4 year olds.  Even the 4 year old boys in our group wanted to leave.  That’s BAD.  We found a mall playground where they were happy enough to run and laugh and grab a little lunch.  After the girls got out of their seats, um, maybe 200 times, and Sara once again pulled Kelly to the ground, again by her hood…I threatened the girls within an inch of their lives, and put them to bed.  WHERE they have been talking FULL VOICE for an hour.

That leaves me only one option: back into the snow suits.  That was SO FUN, about 2 weeks ago.  Now it’s cold.  It’s wet.  And I’m thinking of putting up the Easter decorations, just to have hope for spring.  I must run…I’m hiding every ounce of sugar in the house until the kids calm down.  I figure 6-8 weeks and they’ll be human again.  If you need me, I’ll be hiding in the back of my closet eating vanilla wafers and fruit snacks.  Let me know when the snow stops falling.