22.02.2015

MELTING

It seems like winter decided to leave Boston over night. We spent a very low key weekend - mostly outside in our sunny backyard between mountains of melting snow. 


 Reclaiming our space!
 Samu spent half the weekend taking pictures - like this one - ...
... and the other half bouncing in the bouncy castle with Sofia.
The only other "news" is that Sofia got a new car seat (front facing!), which made everybody happy.
 As I said, it was a very low key weekend ;-)

16.02.2015

MORE SNOW!

Can you believe we'va had more snow? Another blizzard, and another snow storm. We lost track at about 8 feet, and we decided to stop counting.

Look at all the snow, look at all the shoveling we've done!








 Tired little snow workers.
 Indoor action: Neighborhood friend Kendall stopped by for a play date. We made a house.





 The indoor action highlight came by mail: A bouncy castle!

 Pumping was the best part ...

 ... until the bouncing started.



More indoor fun: Samu built a family of giraffes.

 And the kids love to play "night".
 Sofia got her first hair cut.
 Samu was his usual goofy self.
 And Sofia was also allowed to watch a video for the first time - but she was not interested.
 And finally: Marko made laskiaispulla! Num!
 In all, we're doing great. As long as the snow doesn't cause our commute to last forever, we are a very OK with it. It's a lot of work, but we still like shoveling, and it's very pretty!

08.02.2015

SO MUCH SNOW!

To be fair, people told us we'd have a lot of snow in Massachusetts, but we didn't expect this. Since the beginning of the so-called "spring" semester in late January, we have enjoyed 4.5 (!) snow days. We had one blizzard and several snow storms and can't even keep track of the inches and feet of white that are piling up around our house and turn our street into a maze. 

Before the big storm, the blizzard, we went shopping for snow day essentials, preparing for the worst (losing power). We found ourselves in front of empty shelves, but we managed to get the last flash light of the store. (Thankfully, we didn't end up losing electricity, only our internet connection was down for a day.)

 Fire wood and water - all you need.
 The next morning, we found ourselves snowed in.
 Thank God for Marko and his love of shoveling. (Note the fingers on the window sill - the kids were watching his every move.)

No daycare + no school = crazy kids. The new favorite game is, of course, "hiding from the snow storm".

 Samu and Sofia really love playing together. They seem to share the same goofy sense of humor.

 We watched the snow climbing higher by the minute...


 But once it was over and the sun came out, it was gorgeous!
 






Now, two weeks and 3 snow storms later, we have stopped watching the forecast. As Hanna is writing this, another storm and another snow day are in the making and the snow banks around our house have outgrown even the tallest member of our family. Although work-wise and traffic-wise this is bad news, we enjoy the extra time as a family.

Hanna's parents were here for the second snow storm of the season. Thank you for this picture!
 Luckily, Samu and Sofia are quite creative about playing inside: upside down art, icicle melting games, dress up races - you name it, we've seen (and likely done) it.







 And being at home a lot has other benefits: Longer chats with these lovely people, for example. It's like an order of happiness delivered into your dining room.

 I guess we can take one more snow day ;-)