The Nemo Blizzard

The snow goes over the fence in our front yard, and above our mailbox!

The Weather Channel started naming all major storms this year, much to the National Weather Service's dismay.  Apparently only hurricanes are worth naming in the National Weather Service's eyes.  Unfortunately for the National Weather Service, these storm names have caught on, and everyone was talking about Nemo...the blizzard of 2013.  Lilly still talks about "The Sandy Hurricane," known to the rest of us as Hurricane Sandy, so she was thrilled to learn that this blizzard was given the name of her favorite fish, Nemo.  Nemo was quite the storm, surpassing all snow estimates.  The last forecast we heard on Friday was for 18-24 inches.  The town of Fairfield updated the snow amounts today to 35 inches of snow!  That's taller than Jack (he was 33 inches tall at his check up last week) and just a little bit shorter than Lilly.  There's no better way to describe 35 inches of snow than through pictures.  Lilly amazed me with her enthusiasm for playing in the snow.  She was out there for hours each day this weekend.  Occasionally, she'd run inside, freezing cold with her bright red little nose, and dump out snow from her boots or her mittens before sprinting off to play some more.

Jim was outside shoveling for a large portion of the weekend.  Unfortunately, being 36 weeks pregnant made me less than useful in the snow clean up, so I had to help by doing things like making endless cups of coffee.  Jim shoveled for 3 hours yesterday, to get to the end of our driveway.  And then today, he was out building a hill in our backyard for Lilly to sled down.  I don't know who enjoyed the sledding more--Jim or Lilly.

Jack enjoyed most of the snow from inside, although he did have fun venturing outside for small increments of time, to put his finger in the snow (he pulls off his mittens the second you put them on him).  But every time he fell, which was inevitable given that the snow was higher than him, his hands would land in snow and he'd burst into tears.  We learned that Jack doesn't like it when his hands are cold, and since you can't explain to a 16 month old that the answer to this is mittens, Jack enjoyed watching the blizzard from inside.

Early Friday morning--the snow was just beginning!

very happy to watch from inside

Half way up the garage doors!

the view from our front door

the view from our bedroom window

directing Dad on how to build the perfect sledding hill!

*change the settings to watch in HD!

A post blizzard, post sledding, post bath, nap.  This three-year-old loved the Nemo Blizzard, 2013.  And schools are closed for the next two days, so she has some time to recover!