Snowmageddon!!!

 Life in Northwest Arkansas was almost back to normal after our Feb 1st "Blizzard" when only 8 days later the "Largest snowstorm on record for Northwest Arkansas" 

slammed Bentonville with 2+ feet of snow!!

not a pic from NWAR but too good to pass up for the 2' of snow!!

 We went to bed with no snow on the ground, and none in sight in the sky.  Even though the weather man predicted a winter storm... it was hard to believe one was on its way.  Many schools canceled in anticipation before even a flake hit the ground.  Not ours though...

So, the first thing I did when the alarm went off bright and early was to check the school closings, even before I looked outside.  When I saw our school listed as closed I went back to sleep, and did not wake the boys.  

Shortly there after I was awoke to Dru coming in my room saying "MOM, school's cancelled!" I asked how he knew, because I hadnt even told anyone yet???  he said: "anyone could know mom, just look outside!"  To my shock... this is what I saw:

 what??! Never have any of us seen so much snow, and the sky didn't look as if it was letting up anytime soon... but even if it did, we don't even own a snow shovel!

 

We felt so sorry for our poor dogs. The snow was over Candys head, and McCains hips are so old and frail she couldn't clomp through the deep snow.  So every hour or so we had to stomp out a path in the back yard for the dogs to walk on just to go to the bathroom.

 The boys were amazed at the quanity of snow... every so often throughout the day they would go outside to re-measure how deep it was getting.  Depending on the size of the snowdrift there were some pretty deep spots.  If we had a dime for every time Dru ran out the door to grab a handful of snow to chomp on I would be rich!  And no, he didnt mind running out real quick in his pj's, or 1/2 dressed.  The food of choice for the next 5 days was snow icecream!!!  I cant tell you how many bowls we went through.  

Brandon became an ice cream expert "Chef boy-Darby"!!

 We gave it a full day to stop snowing, then ventured outdoors with the goal of building our first ever igloo... 1/2 a day later, with 75% daddy muscle, 25% kid assistance, and 100% mommy cheer-leading & encouraging... we were done!!

 Eston was very interested in making a snow man... But the snow just wouldnt pack well that day.  

But, the following day Feb 10th it was perfect packing conditions.  By then the roads were good enough for Caden to go sledding with a friend Dawson Bailey, and Dru had just plain had his share of the white stuff so I offered to be his snowman assistant.  Quickly I realized how out of shape I was when we attempted to roll these 1000 pound snowballs around to the front yard.  But with a lot of cheering and encouraging from Eston, and loads of sweat, and back pain... we finally did it!  Eston and Mommy built the largest yet Darby Snowman!!

When Dawson dropped Caden off we had him take our photo

of our freshly made Snowman!  

What a winter storm we had!

  Amazing memories of our 2011 Bentonville Blizzard and all the white fun that came with it! 

Snow ice-cream, sledding, snowman, snow-angels, snow fort, snow balls, and even an igloo... No power outages, and all 5 of us home on the longest snow-days ever.  

If only we were not going to be making up snow days in June...

it would have had a perfect ending :)