First Snow and Family Sing

The second week in December brought us our first real snow fall. We'd had some flurries and even a dusting, but up until that point we'd been very disappointed with our late winter. We are snow lovers here at the Spangler house, and Jackie is no exception.

The boy was just giddy about getting to have his first snowball fight of the year. We have no idea where he gets that from.

We played outside for almost an hour, scraping snow off cars, building mini snowmen, dancing in falling snow, and catching snowflakes on our tongues. Jackie happily walked up and down our block with the mommies in tow, soaking it all in.

By the time night fell, there were several inches of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down in sheets. We almost didn't make it to the annual family sing, but something like that just couldn't be missed, so we bundled up and braved the snow.

We gathered with friends and Jackson's music class teacher for drumming and bell ringing and singing holiday standards. Jackie didn't know many of the songs, but that didn't stop him from drumming right along.

He even broke out the "clatterpilar," which is as fun to play as it is to say, and danced around singing "Let It Snow." And snow it did, while the fire inside Barlow Mill was delightful, the weather outside was frightful, and we ended up getting almost a foot of snow before the storm passed.

Welcome to winter in Western New York.