Cold This Cold

When the temperature in Antarctica

 matches the temperature in Iowa, 

...it's officially cold!  

Cold this cold used to scare me.  I remember thinking that my newborn bald-headed baby Noah was surely going to freeze to death in the cold of night.  The winter of 2013/2014 was the year of the last polar vortex, and it was the coldest cold I'd ever experienced in my life.  Such extreme cold feels a bit more common now, and we have offically reached the point in the winter when the temperature feels perfectly reasonable as long as it's above zero degrees.  And while none of us prefer it, there is a special magic that comes with hunkering down, bundling up, and weathering the storm together.  

School has been cancelled three times so far this year.  When the wind chill makes it feel like -41 degrees at 8:00 in the morning, you don't go to school.  

Cold this cold means lots of snuggling around the fire, 

and reading around the fire, 

playing games around the fire and basically living in front of the fire. 

Some of the curtains stayed closed during the coldest days, 

and I boiled lots of water to help keep the air warm.  We don't like dry air around here!

It means heating the house up with cooking and baking- cookies for everyone!  Emma's specialty is smashed down, tiny chocolate chip cookies- everyone loves them!

And lots of walking around like this.  If you're not wearing at least three layers, socks and slippers, you'd better not complain about being cold!

Everyone is really into coloring, drawing, and creating at the craft table lately, so that took up several of our cold day hours.

And we had to do the traditional subzero temperature turn-boiling-water-into-snow trick (which looks even cooler in slow motion). 

Emma's face tells you how cold it was on the other side of the door.  The door was originally frozen shut- it took a few good minutes to get it open!

Cold this cold means getting a little stir crazy and having some fun! 

 Leah and Adam helped me put together a "Snow Castle" escape room for Emma and Noah. 

And the kids spent hours one day building Magnatile castles on light boxes.

 Eventually, the stuck-inside-cold even meant cleaning up the billions of LEGOS that have infiltrated our house.  No small task, but it feels great to have it done!

And like all things- good and bad- eventually the temperatures warmed back up and everyone headed back to school.  But we had a whole lot of fun while we could!  Snow days, and cold days, are good days at our house!