timeline of a snow hangover

this is what i like to call a snow hangover.

the snow begins pretty. it always does. all dressed up and strutting her stuff. she is out on the town and knows she is looking her best.

that's the highlight reel, the cover page, the facebook profile pic.

snow is white and bright and full of herself.

  

this is not that. this is the morning after...

this is mascara raccoon eyes. hair askew and too tired to deal with it. 

she's a big hot mess. 

everything that got left outside and then buried under fluffy white goodness... is now found. nasty, wet, half frozen in ice...

sleds...mittens... a car carpet? okay.

what do you do with a snow hangover?? you roll with it.. and do chalk watercolor.

and be glad for galoshes. side note-- i think that's one of my favorite words. i think i could say galoshes every day and not grow tired of it. galoshes. love it. use it.

it's all fun and games till somebody gets wet. :)

so after several days most of the muck had subsided and i was out where you should be on the first over 60 degree day all winter.... with my spraypaint and a new project. 
ari then started showing the first signs of late stage snow hangover. giddiness. it's the sun. the fresh air. it gets to your brain. you've been inside so long you just contain yourself in the face of all this open space. she asked to do 'pictures'. which in her mind is posing with strange faces and awkward stances and taking turns creating blackmail evidence for her freshman year of high school. :) so at first i wasn't really feeling it...

but how could i let a 5 year old show me up? i couldn't. that would have been just embarrassing.... you want to rock it -- let's rock it.

and then just our luck daddy walked in the yard and we could pose together. too funny. too funny. i am telling you... fresh air giddiness.
that is the only explanation for this.

and then in the final stages... it got reeeeeallllly nice and we were just in trouble. shorts were pulled out. half pink toenails covered in the remembrance of last fall's pedicure were let loose... finally, shirts were shed and rousing games of ring around the rosy and i'll chase you and scare you with my gardening tools were had.

according to grayson an imaginary opossum was 'not nice' and took some serious blows to the face with my gardening digger thing. ouch.

but all's well that ends well.
no matter how severe a snow hangover is.. as long as it ends with sun and laughs and baby kisses.... it is all worth it. :)