We survived Soup Night and the Snowpocalypse

We had a small crowd the first Soup Night.  Seemed like that happened last time too.  More people came the following three, but there wasn't any one night that was too crazy thankfully.  I think the most we had was around 30 people.  Of course, this was the night the dishwasher broke, but we survived!  Mercer seemed pretty happy the last 3 Soup Nights because there were kids there.  Hard to say if he even ate soup!  Isabella has been going through a clingy stage, however, by the last couple of Soup Nights -- she's been loosening up a little... letting others hold her.  She's also been walking more and more.  A couple of Saturdays ago, she took 18 or 19 steps out of the blue minutes before people started to arrive for soup.  Throughout the evening, she would take 4-5 steps at most before falling down. 

Her balance and confidence have grown tremendously over the past couple of weeks.  She can ace the 18-19 steps while even carrying something in her hands.  She gets a couple of feet from whoever she's walking to and she lunges the last little bit.  You have to catch her or else she would certainly face plant!  She is choosing to walk the majority of the time now, but still falls a lot and crawls a bit. 

She is waving bye bye again; she had stopped for awhile.  She blows kisses and makes a "mwah" sound when she moves her hand from her mouth.  She leans in to kiss too - sort of planting a kiss on your face making the same sound.  It's adorable~ 

 
 
Isabella is donning a cute hat and sweater here.  She got dressed up to go to a preschool open house at our church.  It's a really cute school with some great enrichment activities there.  I really liked it, but realize it's not set up for those with two working parents.  (At her age it's only 2 days a week for 3 hours each day.)

Isabella is officially no longer going to daycare.  I especially like the woman in the baby room (who was SO SAD on Isabella's last day of daycare).... but.... it's expensive.  Without a job - we just can't justify sending her there.  We'll have to see where I am after the summer to know for sure if she can go to the preschool or if she'll be back in an all-day daycare 3 - 5 days a week.   

Here's Mercer wearing a hat too:  his 100th day of school hat.  He wasn't mad about wearing it - rather for some reason he didn't want me to take his photo. Day 103 should have been cancelled.  Mercer's school was not called off here where we live during Atlanta's "Snow Jam" or "Snowpocalypse" as others call it.  After lunch on Tuesday the 28th - it started to become obvious that we should be getting the kids out of school - but at that point, it was too late. 

One of our neighbors left at 12:30 to get check her girls out early from school.  2 1/2 hours later, she had only gone 1 mile.  The roads were gridlocked.  She pulled off the side of the road, parked her car, and walked to the school to check them out (pretty much on time... 3:15).  Cell phone service wasn't working so well.  We communicated between texts and voice mails (because we could never connect).. she was going to check Mercer out too so that I didn't have to get Isabella out in this mess & get stuck too.

I thought that Mercer would ride the bus home.  Certainly that would be safer -- much heavier than me driving my Prius out in the snow with a baby?  But when I called the school to check on the possibility of our neighbor getting Mercer... they said the buses had not arrived.  They were running way behind & if I had someone to take him home - do that instead.  As it turns out, the bus service was cancelled.  (This was a smart move as it turns out because in other counties, there were buses that never made it to their destinations.... the kids and drivers had to stay on the bus overnight!  UNBELIEVABLE!  At Mercer's elementary school, there were kids that didn't make it home 'til about midnight.  Some kids in other schools in our city had to spend the night.  At least they had heat & bathrooms, but I'm sure it was still scary for the kids and parents.) 

Mercer walked home 2 miles in the snow.  (we got 3-4 inches as shown in this picture of our back yard)  It sounded like Mercer was being stoic the whole way home according to our neighbor. But - when my neighbor's sister walked Mercer down to our house & he saw me, he lost it. 

He immediately started bawling "my hands hurt.  they hurt they hurt!"  "My feet hurt.  Mommy make it stop!"  It was traumatic for Isabella - she started bawling; honestly I had a hard time keeping it together too.  I looked up things online on how to warm him up without scalding his hands and toes.  After about 20 minutes later, 3 snacks later and a cartoon streaming on TV... his sobbing stopped.  Whew.  He was pretty much back to normal! 

Todd called about that same time.  His call actually made it through.  He and I were connecting via voice mails too.  At this point, he had been on the road for a couple of hours, however, he had not made it too far.  He just started his new job the day before.  Thankfully, this office is a little closer to home.  It cut hours off of his commute that evening.  (Here's a shot of his new office - with yellow door.)  He finally made it home around 7:30 pm -- took him approximately 5 1/2 hours to go 6 or 7 miles.  He also walked the last 2 miles of his journey because the sun had set and the snowy slushy roads turned to ice.  People in front of him were sliding around and getting stuck.  He tried helping some stranded motorists too on his way home.  We were SO GLAD to see him and be reunited as a family! 

As mentioned - the kids stuck on the bus overnight was just hard to believe.  (in my opinion - the biggest travesty of the whole day but there were tons of other people who spent the night in their cars as well.  Some people that we know didn't make it home 'til the next day (sleeping on cots in hotel ball rooms or crashing at friends-of-friends houses). 

This definitely made national news as a giant "fail" for the city of Atlanta.  Here's a shot from one of the news channels of abandoned cars at one of the exits between downtown and where we live.  I am sure that Mercer (with his cold feet and hands) and Todd (with his 5 1/2 hour commute) will never forget that day!  Thousands of others will not forget it either.  One thing that was positive that came out of this.... that there were a lot of good Samaritans that came out of the woodwork.  Strangers helping others.  Those stories are heartwarming and continue to be revealing themselves days later.

The next day - with all of us together - was MUCH better.  Isabella got to play in her first snow.  She seemed to enjoy it.  Mercer really enjoyed sledding, making snow angels and having snowball fights (he could dish it out, however, he wasn't so good at "taking" it). 

 
 
 
Todd sledded down the big hill on our street with Isabella in his lap.  She had a HUGE smile on her face each time they went down.







































We walked the neighborhood.  Mercer found a group of kids to play with.  His enjoyment level went wayyyy up (except when some slightly older kids included him in their snowball fight).

Later, we also enjoyed eating snow ice cream (4 cu snow, 1 cu cream - left over from soup night, 1/4 cu sugar, tsp of vanilla). Mercer added sprinkles to his.

 
And - before the snow melted, Mercer and I made a little snow man.  (He's hiding another snowball behind his back here~)




It was a beautiful snow fall.




All-in-all, we had a good time (of course - after everyone safely made it home). 




PS - don't foget about the blog post that was uploaded 2 days ago.  (should have been uploaded a couple of weeks ago, but somehow never did)