Clara's First Snow Days

We were excited for Clara to get to experience her first real snow adventure.  We bought her some boots and snow pants and gloves to go with her coat and hat, so she was all decked out.  She had the cutest way of taking teeny-tiny steps in her snowpants and getting a sly little grin listening to the sussurus of the fabric against itself with each movement.  And she loved pointing out the window at the snow.  But when we got in the snow itself, Miss Clara wasn't so keen on it. 

 

She kept getting frustrated with her mittens and we never could get her thumb into the little slot that it is supposed to go into.  Clara also had a hard time maneuvering in the snow and that was frustrating for her.  But she looked so darling!

Every now and then we got a little smile out of her.  Usually it was when the dog ran past.

I explained to Clarabelle how to make a snow angel and then coached her on.  She thought it was lame and decided she wanted to get up.

I thought that maybe if we made her a snowman she would get excited about being outside in the frigid temperatures, but the snow just wouldn't stick so we had to abandon that idea.

Next we tried sledding.  The first run went okay and we got a few smiles out of Clara-girl, but they didn't last long.  She was pretty apprehensive by the third or fourth short slide down the slope in the backyard.

We tried sledding again a couple days later on Christmas Eve when the clouds parted for a little bit in the late afternoon.  Paul's parents have a long steep driveway that they use as a sled run.  It is really fast and I was honestly a little worried about Paul taking Clara down on it.  The mountains and trees were beautiful covered in snow.

Clara enjoyed the speed of the driveway but they were going too fast and I was worried that she and Paul were going to crash so we moved to the practically flat front lawn area. 

After a couple more tries, we were all just getting colder and colder and it was making Clara frowny.  Like, seriously frowny with one frozen tear trickling down her cheek.  Poor baby.

With all the snow and Paul's parents house tucked up against the mountain, it felt a lot like we were really staying in a cabin in the woods.

Once we went inside and warmed up, Clara was a lot happier playing with the toys in the basement.

Maybe next year she will like the snow better.