Completely buried in snow

They are calling this a "classic Maine winter" (as if it's a nice, nostalgic thing...riiiight). The front page of Bridgton News today let us know that we have now surpassed 12 FEET of snow this season, with an average of a plowable storm every 3 days for the past 3 months. It's getting surreal. Pretty much all the windows on the first floor look similar to the one below. The view's gone, but we're pretty well insulated now! Here's a taste of life these days...

Entombed on the first floor:

Ava emerging from the igloo, a/k/a our house:
The one below is a house on the way to Ava's school. I think the snow sliding off the roof looks like melted fondant on a fancy cake.

Nina, The Movie

Below is a quicktime film that Frederique sent to me. Francois put it together. It's a huge file so I didn't want to email it around. It's about 3 minutes long. Enjoy seeing this precious little angel!

Absolute Silliness

Need I say more? Ava and her friend Willow got up to some silly fun while the adults enjoyed margaritas and a mexican feast (c/o Chris) at our house last weekend:

Valentine's spirit

A few recent pics - enjoy!
Ava hand-wrote 22 valentine's cards (boxes) in one sitting. She was pretty tired by the end, as you can perhaps tell here!
Examples of Ava's handiwork. We are so proud of her!
Our side door. It's still technically a usable fire escape as the door opens easily, but the mountain of snow beyond would take some climbing to pass over!
Ava put on a valentine's "show" for me, Daddy, and Tiki (Ava's green teddy bear). Everyone got a pillow for a seat, with personalized seat reservations in their name. Here is Tiki's special seat.
Sleepy bed buddies.

Snowbound

Another 10" of snow last night. This is a picture of our living room window, which is getting snowed in. While the insulating qualities are nice, the screen is starting to bulge ominously (our house did not come with storms for all windows, hence the shrinkwrap on the inside).
Snowdrift by front door is now approaching the height of the door (and there are 3 steps up to the door from the ground). Front window is only a hint behind the snow at this point!
Lily was so confused, she pooped in the driveway this morning. I didn't come down too hard on her. All surfaces now look the same - snow, snow, and more snow.

First snowman of the year

Ava's been waiting patiently this winter for wet, sticky snow to make a snowman, and it finally arrived...to her delight and my chagrin as I got some major sweat going trying just to shovel out the walk. We had 4" of snow and then a bunch of rain, then 2" more snow, then more rain...you get the idea. Yucky, heavy, wet stuff! She did this little snowman mostly by herself - her friend John showed up at the last minute and helped her with the finishing touches.

If you look behind them, you can see that the snow mound to the right of the front doors has reached the height of the middle grill of the front window. If I stand in the path to the door, even I can't see over it. Shoveling has become really tough - you have to throw it high and then it really has no place to go and often comes showering back down. And we have 6 more weeks of winter?!? I almost (but not quite) yearn for the upcoming signal of spring - mud season.