baby, it's ridiculous outside

We woke up this morning to -15 without windchill. Awesome. It's been super cold for the past week or so making it impossible to have fun outside. Especially with someone who keeps saying, 'Mama, Guthrie like summer. It summer yet?'
No, sweetie, it's not summer yet. Not for a l-o-n-g time.
When Gus has gone out in the snow it's like she's not sure what to do in it, so there hasn't been much playing or enjoying what kids normally enjoy about winter.

Well, we can't have that now can we?

So, I've been hunting around for activities that are more indoor than outdoor but still involve the elements.
On Wednesday we made ice shapes.



I saw it in my Family Fun magazine and then found this cool website. We'll definitely be doing some balloons and buckets later on, but for now the cookie cutters worked great.
We picked several cookie cutters and put them in the bottom of a roasting pan. Guthrie cut lengths of her yarn and we put them around the tops of the shapes, but then put the ends outside the pan so they wouldn't be encased in ice. Then I filled the pan with enough water that the cookie cutters were about 1/2 full and we put it on the front porch. We checked on it several times which was fun and even though I'm sure it was frozen solid in like 5 minutes we left it out overnight.
Run some hot water over the pan and the shapes pop out pretty easily. We lost an arm on the gingerbread guy but that's about it. I think they look great on our front porch and they haven't melted at all. If you lived in a place where it wasn't quite cold enough I think it'd be just as cool to freeze them in the freezer and hang them up one cold morning. I'm looking forward to seeing how they melt.