I had to stay home with my kids on Thursday. Their cold sounds like a smoker’s cough with a layer of goop on top. Totally gross. The challenge was they’ve had it for two weeks now. Thursday seemed like the worst day though, and sure enough, one had a slight temperature.

All week long we’d been hearing about a nor’eastern snowstorm arriving Friday. Thursday night, the school cancelations started popping up on the bottom of the t.v. My husband thought it’d be fun to keep mentioning it to me- he knows I get way too excited about the thought of a snow day.

When he decided to call my cell phone though he crossed the line! I was upstairs getting the kids ready for bed and heard my phone ring. “There it is!!!!” I shouted and raced to my phone, throwing one kid out of the way and dodging around the other.

Then I heard him laughing. Very funny I thought as I saw his name pop up on the caller ID.

It was a short time later that I got a text saying my school was canceled. Relief hit me as any work pressure melted off my shoulders for the next day. The girls’ school was canceled an hour later which was also a relief.

They would have been so disappointed having to stay home another day. They would have to miss out on the book publishing party scheduled for Friday with juice and Oreos.

What a snow day it was! The girls spent two hours making homemade Christmas gifts with paper, thread, beads and cloth. They almost let me nap during that time.

Then we watched Rachel Ray, my guilty pleasure t.v. show. The girls love hating that I watch the show. I love the recipes, I love her smiling silliness, and her generosity towards so many wonderful causes. I also love her references to Northern NY. It’s not too far from where I grew up. The girls say they hate the show- but they often end up watching it with me. On Thursday they learned all about challenges in Ukraine and the strength of the Ukrainian people. Rachel showed footage of her third trip there.

After Rachel, we bundled up and went outside. The wet, packy snow was perfect for snowball rolling, so we ended up making a fort three stories high! The girls climbed it and jumped off. They crawled around the top circumference of it. They spun and bounced around the walls inside it. I tried to lob snowballs into it with mixed results. We had a wonderful time. All in all we spent three hours outside yesterday.

Then we took a hot bath. The fresh air, followed by the steam of the bath will help loosen the gunk in their little lungs. Finally, they got on clean pjs and played indoors for an hour. We finished the day with chicken pot pie for dinner and watching “Alone at Christmas.” This is on Amazon Prime. It is similar to “Home Alone,” but with animals as the protagonists. Instead of Macaulay Culkin setting traps to catch robbers, three different dogs trick the thieves and wrap them up as presents at the end. The girls laughed and laughed from start to finish. My husband and I were cracking up too. And every few minutes one of my girls would say, “Oh yea, I remember this part, this is great.”

Talk about a snow day! Grateful and looking forward to more days at home with them over winter break.

What are your favorite snow day memories? Do you think they should be remote work days? Please share in the comments, I’d love to know your thoughts.