Bigger and Better

We are down in Eau Claire for Thanksgiving.  Today we were at Nick's parents' house and have three children to play outside with.  So we bundled up, headed outside, and began building another snowman.  Like the previous snow creature events, Lilly lost interest in the actual construction fairly early in the process, but Nick had his nephew Owen to keep working with him, along with his dad and brother Ben.

Nick started rolling up the bottom with Owen's help while Lilly and Cally began eating snow.

Lilly helped me a tiny bit with rolling up the middle, but then again went back to eating clean snow with Cally.

Nick and Ben tried to lift the middle up, but needed the help of Tim to get it on top of the bottom.

Owen and I rolled up the head (Lilly and Cally ate more snow).  While rolling he wanted to make our snowman have four stories instead of three.  I think once the head went on, he was okay with three.  While the grown-up men were stabilizing the middle, a snowball fight broke out.

The head made it on top without a problem, but they were definitely reaching to put it on top.

Taking a break from eating snow to check things out.

During the head stabilization period, many snowballs were thrown by the three children, particularly at people's rear ends.  When it was time to make the face, Lilly and Cally headed to the backyard to play.

In the backyard, Lilly discovered the slippery deck and began skating.  Cally also impressed Lilly with cartwheels, front handsprings, and snow angels (although technically Lilly started the snow angels).

Finally, the giant snowman was complete and we wanted a picture of all the kids in front of it.  Lilly, being two, refused until we promised her a cookie (which we were terrible parents and never actually gave her the cookie).

Here's a shot of the whole snowman (I missed the top of his head in the above photo).

As I mentioned earlier, Lilly had to be bribed to be in the photo.  I snapped a bunch of photos and I enjoy the changes in Lilly's face and body language throughout the series.

Lilly was very reluctant to come in, especially once we got her into the garage and she saw the tractor and wanted to drive that.  After promises to bring in a bowl of snow for her to eat with her lunch, she finally acquiesced to the idea of coming inside.

A View from inside the house

Now the question is, how long will it take this snowman to melt?