Recipe for a Snow Babe

Today, while my little one napped, my oldest daughter and I took to the yard to build a snow-woman. With temperatures climbing up above freezing, the snow was in a perfect, pack-able state.




Before we began, I gathered the face ingredients from my kitchen: a couple of Dum Dum suckers, some chow mein noodles, a rotten banana (we were out of carrots), and an apple wedge and set them outside so that we wouldn't have to track snow through the house after we finished construction. Our snow "babe" came together pretty quickly. The snow was abundant and the perfect consistency for building a snowman. The problem came when I realized that I had to lift the mid-section of the snowlady onto her bottom half. That was one heavy ball of snow! It took me at least 20 minutes to get it up there, but I did it! I finally ended up propping that little bench that was sitting next to our snow "babe", the one that my daughter is standing on in the first picture, against the giant snowball base, then rolling the unwieldy ball up the make-shift ramp and lifting it at the end. Sure, I could've waited for my husband to get home from work to help us out...but that's not my style. I wanted to show my daughter that we could do it. That we could finish what we began together, just the two of us. Plus, her heart was set on surprising her baby sister with a snowman when she woke up from her nap. So, I poured every ounce of strength in my body into getting that snowbabe's belly onto her bottom. All the while making guttural, manly noises that I've only heard coming from the muscle-bound dudes lifting weights at the gym. It was rough, but we got 'er done. After our snow "babe" building session, I decided that I could skip my daily work out. I was spent.



Once Stephanie (that's what my daughter named her) had a face, do-rag, and a scarf, we decided that she still looked unfortunately naked. I tracked muddy footprints across my kitchen tile, dug through the top of my cabinets, and found what I was looking for. The color mist food color spray that I used for my daughter's Ariel birthday cake back in September. I sprayed on some clothes. Or at least the insinuation of clothes. We completed her look with a lovely pink Barbie purse. You know, just in case Stephanie needs a place to keep her lip gloss. : )

Snow Babe

500 lbs. (approximately) pack-able snow
2 Dum Dum suckers
8 chow mein noodles
2 inch end section of a banana or a carrot
1 apple wedge
scarf
hat or handkerchief
2 sticks
Color Mist Food Color Spray
Accessories (optional)

Roll snow into three balls, each about 1/2 the size as the last. Stack the balls atop one another, packing snow into the gaps between the balls to seal and stabilize. Press suckers into the the top ball (the head), sticks first, to create the eyes. Arrange chow mein noodles over the eyes to resemble eyelashes. Press banana or carrot into the center of the face. Press apple wedge below the "nose". Poke sticks or branches into each side of the midsection to act as arms. Dress the snow "babe" with scarf, hat, and other accessories. Spray on the clothes with Color Mist. Step back and take in the fruits of your labor and then, for Heaven sake get inside and make yourself a nice big mug of hot cocoa!


*If you build a snowman with your children or grandchildren, I highly recommend purchasing or checking out Snowmen at Night from your local library and reading it after. We love that one! It's a cute story, the illustrations are wonderful and...it rhymes!