After an over-extended family reunion, the local clouds parted ways and the bright blue sky reigned over a balmy day of twenty-five degrees above zero. In hopes of making the most of this atmospheric anomaly, Ava and I packed up our skates, gathered up our friends, and headed outside for our monthly dose of Vitamin D.

Girls, haven’t you heard, it’s twenty-five degrees. You don’t need a car in this perfect walking weather.

As you can see the Vitamin D has lots of opportunity for absorption. Sunscreen is severely overrated. Here, in the upper mid-west, we believe in layers. And we apply our layers generously. Come on Sun, do you worst. I just dare you to give me a tan.

Ava and Lydia were basically born on the ice.

Unlike Ava’s desert-grown mama, who kept whining about being cold.

Seriously, it was twenty-five degrees ABOVE zero. Would someone please remind her that it was fifty below zero last week thanks to the deadly wind chill? And she should be singing hallelujah over the seventy-five degree increase.

Luckily, Ruthie was there to help guide the frozen princess around the ice.

Thanks Ruthie, you’re a trooper. Next time feel free to loan her your snow pants or Smart Wool socks, I’m fairly certain they won’t fit, but they might curb her whining.

Ruthie was also a fearless leader in the critical ice game, Shuffle, Shuffle, Fall. It’s like Ring Around the Rosies, except you don’t hold hands or sing, and you fall down on ice. I’m fairly certain it will catch on.

Thanks to Kirsten, the girl’s mama and photographer extraordinaire (anyone brave enough to take a camera on ice is extraordinary in my book), we learned the fundamentals of falling on ice. I would not have known the importance of this as sand is always gracious to the clumsy. Not so with ice. You must put your cushiest part forward, that being your behind.

Ruthie, Lydia, and Ava chanted “Shuffle, shuffle” with each swish of their skate until someone yelled, “Fall” and they would all try to fall on their bums. Then they would get back up on their skates by themselves, (a feat I’m still impressed by) and do it again (also a feat I’m impressed by).

Ruthie and Lydia were more talented at the back-fall than the forwarding falling Ava as was evidenced by the six minor bruises that appeared this morning equally distributed between her knees.

There is, however, only so much falling on ice that two three-year-olds can endure. They went down for the last time,

realized that the ice was in fact cold and hard,

and crawled, “wee, wee, wee” all the way back to the snow bank, where they found an orange sled.

Take it from these girls, Shuffle, Shuffle, Fall is much better when you land on a mound of white fluff.