Tired of the lack of snow around here, or maybe just in the mood for a craft project, Lex decided to make some snow.
Crafty snowflakes decorate our ceiling.
Two days later, we got snow!
Snow! Just a few inches, but it's better than nothing in February!
Looking up.
{eye} heart u - a snowy love note from my boy.
Coincidence? Or just February in Vermont? :)
It’s always a good day when you spend it with these smiling faces!
We had yet another fun-filled vacation to Franklin this week. I’m tired and not going to go into detail, but here are some pictures for those who are interested. :) Let’s see if these pictures say a thousand words.
Pictures from the first day in town are on my previous post.
Sunday morning Lex built a basketball hoop, complete with backboard and ball, out of Laser Pegs. These things are pretty cool!
He took the picture above, then turned on the laser pegs and turned off the light and tried to get a picture of his basketball hoop all lit up. This is the best he got. It's hard to take pictures without a flash.
Sunday afternoon Alan and I went out to a matinee and early dinner, when we returned we found Mema and crew painting. She must have been feeling brave. Eve loves painting!
Eve painted a rainbow, complete with sun and rain.
Alan and the kids got a lot of playtime on this trip. I think it was good for all of them.
Rainbows were all the rage in the art world this trip. Lex added some birds (and sound effects!) to his picture.
Mema bought Eve a new puppy at the grocery store and Eve loves it! She's a sucker for pink puppies :) She drew a portrait of the puppy, complete with flowers, grass, sun, sky, and "I love you" dialog.
Eve and I were being crabs. How this makes us crabs, I'm not sure, but Eve was insistent that we were and Lex was happy to photograph the silliness.
Whaaaht?!
Guess who took this picture?
Another drawing of pink puppy. The stuffed animal has a little bump on top of its head, which Eve says is a boo-boo. We put a marker cap "ice pack" on it. That's what Eve drew in the picture.
Time for some outside fun. Driving the broken down lawn mower! :)
Heading up to the old milk house.
This used to be our playhouse. Looks like B-Dogg was there too! :)
Can't visit home without a walk up the tractor road. With all the development going on these days it's no longer a tractor road, per se, but it always will be in my mind.
Poor Alan was sick the whole time but he managed to drag himself up the hill for some fresh country air and sunshine.
After watching the girls basketball game on Friday we got on the subject of donkey basketball. How we made it there, I'm not sure, but we did. Mom got out an old yearbook (my senior year, OLD!) to see if she could find some pictures. Instead we found B's comments on almost every page. We had a good laugh, all weekend! Sorry B. You were funny in 2nd grade. Not very nice, but funny.
Today we are enjoying a quiet day before we face two busy ones tomorrow and Friday. Lex kicked my butt at Life this morning. We had snacks and lunch, then went out to the toy store to buy a present for a birthday party on Friday. Back home we rode bikes and cleaned the mudroom. Inside for snack and more artwork. Lex wrote up a chore chart with assigned dates/times/payments for each. It’s on the fridge. I’ll take a picture of it later. Eve made a beautiful drawing for Molly, who will be visiting us tomorrow. They were working so nicely I busted out the computer to do a not-so-quick blog post. Now they are playing nicely in the living room and I’m ignoring them completely. Life is good. :)
Spending a few days at the old home front.
We got in late last night and for some reason Eve was awake and raring to go at 3am today! We stayed in bed until 4am, but it’s been a long day!
A pre-dawn chat with Joyce
Giggling girls
We spent the morning at home, had lunch and rest (Eve took a nap, thankfully!) then headed to church.
Mom doing a reading at church.
Then, in a complete 180 from church, we went to see the FCS Lady Devils take the Tri-Valley Championship!! It was an idea on the table and Lex said he really wanted to go, so we did. It was a lot of fun. I think the whole town was there! It was a great game, we all had fun, the energy was super high, and they won!! Can’t beat that!
There was great team spirit! The place was well decorated by FCS and people where handing out pom-poms and beads. It was great! (especially for those of us who came unprepared!)
The winning team!
After the game they inducted three people into the Tri-Valley Coaches Hall of Fame. It just so happens I knew two of them! What a great game to be at.
My high school classmate, some guy I don't know, and my elementary school gym teacher! Hall of Famers!
Kids were in bed shortly after 9pm. Another long day. Hopefully we’ll make it to AT LEAST 6am tomorrow morning! I’m going to bed now.
I am a pretty ordinary looking person and I think you could count on one hand how many heads I’ve turned in my life, so it is fascinating to be to be out and about with Eve some days. She always gets attention, wherever we go, but some days it’s ridiculous! She’s not even a classically beautiful child (I say with no disrespect, of course!). I wonder if the stereotypically “pretty” kids with the long blond hair and deep blue eyes get as much attention as Eve does. I suspect not!
Today we went to the hospital to visit Grandma. Last night Eve picked out “my prettiest dress to wear to visit Grammy in the hospital.” This morning I put pigtails in her hair to help control the curl chaos. At Lex’s school drop off two of his teachers (para and student, not the primary) were GUSHING over how adorable Eve looked. They had her take off her jacket so they could see the whole dress. They oohed and ahhed. Eve basked.
She still doesn't like me taking pictures of her.
At the grocery store Eve picked out a little pink Primrose plant to bring with us and we bought a helium balloon at the hospital gift shop. Walking down the main corridor at the hospital Eve had everyone’s attention. She wasn’t even being loud or silly or really doing anything to draw attention to herself, other than wearing a winter jacket with a tutu sticking out the bottom, pigtails, pink and gray winter boots, and carrying a flower and a balloon. She was seriously, and quite literally, turning heads everywhere we went! In Grandma’s area all the nurses were talking to her and everyone kept asking if she was a ballerina. She didn’t quite get it. In her mind she was just wearing a pretty dress, I’m not sure she knew why people kept talking about ballet.
Silly girl! :)
After we were done visiting Grandma we got lunch at the hospital. While we were eating I asked Eve is she liked all the attention. I think I asked if it made her feel happy or shy. She said shy. I asked because I saw how she basked in Lex’s classroom when his teachers (very much known to Eve) were gushing over her, but as the morning went on she got quieter and quieter and after awhile even stopped responding to some of the people who stopped to comment on her adorableness. It must be an interesting experience for her. I wonder what kind of connections are being formed in that little brain when she gets so much attention from strangers. Oh to be inside her head sometimes.
Besides the excessive attention we had a really nice morning. It was the first time I’ve taken either of the kids to visit Grandma in the hospital. She should be going home this weekend so hopefully it’s the last time too! :) Eve and I went grocery shopping, then to the hospital and Eve was so excited that I let her choose the flowers and the balloon, and that we got lunch at a restaurant (Sabarro’s food court, but close enough!) and I even let her pick out (within my very tight restrictions) a little dessert treat after lunch. It was a full morning and now she is happy at school.
I have to get off this blog and focus on some work though. I have two (that’s right, two!!) meeting tonight and a busy afternoon. Lots to do!
Eve got a lollipop and a pencil from Lex’s teacher at drop-off this morning. She was thrilled! I made her wait all the way through an eye doctor’s appointment and until we got home before I let her eat it.
When we dropped Lex off this morning his classmates were already putting their cards into cute envelops they had all made. Instead of the usual boring worksheet to start the day the class was all atwitter with Valentine’s excitement. Lex said they were having a Valentine’s Day/100 Days of School party, and it was gym day!! He was super eager to go to school this morning!
Emptying out their bags this afternoon after school I was amazed with the amount of candy and stickers and tatoos and pencils there were. Somehow Valentine’s Day has become a pink Halloween. I’m a culprit as well, with our bags of treats that got stapled to each card we sent in. It’s hard to resist! :)
Happy Valentine’s Day!!! (I’m going to go pay attention to my little loved ones now, instead of ignoring them for the computer.)
For some quality writing about the love of Valentine’s Day, see Rosy eloquent blog. For random pictures of sticky faced little kids, stick with me! :)
In the car today, coming home from school, the kids were being goofy and saying silly things. Eve said something about saying something five hundred years ago and then Lex replies with, “You didn’t say it five hundred years ago because you weren’t born five hundred years ago, and mom was just a kid!”
Hmmmmm… maybe I need to freshen up my look, or get more rest, or something!
I love reading back through the old quotes. I’m so glad I started that page. :)
I know I have mentioned these treats before, but let me tell you again just how amazingly awesome they are. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but alas, it was another Pinterest find.
Here’s how you do it. Take a bunch of pretzels (regular shape, or roundy, or square, which is what I can only ever find in the store). Spread them out in a single layer on a baking tray. Put a Hershey Kiss (or Hug, or Peppermint Kiss, or whatever you like!) on each one. Bake them in the oven @ 200° for about 5 minutes. Just enough to get the Kiss soft and squishy. Take them out and press an M&M (plain, dark, peanut, peanut butter, it doesn’t matter, they are all delicious!) into each one. Done! The hardest part is not eating all of the ingredients along the way. Employ your strong willpower, or, if you are like me and my kids, just buy extra ingredients!
Packaging up the treats for tomorrow's party. Gotta get them out of this house ASAP! :)
I have done this twice and I have a learned a few lessons about what comes next. The process is easy, but here are two things not to do. 1) Don’t try to rush the cooling process by putting the whole tray in the freezer. This causes the chocolate Kisses to separate from the pretzels. Still delicious, but not as presentable. And 2) Don’t leave your trays uncovered during the cooling process. That’s what I did this time (instead of the freezer) and by the next day the chocolate kisses were getting that white “old chocolate” look. Still delicious, don’t worry, but even less presentable. This batch is going to the classmates, so I’m sure they won’t care, but I wonder how many parents are going to look at them and think I gave out old candy. Oh well. Finally 3) This is unverified, but I think maybe doing them on the Stoneware causes chocolate/pretzel separation as well. I’m not sure why this would be, but we did three trays this time, all cooled on the counter, and the only treats that separated were from the one Stoneware pan. I’ll have to verify this next time we make treats. Easter…? :)
Close up. Still yummy, but not quite as pretty.
We are in full swing for Valentine’s Day around here. The kids are busily making cards (though Lex still has many to do tomorrow!) and today we made treats. Tomorrow we are going to package them up in cute little bags and attach them to the cards. We went to a Valentine’s Day craft event at the library on Friday. The kids made cards with cool supplies that we don’t normally have at home, like glitter and tissue paper squares. One mother taught us all how to make tissue paper flowers. They also decorated sugar cookies with pink frosting and sprinkles. Good times!
In another Martha moment (via Pinterest) I learned a cool way to fold hearts into envelopes. Lex LOVED the idea and it remotivated him to make a few more cards. :)
I love little kid handwriting.
Best friends 4 ever. :)
Sometimes I like to leave little notes for my kids to find in the morning.
Glitter, string, doilies... I looked and looked for these at the store. Turns out you have to buy them at Staples online!
Looks appetizing, eh? Eve ate both of her's but Lex hardly made it through one.
Remember these from Christmas?
This time with red and pink and white, and Peanut M&Ms!
Like a drug, they are. So delicious that once you start you just can't stop!! Think we made enough? I need to get them packaged up ASAP before they all end up in my belly!
Tomorrow afternoon Eve and I are going to make Dried Cranberry Shortbread Hearts for her class party. (getting my Martha on!) Then, finally then, I can put away all the paper and stickers and hearts and scissors and glue that have been dominating my table for three weeks now!! Do you feel the love?!? :) I may have gotten the supplies out a little early this year, in the hopes that cards would be done quickly.
Lex working on his airport and Eve on her birthday count-down chain :-)