Skating

Our neighbors across the street made an ice rink in their back yard and last week they invited Michael over to play some hockey on it.  He debated for a while just going on with his boots or trying out their extra skates.  As you can see he finally tried the skates.  Our neighbor helped him get started, but he was soon going on his own.

Becca's Favorite Drink

"Buple" juice in a "gink" cup.

Happy Half Birthday Jon

This last weekend we got to celebrate 4 and a half with our special Jon.

He was able to celebrate last Thursday with his class at school and got a cool birthday hat (see pictures below).  He wants to wear it around the house a lot and of course Becca wants turns wearing it too.  We were scheduled to bring a treat in to his class last Thursday since he's not in school on his full birthday.  However, they always have a fairly big snack already so I wanted something small.  Jon asked for cupcakes, so I suggested mini ones (think mini muffin size).  Jon thought that was fabulous and that everyone should get 4 of them.  I suggested that everyone get 1, but that Jon could choose the frosting.  He settled on strawberry sprinkled cupcakes with chocolate frosting and colored sprinkles on top.  He had so much fun helping me make and decorate them.  :)

Then on Sunday we celebrated as a family and Jon, and he wanted brownies and ice cream.  If you remember from previous, Jon posts correlates birthdays with candles pretty strongly.  So all day long he was still 4 he insisted, but after blowing out the candles he announced that he was now 4 and a half.

Shoveling

I'm not sure how much snow we got last week.  I don't think it turned out to be all that much, but it snowed for like 4 days straight.  Periodically Tim would go out and snow blow, but on Thursday morning he didn't have the time, so Jon, Becca, and I decided to take on the task.  We chose shovels to give so the kids could help and so we could have some exercise. 

Jon and Becca who usually freak out in the snow had a blast with their mini shovels.  And Becca didn't even worry about getting snow on her pants.






While my pattern was to systematically work my way down the driveway, pushing the show off the driveway and onto the grass, the little ones wandered around from spot to spot, scooping up snow and throwing it around.  Becca especially liked to take snow from the grass area and spin around in a circle letting the snow fly.  Jon at least stuck to the driveway.  :)

Snow Day Post #2

Yesterday I shared with you the videos from our Tuesday snow day.  Here are the pics.

As you can tell from the video we did a lot of stacking - especially these two who are gearing up for Worlds in April.


Jon and Becca and I had fun with some cool floor puzzles they got for Christmas.




And then there was stacking outside in the snow.  I love this picture.  Michael was working so hard at trying a cycle with the jumbo cups with sticky snow and gloved hands and do you see what Jon is gearing up for?  He's trying to pelt Michael with a snow ball.  Good thing for Michael, Jon is not good and putting a snow ball together yet.

Snow Day stacking

We had a snow day on Tuesday and the boys in this family all set some personal best times.  And Tim and Michael had a blast building and "down stacking" the cycle built of snow.

Family photo display

I shared last week our family pictures.  I decided to hang them in our playroom/office and this is the display I came up with.  I love how it turned out.  And Jon LOVES that I chose the picture with him upside down.

Snow came

Yesterday the kids had off from school and we got our first significant snow fall of the winter.  They were super excited to get all bundled up and go out and play.  Michael went right out with Tim to help shovel.  Jon and Becca made it happily to the garage and then froze.  The problem seemed two fold.  They could barely move around in their gear and it was about 15 degrees outside with windchills much colder.  I dragged them out for a picture any way since we had just spent 10+ minutes getting ready at their request.


Then Tim tried to get them to have fun playing tackle Daddy, but Jon even had to be picked up and carried into the game and didn't like it.


So instead, we went back inside, got off the snow gear and headed off to Churck E Cheese for some indoor fun.  :)

Happy Birthday Tim

Saturday was Tim's birthday.  Since we had gotten a babysitter for a dinner out for my birthday we decided to do dinner out with the whole family for Tim's.  He chose Crust54 which is a fairly new pizza place downtown.



Upon arriving we found out that their deep dish pizza takes 45 minutes to make so that was out, but let me tell you we saw one and it was DEEP dish.



We got a thin crust instead so we could eat before the kids bed time.  Cheese for the kids and ham, bacon, pineapple for us - wow were the toppings amazingly delicious!!!

Then off to ice cream at our favorite spot down town.  The kids got theirs and headed outside where we usually eat only to start shaking and shivering and quickly agreed to come inside to eat when I offered.

Wacky Hair Day

Wacky Wednesdays are back this January at school, and last week was Wacky Hair day.  This year Jon got to participate also.  He was very excited until the minute I sat down to mousse his hair when he freaked out.  I had him blow some bubbles for Becca and that distracted him enough.  He was very proud of his "spikey fish hair."  (Think fish character in the old Mario World games with spikes all over him.)

Grandpa's Blocks

Over the past few years my dad has made a couple of sets of blocks for my kids.  We got them out the other day and built a castle together.  And what could be better that adding Cars to the creation?

What's On the Fridge

No, that is not a misprint - I didn't mean what's IN the fridge.  One true mark of a household with young kids is the what is ON the fridge.  And I have artwork from all three of my kiddos.

Michael's flower painting from school:


Jon's watercolor from preschool:


And Becca's sticker paper - one of her new favorite activities at home.


Also on my fridge are Michael's spelling words.  Check out the challenge words this week.

Bible Reading

Our church is doing a 30 day read through of key chapters in the Bible that help you see the whole story line that weaves through.  The idea is to read the assigned 1-3 chapters a day and then get together with a partner to talk about what you read and to hold each other accountable.  It is called the Story Arc.



Michael and Tim decided to be partners.  Michael is excited to get out his new Bible (NIrV that he got for Christmas) and to read each day.  I'm hoping the excitement lasts.

Pattern Blocks

One of Jon's presents this Christmas was pattern blocks.  He and Becca have been loving them.


After following a couple of the pattern drawings, Jon asked if he could do his own.  He flipped the paper over and started to create.  His favorite thing to make right now:  A bus with wings.

Time to share more scrapbooking layouts

Here are some of my most recent scrapbooking pages:


Credits: Count Your Blessings by Juno Designs, template by Cluster Queen Creations.


Credits: The Little Things by WM[squared], font is Noteworthy


Credits: Big Ideas by One Little Bird, font is Apple Symbols

And here are some layouts I have done recently with old pictures:

Credits: These Moments bundle and Be Inspired - Em template by WM[squared], fonts are Sanvito Pro and Catflish Script Pro.


Credits: Tell Your Story by Juno Designs, font is Marker Felt


Credits: Christmas Countdown by KristinCB and Zoe Pearn, template by Janet Phillips, Title template by Cindy Schneider, font is Caflisch Script

Family Photo Session

Before Christmas we had family pictures taken by someone in our church.  (Her website)  I love how they turned out.  I'm waiting to get some printed so that I can put together a fun wall display in our play room.

Gearing up for Stacking Season

We are gearing up for Stacking Season and Michael and Jon are setting some great person bests.  In fact, Michael is now officially faster at all three stacks than Tim.

I'm big now

On Monday morning this week, I talked to the boys about the schedule for the day which included them going back to school.  Becca who is always watching and listening, came up very excited and announced "Me preschool too!"  As I have done at least 100 times I tried to tell her that she will need to wait until next year, but she interrupted, "Me big now, see" and raised her hands as far over her head as she could.

And she is getting quite big already and almost 3 years old.

For Christmas Tim's mom made the gals neck warmers.  With the extra yarn she was able to knit a matching one for Becca.  Don't we make a cute pair?!

More Pictures from Boston

Besides celebrating Christmas, we spent a week just having fun with family in Boston.  Here are some highlights.

We got about a foot of snow one day which was perfect for sledding.  Jon and Becca didn't last long, but we all had a blast!








One of Becca's favorite things to do was to help Aunt Sarah make coffee each morning.  She decided that she likes the smell of coffee but not the taste.


As games were a common Christmas present this year, we did a lot of game playing.  Michael and Jon are even able to play some games on their own now.  This is an old stand-by game of "go fish."


And this is one of the new games we got called Six Nimmt!



On our last day in Boston, Jon and Becca and I got to spend the day with Grandma.  We shared a huge muffin treat, took a trip to McDonalds, and made Christmas cookies.




Michael got to spend the day with Tim, Grandpa, and Aunt Katherine learning to ski for the first time.   He was so proud of how the day went and said he liked it even better than Disney World.