Out of the Mouths of Babes

I thought I'd change it up for this post to document some funny things that the kids are saying these days.  I have to say that between a 3 and a 6-year-old, we get amusing conversations quite often. And I love it!

Let's start with the threenager. She is painfully shy around new people, but won't stop talking in the car or singing songs during meals. She is learning a lot from her brother and from pre-school, and she loves to voice her opinion (though it's usually whatever Owen said).

Hadley's speech impediments are endearing, and I hesitate to correct her because I love them.  "Hey - fwee rhymes with fwee" - three rhymes with free, which sounded the same in her voice.

Discussing Owen's upcoming birthday party, Hadley said he needed a "cwown". "A crown? Like a birthday crown?" I said. "No. A cwown. A circus cwown," she said. Oh...

Hadley asked if we could go out to eat at "high five mans", aka "Five Guys". She often declares, "I'm firnsty! Firnsty starts with an B!" She thinks a lot of things start with a b, like "b-zert" (dessert) and "b-nastics" (gymnastics).

Hadley at dinner one night while parents were talking about something that happened on Saturday:  "no, no, it was Tuesday." while having no idea really, but so confident in her argument!

She also noticed immediately when I picked her up from school that I had a bandage on my finger.  She was concerned and asked what happened.  I told her I'd cut it making dinner for the crockpot, and she asked, "did you not know what you were doing?" What a vote of confidence!

Now, for the 6-year old who is learning to read, loving school, and asking lots of questions about everything. He currently wants to grow up and be a car designer, if he's not a stay-at-home dad. He doesn't share much about his school day unless he's pressed, and if he does elaborate a lot, then you can assume that most of what you've heard has probably been extrapolated from his imagination. 

Owen's eyes got very big when he selected a frosted Christmas tree brownie for his after-dinner dessert and he declared, "Oh, I'm going to be CRAZY after this!" We have often remarked on how the sugar from dessert seems to hit kids' bloodstreams pretty quickly and make them a little more energetic than usual, and I guess he agreed. 

Owen while volunteering to help me with some yard work, "but we'll probably end up playing behind the trees in the sticks and then asking if we can get out our scooters." Truth!  Let's just skip the pretense of doing work and just play.  :)

The kids were making birthday cards for Dad. After a while Owen looks at both cards and says "I think my card is better than Hadley's." I say, "I think they are both awesome." Owen says, "yeah, you go with that." What? Where does he get this stuff from?

Owen asked me, "how is Daniel Tiger so wise?" (This is a PBS kids show that Hadley loves; it teaches lots of life lessons in cute songs that we reference a lot.) It's true, but I had not thought of the animated pre-school tiger in a hoodie as being "wise" before. Haha!

The Sun is Back!

The sun has made a reappearance this week, and it feels so nice!  This is what we do when it's above 30 degrees and the sun is shining:

It's funny how 35 and sunny feels like spring now!  We had the car windows down the other day when it hit 40. (I've become one of those people I wondered about when we first moved here 5 years ago. The ones that had their windows open when it was 40 degrees in March.)  We've already broken out the bikes, scooters, and sidewalk chalk. Owen has a lot of faith in the groundhog that predicted spring is soon to be here.

The varying temperatures have led to some different scenery, like hoarfrost in the mornings and lots of icicles hanging off of roofs all over town.

These icicles are on our back porch almost directly over the sandbox.  The longest icicle here is probably close to 3 feet long!

And the sandbox could be an ice rink for mice.  Brr!

This icicle formed between my car bumper and the ground over the course of 5 hours or so and actually connects the two! You can also see all of the yucky dark muck, pebbles, and salt that build up under our cars in the winter from the roads. You can imagine what our garage looks like...

On a side note, this week was Spirit Week at school, which basically means that you are supposed to dress with a different theme in mind each day. The first was "Decades Day" where you pick and dress like your favorite decade. Since I'm a minimalist, we went with a cowboy from the 1880's, because that's what we had. The gun stayed at home, of course.

One day at the end of quiet time, I was visited by a beautiful princess and her obliging prince brother. Glad to see that dress is getting some use after all!

I mentioned that Owen has been doing indoor soccer this winter. He loves it! We like it too, except that it's been at 8 am nearly every Saturday since November. It just feels wrong to get going earlier on the weekend than you do for a school day. Hopefully next year, we'll get a later time slot.

Owen and I rented some cross-country skis from the local ski shop this weekend.  He tried them out in the backyard a bit last night to figure some things out.

And this morning, we ventured 5 minutes to a city park and went 1.5 miles around on tracks with friends. I think he enjoyed it, but he doesn't like to fall.  Who does?

I have to mention that all of the snow we've been getting has been great for downhill skiing!  I have gotten to go to our local ski hill a couple of times on their Ladies' Day, which only costs $26 and includes lunch!! That's me in the white helmet.  So fun!

Warm Inside

When we're not sledding, we're inside staying warm and finding things to entertain ourselves. Like slime! This came from a slime making kit that Owen got for his birthday. The kids obviously enjoyed it!

But most of the time, it's a bit more mundane around here, like 1) making cookies...

2) Drawing and coloring.  Hadley loves to color more than I recall Owen doing at that age. She even filled in one of these adult coloring patterns.  I was impressed that she found and colored the same elements in this complex design. And that's her writing her name (and Owen's) at the top of the page.

She also drew this self-portrait of her running. I saw her running just like this picture and went to see what she was doing.  I think she was modeling for herself! Ha! That's two filled eyes and two cheeks; the open circles are her shoulders. (Owen's people just got bodies this year. I guess that's another benefit to being the second child.)

And 3) going to the library.  So thankful they love books, especially when Owen "reads" to his sister. Came upon this surprise in the middle of the kids' section. :)

These were dragons they made at a library story time. We got home and I think the dragons were trying to melt some of the snow with their fiery breath.

H and I have also been known to picnic in a basement fort.

Did I mention that the cats are getting lots of attention these days? Friend or foe, just depends on the day.

And then we go back and sled some more.

Sleddy Times

So, I was misled by this El Nino phenomenon and an article that said our area should be warmer and drier than usual this winter. Not even close! We have been getting snow pretty regularly, not terrible amounts, but more than we've had before, I think! Here's Hadley practicing her snow angel form in the backyard.

And the kids posing on the snow hill on the side of the driveway after more shoveling. Owen was trying to dig a hole down to the concrete, but tuckered out before success.

And when we can make it out before dark, we go sledding in the drainage area a few houses away.  

 Or we just wrestle in the snow, which is fun too.

On a sunny day, we opted to try sledding on a bigger hill, so we headed to the sand dunes. We were the only souls out there until some youths showed up with their snowboards a bit later. Just the little bit of slope sent our sled way out by our car, bumping over the icy tracks...

...so we hiked further back on the dunes to a different slope and had smoother runs.

See how far the sled went?! The ride was fun, but the hike back in deep snow was pretty tiring for all sizes.

All sorts of sledding combinations were done, but my favorite was the ill-fated backwards, triple stack,

which ended in pieces. See all of the trails we blazed? It was worth getting out of the house to do this, even when 3 of us were hacking and fighting bronchitis. Nothing like some fresh air!

The kids also had fun digging down to the sand

and making more snow angels!

Happy 2016!

2016 is off and running! We finished 2015 by taking the kids to the ice skating rink.  This was H's first time on the ice, so we got her a plastic guide that was pretty valuable in keeping her upright.  She was fighting a cold that became an ear infection a couple of days later, so she tuckered out after 40-ish minutes, but I think she liked it.

Owen spent a lot of time on the ice, but I was so proud of him for not giving up.  He had lessons last year, but it took him a while to remember what to do.  By the end of our hour, he was doing really well!  We might have to try this again when they are both healthy.

We had a very quiet, calm winter break from school.  Between illnesses and the frigid temperatures, we laid pretty low. The kids did go play in the snow a few times though. I think I've mentioned how Owen loves to fall down for comedic effect.  The snow increases that! Although he claims not to like winter or having to put on all the extra layers...

But winter has its perks!  The house building going on behind us led someone to use a snow-covered dirt pile as the starting ramp for a ski jump they created in the drainage area. You could pick up a lot of speed going down this ramp! The kids always veered off the path before the jump, which was probably a good thing, but Mom hit the jump a few times. Ouch! I would have taken a video, but my phone decided it was full. :(

And lastly, the gingerbread houses saw their demise. Someone was not deterred by stale gingerbread or hardened icing...

It's the Holiday Season

I put that title because it's a phrase that Hadley pocketed from all of the Christmas music we've been listening to.  She breaks it out at random times in a low Andy Williams voice, and it cracks me up. She is always singing something: "Skinnamarink", the Alphabet song, "Away In a Manger", or "Jingle Bells", even if she forgets the words sometimes.

The kids both had Christmas programs at their schools, on the same day, at the same time.  We parents had to divide and conquer, but both kids did fine.  Owen memorized a couple of lines from 'Twas the Night Before Christmas', which he had no trouble doing.

And Hadley rehearsed at home a lot, but she did clam up a little for the actual show.

Although much of the country had a warmer Christmas, we have been getting snow all week. Owen has been getting in lots of shoveling time, and we even shoveled for some neighbors a couple of times since they were out of town.

Hadley discovered that it didn't make for good scooter conditions.

But we did make use of some sledding time!  It is kind of fun to have a real, white Christmas!

We took in the museum's annual Christmas display, including nativities and gingerbread houses,

And were inspired to try making our own.  The kids loved it!  Only a few pieces of candy detoured into their mouths...

Owen and I took in the city's new Festival of Lights, which is a big, drive-thru light show/horse-drawn carriage ride/Santa extravaganza. Hadley and Dad would have joined, but Hadley fell asleep during a time-out right before we were leaving. I forgot about the horse-drawn carriage, so Owen and I didn't have the right winter gear to survive a 20-degree ride, and we just did the drive-thru. I was impressed that Owen had memorized almost all of the 'Night Before Christmas' just from listening to his class rehearsals. (He recited it for me to go along with one of the light displays.)

The kids participated in the church's nativity re-enactment on Christmas Eve.  Hadley was an angel, and Owen was a wiseman. Hadley was excited to wear her Christmas dress again and took her role very seriously.

And finally Christmas! Much to Owen's disappointment, Hadley insisted on eating breakfast and getting dressed before heading downstairs for stockings and presents.

Our theme this year was building stuff: Legos, forts, sculptures, sticker scenes, more Legos.

Oh, and we tentatively tested out the princess waters by giving Hadley a dress-up gown. (In my defense, she puts on this tiara during quiet time to read books in her chair and loved spinning around in her Christmas dress.) She was reluctant to put it on and declared, "It's itchy! Can I take it off now?" So, we may not have to deal with all that princess-y stuff for a while!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!