Winter Snippets

 Maybe some of you are dying to know what we've been up to for the past couple months.  Regardless, I thought I'd post some of our favorites.  I was scrolling through pictures, and thought these were too cute.  For a while Elsie was really enjoying putting her castle on top of her bed and pretending to be a princess.  There were a couple evenings Anna sneaked into Elsie's room before we swept her off to bed, and they would have a good time together.  I love the smiles on their faces!

 

In the middle of February, Mike's dad still had a ton of apples left over from the fall in his apple shed.  We had just finished our last bottle of applesauce, so we decided to spend the day making some more.  At the time, we were in the middle of reading Farmer Boy and learning all about how hard Almanzo worked to help his family.  Hence, the kids were inspired and eager to help!  It ended up being great fun, and we got around 50 quarts done.  Everyone was tired at the end and pretty sick of applesauce. As a reward, we treated them to go see Frozen at the theater with Grandma and Grandpa.  It was a fun, memorable day.  We really connected with the movie, since the girls in our family are Elsie and Anna as well!

There were lots of little holidays to celebrate in February and March.  One being Groundhogs day.  I got this idea from my sister, and the kids look forward to it every year!  We spend the day (or until we can't stand it anymore) down in the basement - I bring food down the previous night and we picnic for breakfast and lunch.  We play games and build a really cool fort out of blankets.  It's always anticipated and a lot of fun.

There was also Valentine's Day and St. Patricks day.  Both were celebrated starting the day off with crepes, nutella, yummy fruit, and whipping cream.  Ummmm.  On Valentine's Day Dad always comes home with mylar balloons for the kids.  On St Paddy's a leprechaun visits and leaves coins scattered around the house and a treasure box full of chocolate coins and something green and fun to wear.  Traditions are fun and we all look forward to a day that's a little different from the others and laced with fun!

Valentine's Day

St. Patrick's Day

We have enjoyed such unseasonable warm weather!  Although Spring wasn't until March 21st, we've been enjoying hikes and the outdoors as much as we can.  We took a walk around a marsh and looked for birds.  We spotted some sand-hill cranes and red-winged blackbirds.

One evening we were headed to a really cool theater in the round that is set in a barn of all places.  It's a great small town attraction.  We were going to see the play Tarzan (which the kids LOVED - they've been acting like apes ever since) and decided to stop at the marshes on our way and enjoy a picnic.  It was really windy, and I though the picnic was ruined.  But quite the contrary.  The kids figured out cattail seeds are distributed be the wind and we had a pretty intense cattail seed war!  No one wanted to be caught down-wind with their mouth filled and hair covered in seeds.



We also enjoyed a trip to a 1st dam - where we fed the ducks and geese.  Each child got the experience of having a Canadian Goose feed right out of their hands!  They were all pretty excited - except Anna who cried out, "Owwww!"  in a whine.  She was cute to watch and really enjoyed the ducks as well. 


Although I have no pictures to document, we just recently enjoyed getting together with my side of the family.  We were able to all be together and go swimming, watch Frozen, and enjoy great food together.  It was good to see everyone.  Life changes quickly, and it's nice to keep up with my sisters' and their families' lives, as well as my parents'.  My sister Becky seems to be doing better all the time, and that is exciting. During our stay, our family stayed at a hotel, which is always a novelty - they love the continental breakfasts (who doesn't!) and swimming.  Thanks Mom for feeding us and making the plans!  During the weekend, Mike and I divided and conquered.  While I visited my fam, he visited his family.  His sister was enjoying a big weekend as she was getting sealed to her husband in the temple.  His sister also has cancer.  Although cancer is never easy, she seems to be doing really well and enjoying some great blessings.  It was eventful.
As always, homeschooling continues at our house.  I have really been enjoying gleaning some ideas off of milestonesacademy.com.  We've started a great introduction to the Alphabet through fairies, songs, and coloring pages.  Although Elsie is reading quite well these days, she's fine-tuning her writing development and Kimball is somewhat learning the sounds of the letters.  It's been really fun.  Peter is working hard on his math facts and multiple digit multiplication.  Math seems to be the focus as of late for him, but he is really enjoying reading as well.  During his free reading, he and Elsie love to read Calvin and Hobbs.  We've enjoyed learning about Columbus these past couple weeks.  I've started having devotionals every morning, trying to get us (more especially, ME) started out on the right foot.  We study a scripture and sing a song every morning.  At the end of the week Peter writes out the scripture correctly for a little spelling test.  We seem to all be enjoying it. 

Kimball has me take a picture of his pattern block works before we can put them away

One devotional we talked about healthy eating and where we should be casting out nets to get the right foods.

 And now it's spring!  We are enjoying the crocuses, weather, planting seeds, pruning, and making yard plans.